The National University of Singapore (NUS) sets no citation style for the whole university. NUS Libraries' citation guide covers nine styles and tells you to ask your supervisor, professor, department or publisher which one to use, then to keep to it. This guide gathers what NUS's own pages say, department by department.
EdCitation is not affiliated with the National University of Singapore; this follows its public library guide, checked on 2 October 2026. Our guide to referencing at Malaysian and Singapore universities compares NUS with seven neighbours; this one goes deeper into NUS's own rules. EdCitation publishes it; what its free Cite a source and Verify references returned on NUS's examples is quoted below, faults included.
Which citation style does NUS use?
The one your department or module names. NUS Libraries (2026h) lists ACS, AMA, APA, ASA, Chicago/Turabian, Harvard, IEEE, legal style and MLA as commonly used, names no default, and notes that some disciplines, history and political science among them, prefer footnotes or endnotes. Department documents fill in the rest:
| Department or college | Style its pages name | Source | In EdCitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| College of Design and Engineering | IEEE, "the default style used in engineering disciplines" | NUS Libraries (2026f) | IEEE |
| Psychology, honours thesis | The latest APA Publication Manual, with a few thesis exceptions | Department of Psychology (2025) | APA 7 |
| Communications and New Media, honours thesis | APA or Chicago; footnotes or parenthetical citations, never both | Department of Communications and New Media (2024) | APA 7 or Chicago author-date |
| Geography, honours thesis | Harvard, unless the material needs footnotes | Department of Geography (2018) | Harvard, adjusted |
| History, honours thesis | Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition onwards, every reference in footnotes | Department of History (2024) | Not built |
| English Language, honours thesis | Its own author-date: (Platt and Weber 1980: 113) | Department of English Language and Literature (2021) | Not built |
| Public Health, MPH practicum | Points to Vancouver at the NLM; no style prescribed | Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health (2023) | Vancouver |
| Law | McGill Guide, 8th edition, and the Singapore Law Reports style guide (2021) for Singapore materials; also OSCOLA, the Bluebook and ALWD | C J Koh Law Library (2026) | Not built |
Styles EdCitation does not build
EdCitation's Cite a source builds six styles: APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver. It builds no ACS, AMA, ASA, Chicago notes, McGill, OSCOLA, Bluebook or Singapore Law Reports style, so History footnotes and law citations are written by hand from the guides NUS names.
Never mix two styles
The library's Chicago page advises footnotes or author-date, not both (NUS Libraries, 2026c), and the Communications and New Media guide forbids mixing styles; an older handbook chapter from the Centre for English Language Communication (2009) agrees.
What does the NUS Libraries APA guide ask for?
APA 7, shown in NUS's own examples. NUS Libraries (2026b) and its two-page APA 7th: The basics (NUS Libraries, 2021) set these rules:
| Rule | NUS form | NUS page |
|---|---|---|
| One author | (Tan, 2020); Tan (2020) | APA |
| Two authors | (Tan & Goh, 2020); Tan and Goh (2020) | APA |
| Three or more | (Reilly et al., 2020), from the first citation | APA |
| Group author, abbreviated | (Ministry of Health [MOH], 2020) once, then (MOH, 2020) | APA |
| Group author, not abbreviated | (Healthhub, 2020) | APA |
| Two works that shorten alike | Tan, Goh, Kumar, et al. (2020) | APA |
| No author | Title and year; italic if italic in the list, otherwise in quotation marks | APA |
| Secondary source | "as cited in"; list only the work you read | APA |
| Part of a work | "p." abbreviated, "Chapter" spelt out; a page for every quotation | APA |
| Authors in the list | Surnames and initials for up to 20 | The basics |
| No date | n.d., with no space between the letters | The basics |
| DOI | For every work that has one, print or online; the DOI alone when there is also a URL | The basics |
| Website | Site name in title case, not italic, then a full stop and the URL; no site name when it is the author | The basics |
| Retrieval date | Only for a work likely to change | The basics |
| AI tools | APA's own guidance, after the assignment's rules | Citing AI tools (NUS Libraries, 2026d) |
Slips in NUS's own examples
Copy the pattern, not every example:
- The overview's APA example of Cowburn and colleagues (NUS Libraries, 2026h) keeps every capital in "Single-Domain Circular Nanomagnets" and has no DOI; the details above it give the pages as 1024-1045, the entry 1042–1045.
- The ambiguity example ends "Tan, Goh, Kumar, Reilly et al. (2017)" for a work dated 2020 a line earlier.
- The secondary-source example names all three authors, "Barthos, Jones & Reynolds, 1995", though the table shortens three or more to et al.
What does an NUS APA reference list look like?
Three real sources, set as NUS's APA rules set them. In the text:
Chang et al. (2019) studied Singapore adolescent girls' selfie practices, peer appearance comparisons and body esteem on Instagram. Koo et al. (2020) modelled interventions to slow the early spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Singapore. The National Mental Health and Well-being Strategy was launched in 2023 (Ministry of Health [MOH], 2023); later citations read (MOH, 2023).
In the list:
Chang, L., Li, P., Loh, R. S. M., & Chua, T. H. H. (2019). A study of Singapore adolescent girls’ selfie practices, peer appearance comparisons, and body esteem on Instagram. Body Image, 29, 90–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2019.03.005
Koo, J. R., Cook, A. R., Park, M., Sun, Y., Sun, H., Lim, J. T., Tam, C., & Dickens, B. L. (2020). Interventions to mitigate early spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Singapore: A modelling study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 20(6), 678–688. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30162-6
Ministry of Health. (2023, October 5). Launch of National Mental Health and Well-being Strategy. https://www.moh.gov.sg/newsroom/launch-of-national-mental-health-and-well-being-strategy/
What each entry shows
- Chang: four authors in the list, et al. in the text from the first citation; Trudy Hui Hui Chua becomes Chua, T. H. H.
- Koo: eight authors, all listed (NUS allows 20).
- Ministry of Health: author and site are the same, so no site name; the abbreviation lives in the text only; the strategy's name keeps its capitals.
What does the NUS thesis format say about references?
The general guidelines for research theses (National University of Singapore, 2020) set no citation style; that is left to the department and supervisor. They do fix where references sit:
- The bibliography follows the main body and comes before the appendices.
- Footnotes go at the foot of each page, not the end of a chapter, single spaced.
- The word limit includes footnotes but not the bibliography, except for the LLM and PhD in Law, whose limit leaves footnotes out too.
The copy we read, RO.1042/03 of 1 August 2020, sits on the Department of Mathematics' site; ask the Registrar's Office whether a newer one applies. Honours theses follow their department, and the Psychology guide's references page follows APA (Department of Psychology, 2025).
Which EdCitation style is closest, and what do you change by hand?
The style of the same name, for the six EdCitation builds. These are the changes our runs on 2 October 2026 called for:
| NUS asks for | Start in EdCitation's | Then fix by hand |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | APA 7 | Add [MOH] at the first citation; restore capitals in proper names, lower stray ones; put a group author, such as the American Psychological Association, first |
| IEEE | IEEE | Lower article titles to sentence case (NUS's rule 6); end a web page with "(accessed Sep. 2, 2019)" after the URL, as NUS does |
| Harvard, library page | Harvard | No comma before the year, initials without full stops (Schiller T), every author in the list, "viewed" and the date for online sources (NUS Libraries, 2026e) |
| Harvard, Geography | Harvard | A colon before the page, (Johnston,1999:22), and "(accessed March 2003)" after the address |
| Chicago author-date | Chicago 18 | NUS's page describes the 17th edition; check with your module |
| MLA | MLA 9 | NUS lists the 8th edition (NUS Libraries, 2026g); confirm which |
| Vancouver, Public Health | Vancouver | Little: both follow the NLM |
| AMA | Vancouver as a start | Three names then et al., no month, full page ranges, as NUS's AMA examples print them (NUS Libraries, 2026a) |
| ASA, ACS, legal styles, Chicago notes, English Language | Not built | Write them from the guide NUS names |
How did EdCitation handle NUS's examples and Singapore sources?
Cite a source is the right start for an NUS list because every entry comes from a record, the publisher's for a DOI or the page itself for an address: an author, volume or page range is looked up, never composed, and each fault below traces to its record. It sets each entry in six styles, screens the source for retraction and asks for no account or payment. EdCitation never writes any part of a paper: it finds, cites and checks the sources, and the reading, the argument and every sentence stay with the student.
What Cite a source returned
For DOI 10.1016/j.bodyim.2019.03.005, APA returned the Chang entry above word for word, Singapore and Instagram capitalised; for 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30162-6, the Koo entry exactly. Neither showed a retraction.
For the ministry's address, the page's details gave no author and the wrong date:
Launch of national mental health and well-being strategy. (2026, July 30). Ministry of Health. https://www.moh.gov.sg/newsroom/launch-of-national-mental-health-and-well-being-strategy/
The page shows 5 October 2023. With the ministry entered as author, that date, and the title typed with its capitals, APA gave "Ministry of Health. (2023, October 5). Launch of national mental health and well-being strategy." on two runs, lowering the strategy's name; restore it by hand.
For 10.1037/0000165-000, the Publication Manual NUS's basics sheet cites, APA returned "Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). (2020). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000". The record names no author, so the title took its place; write it as NUS does (American Psychological Association, 2020). For 10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1042, the Cowburn article, APA added the missing DOI but printed "Single-domain circular Nanomagnets" on two runs; lower the stray capital.
What Verify references found
We pasted ten entries, six from NUS's pages in APA, IEEE, AMA and ASA and the four above, into Verify references. Eight were verified:
- Cowburn and colleagues, Liu, Zhang and Chua in IEEE, and Weihrauch and Handschin in AMA: "Title, year and first author match a published record."
- Baker and Potts in ASA, Chang, Koo and the Publication Manual: "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
- The ministry's page: "The page is at this address, and its title matches."
NUS's IEEE example by Thean and Leburton came back "check this": "The DOI and title are right, but the first author differs. Check the names." The record names the first author "V.-Y. Aaron", with pages 35–41, where NUS prints "A. Thean" and 35-40; open the article before copying either. The secondary-source example, Barthos, Jones and Reynolds (1995), came back "No publisher's or registry's record matches this reference." Copy its pattern only.
For a thesis, Pro ($8 a month) adds References from a file: every reference in the uploaded paper checked and every citation matched to the list (pricing).
How do you cite at NUS, step by step?
- Find the style in your module outline, thesis guide or supervisor's instructions; EdCitation's free Check your paper reads an assignment's instructions into a checklist, citation style included.
- Paste each DOI, title, PubMed ID or web address into Cite a source and pick the matching style.
- For a web page, correct the author, date and site in the form first.
- Make the changes in the table above.
- Put the list through Verify references and open the source behind every "check this".
- Write footnotes and legal citations by hand from the guides NUS names.
Quick questions
What is the NUS citation style?
None for the whole university. Your department, module or supervisor names one of the nine NUS Libraries covers: APA in Psychology, IEEE in engineering, Harvard in Geography.
Does NUS use APA 7th edition?
Where APA is set, yes: NUS Libraries' APA guide teaches the seventh edition, and the Psychology honours thesis guide follows the latest Publication Manual.
Where does the bibliography go in the NUS thesis format?
After the main body and before the appendices, outside the word limit; the style is the department's choice.
Can EdCitation produce History footnotes or law citations for NUS?
No. EdCitation's Cite a source builds six general styles, so Chicago notes, McGill, OSCOLA and the Singapore Law Reports style are written by hand.
Does EdCitation write any part of my NUS assignment?
No. EdCitation finds sources, builds references from their records and checks reference lists; every idea and every sentence you submit is your own.
References
- American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
- Centre for English Language Communication. (2009). Using other people's ideas [Chapter 6, PDF]. National University of Singapore. https://www.nus.edu.sg/celc/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/chapter06.pdf
- Chang, L., Li, P., Loh, R. S. M., & Chua, T. H. H. (2019). A study of Singapore adolescent girls’ selfie practices, peer appearance comparisons, and body esteem on Instagram. Body Image, 29, 90–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2019.03.005
- C J Koh Law Library. (2026). Citation & legal writing. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/Law/citations
- Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore. (2024). Formatting [Honours thesis guide, PDF]. https://fass.nus.edu.sg/cnm/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/HT-Formatting.pdf
- Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore. (2021). The honours thesis (English language) [PDF]. https://fass.nus.edu.sg/ell/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/04/HT_Format_EL_AY2021-22.pdf
- Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. (2018). Guide to the preparation and writing of a thesis for students of geography [PDF]. https://fass.nus.edu.sg/geog/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/08/HT_Guide_JG_2018.pdf
- Department of History, National University of Singapore. (2024). Honours thesis: Essay style sheet (as at 25 Jan 2024) [PDF]. https://fass.nus.edu.sg/hist/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2024/03/HT-Essay-stylesheet-as-at-25-Jan-2024.pdf
- Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore. (2025). Honours thesis formatting guide (Version 3.1) [PDF]. https://fass.nus.edu.sg/psy/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2025/04/PL4401-HM-Thesis-Formatting-Guide-v3.1-9Apr2025.pdf
- Koo, J. R., Cook, A. R., Park, M., Sun, Y., Sun, H., Lim, J. T., Tam, C., & Dickens, B. L. (2020). Interventions to mitigate early spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Singapore: A modelling study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 20(6), 678–688. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30162-6
- Ministry of Health. (2023, October 5). Launch of National Mental Health and Well-being Strategy. https://www.moh.gov.sg/newsroom/launch-of-national-mental-health-and-well-being-strategy/
- National University of Singapore. (2020). General guidelines and instructions on format of research thesis and electronic submission (RO.1042/03) [PDF]. https://www.math.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/08/General-Guidelines-and-Instructions-on-Format-of-Research-Thesis-and-Electronic-Submission.pdf
- NUS Libraries. (2021). APA 7th: The basics [PDF]. National University of Singapore. https://lib.nus.edu.sg/learning/gen_pub/libguides/apa7_basics.pdf
- NUS Libraries. (2026a). Citation styles: AMA. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation/ama
- NUS Libraries. (2026b). Citation styles: APA. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation/apa
- NUS Libraries. (2026c). Citation styles: Chicago/Turabian. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation/chicagoturabian
- NUS Libraries. (2026d). Citation styles: Citing AI tools. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation/ai
- NUS Libraries. (2026e). Citation styles: Harvard. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation/harvard
- NUS Libraries. (2026f). Citation styles: IEEE. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation/ieee
- NUS Libraries. (2026g). Citation styles: MLA. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation/mla
- NUS Libraries. (2026h). Citation styles: Overview. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation
- Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. (2023). Guidelines for the SPH5005 MPH practicum [PDF]. National University of Singapore. https://sph.nus.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/SPH5005-Practicum_Coursebook_AY2324-1.pdf