The University of Ghana (UG) has no single referencing style for every piece of student work. Its one university-wide rule naming a style is narrow: in December 2012 the Academic Curriculum Quality and Staff Development Committee agreed that course reading lists, graduate and undergraduate, must be set out in APA style. The Balme Library posts those guidelines beside a six-page APA 7th handout, and a thesis follows the reference style its academic unit has deposited with the School of Graduate Studies.
EdCitation is not affiliated with the University of Ghana; this follows its public library guide, checked on 2 October 2026. Every rule below comes from UG's own documents, linked under References. EdCitation publishes this guide; near the end, real sources go through its free Cite a source and Verify references, with the answers quoted. For UG beside KNUST and other universities, see referencing at Kenyan and Ghanaian universities.
Which referencing style does the University of Ghana use?
The one your department or lecturer names. No UG page we found assigns a style to a college, school or department, and we found none of the unit formats the thesis rules rely on published online. Here is what UG's own pages say:
| UG document | Covers | What it says about style | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Committee guidelines on APA | Course reading lists | APA, with UG's own rules and examples | Committee guidelines (n.d.) |
| Library guide, Accounting | Its readers | Links those guidelines and an "APA Referencing guide 7th edition" | Balme Library (2025a) |
| Library "Writing and Citing", Adult Education | Its readers | "Check with your professor"; describes APA and MLA | Balme Library (2025b) |
| Library guide, Modern Languages | Its readers | Lists APA, MLA and Harvard as common styles | Balme Library (2025c) |
| Thesis writing format page | Every thesis | The School/College format deposited with the School | School of Graduate Studies (n.d.) |
| Master's and doctoral handbooks | Long essays, dissertations, theses | The unit's format; footnotes, not endnotes | School of Graduate Studies (2024a, 2024b) |
| Building each entry | All of them | Cite a source, free, six styles | EdCitation |
What "the academic unit's format" means for a thesis
The master's handbook lets each unit's deposited format govern chapter structure, headings, reference style, figures and tables; where unit and University styles conflict, the University's wins (University of Ghana School of Graduate Studies, 2024b, p. 43). The doctoral handbook says unit formats apply to reference style (p. 35), then that the style "shall follow the University of Ghana format", found "at the respective academic units" (School of Graduate Studies, 2024a, p. 37). Either way, your department holds the copy: ask for it first.
Two APA documents, one of them borrowed
The committee's guidelines name no edition of APA. The handout the library labels "APA Referencing guide 7th edition" follows the 2020 seventh edition, but it is not UG's own: its footer names the ISU Writing Center of Idaho State University (isu.edu), Spring 2020 (Idaho State University Writing Center, 2020). If your department says only "APA", ask which of the two it means.
What are the University of Ghana's APA rules?
The committee's guidelines cover the reference list only, not citations in the text. Here they are beside the APA 7th handout:
| Rule | UG committee guidelines | APA 7th handout (item) |
|---|---|---|
| How many authors | Up to seven; from eight, the first six, five spaced dots, then the last | Up to 20; from 21, the first 19, an ellipsis, the last (17) |
| Before the last author | "&", never "and"; never et al. in the list | "&" in every example |
| Year | In brackets, then a full stop: Owusu, J. K. (1998). | The same (19) |
| Book publisher | City: Publisher; a US city takes its state code: Bloomington, IN | The publisher only (22) |
| Capitals | Sentence case for books, articles and web pages; a capital after a colon; journal titles in full, major words capitalised | The same capitals (20) |
| Italics | Books, journals, theses, reports; article titles plain | The same, plus the volume (21) |
| DOI | "doi: 10.1057/dbm.2010.21" | https://doi.org/ and the DOI, no full stop after it (24) |
| Web page | "Retrieved from" and the address; a retrieval date if the page might change | No "Retrieved from"; a date only for changing, unarchived pages (25, 26) |
| One author, several works | Oldest first, the name repeated, never a dash; 2012a, 2012b | Same year: ordered by title, 2011a, 2011b (18) |
| Thesis | (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Ghana, Legon. | No example |
| In the text | Not covered | et al. from three authors; "&" only in brackets (5) |
| Quotations | Not covered | 40 words or more as a block; generally under 10% of a paper (12, 13) |
For other styles' thesis entries, see how to cite a dissertation or thesis.
Where the committee's examples drift from its rules
Pick one form and keep to it:
- The final full stop. Every entry should end with one, yet the DOI example and the undated web example do not; the dated web example ends "iemaem.pdf."
- Issue numbers. The rule wants the issue in brackets, but the Bayer example prints "17" alone; the publisher's record gives 3–4.
- Page ranges. A hyphen in Holder's "239-240", a spaced dash in Bayer's "247 – 256".
- The edited book. "McDowell, L. & Sharp, J. P. (Eds.) (1999)." drops the comma before "&" that the two-author example keeps.
What do UG's thesis regulations say about references?
The School of Graduate Studies' handbooks add these, page by page:
- Reference style: the unit's deposited format (2024b, p. 45; 2024a, pp. 35, 37).
- Footnotes, not endnotes, numbered through the whole thesis (2024b, p. 46; 2024a, p. 38).
- One bibliography at the end, not after each chapter, unless the unit's filed format asks for that (2024b, p. 45; 2024a, p. 37). The handbooks say "bibliography"; the APA handout says "References". Use your unit's word.
- No references in the abstract: 300 words for a master's (2024b, p. 44), four double-spaced pages for a doctorate (2024a, p. 36).
- "Indented citations" no smaller than Times New Roman 10 (2024b, p. 46).
- A plagiarism report with every thesis or dissertation (2024b, p. 34).
UG's plagiarism policy judges acknowledgement by three signs: borrowed language shown as a quotation, a citation for every borrowed segment, and every cited source actually consulted (University of Ghana, 2016, pp. 4-5). Cite what you read; for a source met inside another, write "as cited in".
What does a University of Ghana APA reference list look like?
Four real sources in the committee's form, with text citations from the APA 7th handout, since the committee has none:
Doku et al. (2024) studied acute chest pain at two tertiary centres in Accra. Revision in senior high school writing is the subject of a Legon study (Oblie, 2023). Ghana's census editions are listed by the Ghana Statistical Service (n.d.), and UG's own guidelines take their online-article example from Bayer (2010).
References
Bayer, J. (2010). Customer segmentation in the telecommunications industry. Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 17(3-4), 247-256. doi: 10.1057/dbm.2010.21
Doku, A., Ndanu, T. A., Edwin, F., Entsua-Mensah, K., Tetteh, J., Ghansah, A., . . . . . Tettey, M. (2024). Patterns of acute chest pain at two tertiary centres in Accra, Ghana. Ghana Medical Journal, 58(3), 231-238. doi: 10.4314/gmj.v58i3.8
Ghana Statistical Service. (n.d.). Population & housing census (PHC). Retrieved October 2, 2026, from https://statsghana.gov.gh/census-surveys/population-housing-census.
Oblie, E. L. (2023). ‘Righting’ the wrong: Text revision in ESL students’ composing processes in senior high schools in Greater Accra, Ghana. Legon Journal of the Humanities, 34(2), 109-139. doi: 10.4314/ljh.v34i2.5
What each entry shows
- Doku: eleven authors, so six, five dots and the last. UG prints no example of this rule; we put the dots after the sixth author's comma.
- Bayer: UG's own example, with the issue added in brackets, as its rule asks.
- Ghana Statistical Service: a corporate author, no date, and a retrieval date because a page listing census editions changes; the closing full stop follows UG's dated example.
Which EdCitation style is closest, and what do you change by hand?
APA 7, for both of UG's APA documents. For the handout's form, our runs needed nothing beyond checking each name against the article. For the committee's form, UG's rules and our runs on 2 October 2026 called for these:
| EdCitation's APA 7 printed | For the committee's form, write |
|---|---|
| 231–238 | 231-238, with a hyphen |
| https://doi.org/10.4314/gmj.v58i3.8 | doi: 10.4314/gmj.v58i3.8 |
| All eleven of Doku's authors | The first six, five spaced dots, Tettey, M. |
| …population-housing-census | The same, with a full stop after the address |
| A title read from the browser tab | The author and title corrected in the form first |
| A book's publisher alone | City: Publisher, with a US state code |
The Modern Languages guide also lists MLA and Harvard, which EdCitation builds as MLA 9 and Harvard (Cite Them Right); its Harvard guide comes from another university, so check punctuation against your unit's copy. EdCitation builds six styles only (APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver), none of them a footnote style: where your unit cites in footnotes, write them by hand.
How did EdCitation handle University of Ghana sources?
Cite a source is the best place to start a UG list, because it reads the publisher's record instead of composing an entry. The Ghana Medical Journal's record files two authors' middle initials inside their surnames, "A. Ndanu" and "A. Sheriff"; EdCitation gave "Ndanu, T. A." and "Sheriff, M. A.", as the article's PubMed Central page names them. It takes a DOI, a title, a PubMed ID, an ISBN or a web address, sets the entry in any of its six styles, and screens the source for retraction. Both tools are free and need no account. EdCitation never writes any part of a student's paper: it finds, cites and checks sources, and every sentence of the essay or thesis stays the student's own. We ran four sources on 2 October 2026; none was reported retracted.
What Cite a source returned
For DOI 10.4314/gmj.v58i3.8, APA 7 listed all eleven authors:
Doku, A., Ndanu, T. A., Edwin, F., Entsua-Mensah, K., Tetteh, J., Ghansah, A., Yeboah-Asiamah, B., Gyan, D., Adzamli, I., Sheriff, M. A., & Tettey, M. (2024). Patterns of acute chest pain at two tertiary centres in Accra, Ghana. Ghana Medical Journal, 58(3), 231–238. https://doi.org/10.4314/gmj.v58i3.8
For 10.1057/dbm.2010.21 it ended "17(3–4), 247–256. https://doi.org/10.1057/dbm.2010.21", supplying the issue UG's example leaves out. For 10.4314/ljh.v34i2.5, APA matched the record; its IEEE entry shortened the journal to "Legon J. Hum."
For the Ghana Statistical Service's census page, the details read from the page gave no author and the browser-tab title:
Census surveys - population housing census | Ghana Statistical Service. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2026, from https://statsghana.gov.gh/census-surveys/population-housing-census
With the service entered in the form as an organisation author and the page's heading as the title, it returned the entry in our worked example above, word for word, less the closing full stop.
What Verify references found
We pasted three of UG's examples as printed, the handout's Slethaug example and our committee-form entries into Verify references:
- Holder (1979), as UG prints it: verified, "Title, year and first author match a PubMed record." That record adds issue 6.
- Bayer (2010), with "doi:", and Slethaug (1986): verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
- The Ghana Statistical Service entry: verified, "The page is at this address, and its title matches."
- Hammond and Adelman's chapter: "check this", "A work with this title is recorded in Judgment and Decision in Public Policy Formation (2019), not in the source your entry names. Check your source." That record is the chapter in another book, so check the book you actually read before citing it.
- Doku in the committee's form: "check this", "The publisher's record also names Yeboah-Asiamah, Gyan, Adzamli and Sheriff, who are not in your entry. Check the authors." UG's rule omits them on purpose; the check names them, so you can confirm the last author.
The committee leaves in-text citations to you; upload the finished paper to References from a file (Pro, $8 a month; see pricing) and every reference is checked and every in-text citation matched to the list.
How do you reference at the University of Ghana, step by step?
- Find your style: the course outline or lecturer for coursework, the unit's deposited format for a thesis. EdCitation's free Check your paper reads an assignment's instructions into a checklist, citation style included, each rule beside the sentence it came from.
- If the answer is "APA", ask whether the committee's guidelines or APA 7 is meant.
- Build each entry in Cite a source from its DOI or address, correcting a web page's author and title in the form.
- For the committee's form, make the changes in the table above.
- Write any footnotes by hand.
- Paste the list into Verify references and settle every "check this" at the source.
Quick questions
What referencing style does the University of Ghana use?
No single one. A UG committee asks for APA in course reading lists, coursework follows the lecturer, and a thesis follows the style its academic unit deposited with the School of Graduate Studies.
Is the University of Ghana's APA the same as APA 7?
Not quite. UG's committee guidelines put the city before the publisher, write "doi:", list up to seven authors (from eight, six, five spaced dots and the last), and use "Retrieved from". The APA 7th handout on the library's pages drops all four.
Does a University of Ghana thesis use footnotes or endnotes?
Footnotes. Both School of Graduate Studies handbooks require footnotes, not endnotes, numbered through the whole thesis.
Can EdCitation build footnotes for a UG thesis?
No. EdCitation's Cite a source builds APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver. Footnotes are written by hand.
References
- Balme Library. (2025a). Accounting subject guide: Research issues. Research Guides at University of Ghana. https://libguides.ug.edu.gh/c.php?g=1303734&p=9580631
- Balme Library. (2025b). Adult Education: Writing and citing. Research Guides at University of Ghana. https://libguides.ug.edu.gh/c.php?g=658251&p=4620715
- Balme Library. (2025c). Modern Languages: Research issues. Research Guides at University of Ghana. https://libguides.ug.edu.gh/c.php?g=736525&p=5264133
- Bayer, J. (2010). Customer segmentation in the telecommunications industry. Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 17(3–4), 247–256. https://doi.org/10.1057/dbm.2010.21
- Doku, A., Ndanu, T. A., Edwin, F., Entsua-Mensah, K., Tetteh, J., Ghansah, A., Yeboah-Asiamah, B., Gyan, D., Adzamli, I., Sheriff, M. A., & Tettey, M. (2024). Patterns of acute chest pain at two tertiary centres in Accra, Ghana. Ghana Medical Journal, 58(3), 231–238. https://doi.org/10.4314/gmj.v58i3.8
- Ghana Statistical Service. (n.d.). Population & housing census (PHC). Retrieved October 2, 2026, from https://statsghana.gov.gh/census-surveys/population-housing-census
- Idaho State University Writing Center. (2020). APA style: Seventh edition [PDF, posted by the Balme Library as "APA Referencing guide 7th edition"]. https://libguides.ug.edu.gh/ld.php?content_id=71858399
- Oblie, E. L. (2023). ‘Righting’ the wrong: Text revision in ESL students’ composing processes in senior high schools in Greater Accra, Ghana. Legon Journal of the Humanities, 34(2), 109–139. https://doi.org/10.4314/ljh.v34i2.5
- University of Ghana. (2016). Plagiarism policy (Special Reporter No. 857) [PDF]. https://libguides.ug.edu.gh/ld.php?content_id=40809692
- University of Ghana Academic Curriculum Quality and Staff Development Committee. (n.d.). Guidelines for using the American Psychological Association (APA) style for presenting references [Word document]. Balme Library. https://libguides.ug.edu.gh/ld.php?content_id=70738836
- University of Ghana School of Graduate Studies. (n.d.). Thesis writing format. https://sgs.ug.edu.gh/thesis-writing-format
- University of Ghana School of Graduate Studies. (2024a). Handbook for doctoral studies and regulations governing graduate study, and university examinations [PDF]. https://sgs.ug.edu.gh/sites/sgs.ug.edu.gh/files/2025-02/LC-edted_UG%20PHD%20Regulations_Jan%2017%202025.pdf
- University of Ghana School of Graduate Studies. (2024b). Handbook for master’s degree programmes and regulations governing graduate study and university examinations [PDF]. https://sgs.ug.edu.gh/sites/sgs.ug.edu.gh/files/2025-07/UG%20Masters%20Regulations_revised%20version%20submitted%20to%20academic%20board.pdf