# UNILAG referencing style: APA 7th, Zoology rules, thesis format

**Which referencing style does the University of Lagos (UNILAG) use?** The University of Lagos (UNILAG) sets no single referencing style. Its Senate's plagiarism policy tells each discipline to adopt a citation guide and each faculty to give it to students. The Distance Learning Institute's project format asks for APA 7th edition, and the Department of Zoology's dissertation guidelines set an author-date style of their own.

Published 2026-10-02 by EdCitation. https://edcitation.com/newsletter/referencing-at-the-university-of-lagos

The University of Lagos has no one referencing style for every student. Its Senate's plagiarism policy, approved on 29 November 2017, asks each discipline to adopt a citation guide, and each faculty and the School of Postgraduate Studies to give that guide to students (University of Lagos, 2017). So the UNILAG referencing style is the one your department's guide names. Two units publish theirs: the Distance Learning Institute (DLI) asks for APA 7th edition, and the Department of Zoology sets an author-date style of its own.

EdCitation is not affiliated with the University of Lagos; this follows its public documents, checked on 2 October 2026. The University Library publishes no referencing pages, though a librarian can be booked for research help (University of Lagos Library, n.d.), so each document followed here was read today and is linked under References. EdCitation publishes this guide; near the end, its free [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) and [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) are run on Lagos sources and the Zoology examples, answers quoted.

## Which referencing style does the University of Lagos use?

Whichever your department's citation guide names. The Senate policy names none, and tells a student who is unsure to ask the lecturer in charge of the work or the head of unit (University of Lagos, 2017, para. 8). These are the UNILAG documents we could read on 2 October 2026.

| Who | Style | Document | Where |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Every student | None named; each discipline adopts a citation guide | Plagiarism Policy, 2017 | Paras. 4 to 6 |
| DLI undergraduate projects | APA 7th edition | Proposed Research Project Format, April 2021 | pp. 4, 5, 8 |
| Zoology B.Sc. and M.Sc. dissertations | The department's own author-date style | Dissertations Presentation Guidelines, 2016 | Section 16 |
| School of Postgraduate Studies | No guide on its site | Forms page | Online |
| Building the entry | [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite), free | EdCitation | Online |

### What the Senate's plagiarism policy asks of you

Learning the proper forms of citation is each student's own responsibility, and plagiarism counts whether or not the student knew (paras. 7 and 8). Sanctions run from a warning with resubmission, through a failing grade and rustication for two semesters, to withdrawal (para. 12). The Directorate of Academic Affairs points new students to the same rules on plagiarism and "proper citation" (University of Lagos Directorate of Academic Affairs, n.d., section 4.1).

### Is there a UNILAG School of Postgraduate Studies referencing guide?

Not on its website. The School's forms page lists eleven documents, the APC application checklist and the PhD extension form among them, and none covers referencing (University of Lagos School of Postgraduate Studies, n.d.). Paragraph 6 of the Senate policy obliges the School and each faculty to give students the guide to citation, so ask your departmental postgraduate coordinator for it in writing. Writing services' pages on a "UNILAG thesis format" are not the university's; we used none.

## What does the Distance Learning Institute's project format ask for?

APA 7th edition, at the end of chapters and at the end of the project. The format, dated April 2021 for the DLI's B.Sc., B.Sc.Ed. and B.A.Ed. projects from the 2021/2022 session, asks for "End of Chapter references" in APA 7th style after Chapters One and Two, and a final References section in the same style (University of Lagos Distance Learning Institute, 2021). We read it in an archived copy, because the DLI's own site could not be opened securely on 2 October 2026.

### The DLI's rules, page by page

| Rule | What the format says | Page |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Style | APA 7th edition | pp. 4, 5, 8 |
| Chapters One and Two | Each ends with its own references | pp. 4, 5 |
| Final list | Every source of information consulted, print or online | p. 8 |
| Proposal | An outline of the literature, citing journals, books and chapters | p. 9 |
| Chapter Three | The population given with verifiable references | p. 5 |
| Secondary data | The source named, such as the CBN Statistical Bulletin or World Development Indicators | p. 6 |

### Cited or consulted: where the DLI and APA part company

APA 7 lists only the works you cite. The DLI's wording, the sources "consulted", reaches further, and the format does not settle which wins. Ask your supervisor whether uncited reading belongs in the final list, and keep each chapter's list to the works that chapter cites. Our guide to [APA 7 in-text citations](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/apa-7-in-text-citations) covers the citations themselves.

## What are the Department of Zoology's referencing rules?

An author-date style with "and" between names, et al. from three authors, and a colon before the pages. The department's 2016 guidelines for B.Sc. and M.Sc. dissertations set it out in section 16 with five example entries (University of Lagos Department of Zoology, 2016). We read a copy posted on the personal website of a member of the department's staff, having found none on a UNILAG server, so confirm with the department that it is still current.

| Rule | Zoology form | Page |
| --- | --- | --- |
| One or two authors in the text | Phalia (1991); (Abacha and Babangida, 1992) | p. 11 |
| Three or more authors | (Bemji et al., 1979); Fujiyama et al. (1982) | p. 12 |
| Order of the list | Alphabetical by author, then by year | p. 12 |
| Authors in the list | All of them; one example names eight | p. 12 |
| Year | In brackets, then a full stop: (1990). | p. 12 |
| Journal | In full, in italics, no comma after it | p. 12 |
| Volume, issue, pages | 14 (7): 741–755 | p. 12 |
| Web page | The address, then "Accessed 27th December, 2014." | p. 12 |
| Recency | Mostly from the last 15 years | p. 2 |
| Matching | Every citation listed, every entry cited | p. 2 |

### Where the department's examples disagree with each other

- **Initials** are closed up, "Garcia, H.I.", in four entries and spaced, "Nagpal, N. K.", in one.
- **Page ranges** take an en dash, an en dash with a stray space ("428– 434") and a hyphen ("33-39").
- **DOIs** appear in none, though all four articles have one.
- **Spellings** slip: "chironomied" for chironomid and "Obrien" for O’Brien, and the Di Veroli entry leaves out its third author, Pellegrino (Di Veroli et al., 2010).

Pick one form for each and keep to it.

### UNILAG thesis format in the same documents

Both documents set five chapters and Roman page numbers before Chapter One; the DLI asks for an abstract of about 300 words. Zoology adds a title of at most 23 words, a one-page abstract with no paragraphs, Times New Roman 12 double spaced, margins of 2.5 cm (3.75 cm on the left) and page numbers centred at the foot. Our guide to [referencing at Nigerian universities](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/referencing-at-nigerian-universities) sets UNILAG beside Ibadan and Ilorin.

## What does a finished UNILAG reference list look like?

The same Lagos Lagoon sources, set in each of the two forms.

### APA 7th, for a DLI B.Sc.Ed. Biology project

> Fajemila et al. (2020) map benthic foraminifera across the Lagos Lagoon to trace environmental change. Fish at an impacted site on the lagoon show oxidative stress responses (Nwabueze et al., 2020). The National Universities Commission (2024) expects every university to implement the new core curriculum.

Under References, and again at the end of the chapter that cites them:

> Fajemila, O. T., Sariaslan, N., & Langer, M. R. (2020). Spatial distribution of benthic foraminifera in the Lagos Lagoon (Nigeria): Tracing the impact of environmental perturbations. *PLOS ONE*, *15*(12), Article e0243481. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243481
>
> National Universities Commission. (2024, May 4). *NUC to ensure full implementation of CCMAS- Acting ES*. https://www.nuc.edu.ng/nuc-to-ensure-full-implementation-of-ccmas-acting-es/
>
> Nwabueze, J. C., Sogbanmu, T. O., & Ugwumba, A. A. A. (2020). Physicochemical characteristics, animal species diversity and oxidative stress responses in dominant fish from an impacted site on the Lagos Lagoon, Nigeria. *Ife Journal of Science*, *22*(2), 81–93. https://doi.org/10.4314/ijs.v22i2.8

### The Zoology form, for a B.Sc. or M.Sc. dissertation

> Nkwoji et al. (2020) measured the impacts of land-based pollutants on benthic macroinvertebrates in a Lagos coastal lagoon, and fish from an impacted site show oxidative stress responses (Nwabueze et al., 2020).

> REFERENCES
>
> National Universities Commission (2024). NUC to ensure full implementation of CCMAS- Acting ES. https://www.nuc.edu.ng/nuc-to-ensure-full-implementation-of-ccmas-acting-es/. Accessed 2nd October, 2026.
>
> Nkwoji, J.A., Ugbana, S.I. and Ina-Salwany, M.Y. (2020). Impacts of land-based pollutants on water chemistry and benthic macroinvertebrates community in a coastal lagoon, Lagos, Nigeria. *Scientific African* 7: e00220.
>
> Nwabueze, J.C., Sogbanmu, T.O. and Ugwumba, A.A.A. (2020). Physicochemical characteristics, animal species diversity and oxidative stress responses in dominant fish from an impacted site on the Lagos Lagoon, Nigeria. *Ife Journal of Science* 22 (2): 81–93.

The department shows no article number, so "7: e00220" follows its volume-colon-pages pattern. DOIs are left out, as in its examples; add them if your supervisor asks.

## Which EdCitation style is closest, and what do you change by hand?

APA 7, for both. EdCitation's [APA 7](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) gives what the DLI asks for, and it is the nearer start for Zoology too: the full stop after the year, plain sentence-case article titles, et al. from three authors and every author in the list (up to 20) all match the department, where our Harvard would add quotation marks, "pp." and "Available at:". EdCitation builds six styles only: APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver. A footnote style or a house style outside those six is written by hand.

| UNILAG asks for | Start in EdCitation's | Then fix by hand |
| --- | --- | --- |
| DLI project, APA 7th | [APA 7](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) | A capital after a dash inside a title; each entry again at the end of its chapter |
| Zoology dissertation | [APA 7](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) | "&" to "and", in the list and in brackets, with no comma before it; initials closed up, "J.C."; "*Journal*, 22(2), 81–93" to "*Journal* 22 (2): 81–93"; "Article e00220" to "7: e00220"; the DOI out unless asked; web pages end "Accessed 2nd October, 2026." |
| A guide naming Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, MLA or Chicago author-date | That style in [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) | Hold each entry against the guide's examples |
| A style outside the six | Not built | Write it from the department's guide |

### Six steps from source to a UNILAG list

1. Get your department's guide. EdCitation's free [Check your paper](https://edcitation.com/check) reads a set of instructions into a checklist, citation style and layout included, each rule beside its sentence.
2. Put each DOI, title, ISBN or web address into [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) and choose APA 7.
3. For a web page, correct the author, date and site in the form before the entry is built.
4. Make the hand changes in the table above.
5. Paste the list into [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) and settle every "check this" against the source.
6. Match every citation to the list, as Zoology's rules and the DLI's chapter lists demand; [References from a file](https://edcitation.com/tools/references-from-a-file) does it for the whole paper.

## How did EdCitation handle Lagos sources and the department's examples?

[Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) is the best way to start a UNILAG list, because each entry is looked up in the publisher's record and built from it, never composed from memory as a chatbot's references are; below, Verify references caught a misspelt title and a missing author in the department's own examples. It works from a DOI, a title, a PubMed ID, an ISBN or a web address, sets six styles, screens the source for retraction, and needs no account or fee. EdCitation never writes any part of a project, thesis or dissertation: it finds, cites and checks the sources, and the reading, the argument and every sentence stay the student's own. We ran four DOIs and a Nigerian government page on 2 October 2026.

### What Cite a source returned

For 10.4314/ijs.v22i2.8, APA 7 returned the Nwabueze entry above word for word. For 10.1371/journal.pone.0243481 and 10.1016/j.sciaf.2019.e00220 it was right too, with "Article e0243481" and "Article e00220" in place of pages. For 10.4314/jasem.v20i1.15 it returned:

> Ahamefula, N. J. (2016). Impact of Hypoxia on the community structure of benthic macroinvertebrates of Lagos lagoon, Nigeria. Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management, 20(1), 121. https://doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v20i1.15

The publisher's record files Nkwoji as a given name and Ahamefula as the surname (the *Scientific African* article above is by Nkwoji, J. A.) and holds only the first page. The capitals are our fault, and a rerun gave the same: "Hypoxia" kept its capital while "Lagoon", part of a place name, was lowered. Write "hypoxia" and "Lagos Lagoon", and check the author and pages on the article's first page; the journal's site turned our automated request away.

For the National Universities Commission page, the details read from it gave:

> NUC to ensure full implementation of CCMAS- acting ES. (n.d.). National Universities Commision. Retrieved October 2, 2026, from https://www.nuc.edu.ng/nuc-to-ensure-full-implementation-of-ccmas-acting-es/

That is the title and the site, misspelt as the site's own page title spells it, but no author and no date, though the page shows May 4, 2024. With those corrected in the form, APA gave:

> National Universities Commission. (2024, May 4). NUC to ensure full implementation of CCMAS- acting ES. https://www.nuc.edu.ng/nuc-to-ensure-full-implementation-of-ccmas-acting-es/

The site name rightly drops out where it repeats the author. Restore the capital in "Acting", which opens the title's second part.

### What Verify references found

We pasted the department's five examples exactly as printed, with three of our APA entries. [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) answered:

- Correa and Garcia, Couillard, and Davoren and colleagues: verified, "Title, year and first author match a published record." The record spells O’Brien where Davoren's entry prints "Obrien", so copy names from the record.
- Di Veroli and colleagues: "check this", "A published record matches, but one word of its title differs from your entry". With "chironomid" corrected and run again: "The publisher's record also names Pellegrino, who is not in your entry. Check the authors."
- Nagpal's web page: "check this", "The address answers that there is no page there. Check the address."
- Nwabueze and Fajemila: verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." The Commission's page: verified, "The page is at this address, and its title matches."

Copy the department's pattern, never its entries. With the whole dissertation written, Pro's [References from a file](https://edcitation.com/tools/references-from-a-file) ($8 a month; see [pricing](https://edcitation.com/pricing)) checks every reference and matches every in-text citation to the list.

## Quick questions

### What referencing style does UNILAG use?

No single style. The Senate's plagiarism policy leaves it to each discipline; the Distance Learning Institute asks for APA 7th and the Department of Zoology uses its own author-date style.

### Does the UNILAG School of Postgraduate Studies publish a referencing guide?

Not on its website. The Senate policy requires the School and each faculty to give students the guide to citation, so ask your departmental postgraduate coordinator.

### Does the University of Lagos use APA 7th edition?

The Distance Learning Institute does, for undergraduate projects from the 2021/2022 session. Other departments set their own, so ask for yours in writing.

### When does et al. start in the Zoology department's style?

At three authors, in the text only: (Bemji et al., 1979). The reference list names every author.

### Can EdCitation build UNILAG references?

Yes for APA 7th, which EdCitation's [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) builds from the publisher's record; for the Zoology form, start in APA 7 and make the hand changes above. EdCitation writes none of your project: the research, the argument and every sentence are yours.

## References

- Di Veroli, A., Selvaggi, R., Pellegrino, R. M., & Goretti, E. (2010). Sediment toxicity and deformities of chironomid larvae in Lake Piediluco (Central Italy). *Chemosphere, 79*(1), 33–39. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2010.01.057](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2010.01.057)
- Fajemila, O. T., Sariaslan, N., & Langer, M. R. (2020). Spatial distribution of benthic foraminifera in the Lagos Lagoon (Nigeria): Tracing the impact of environmental perturbations. *PLOS ONE, 15*(12), Article e0243481. [https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243481](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243481)
- National Universities Commission. (2024, May 4). *NUC to ensure full implementation of CCMAS- Acting ES*. [https://www.nuc.edu.ng/nuc-to-ensure-full-implementation-of-ccmas-acting-es/](https://www.nuc.edu.ng/nuc-to-ensure-full-implementation-of-ccmas-acting-es/)
- Nkwoji, J. A., Ugbana, S. I., & Ina-Salwany, M. Y. (2020). Impacts of land-based pollutants on water chemistry and benthic macroinvertebrates community in a coastal lagoon, Lagos, Nigeria. *Scientific African, 7*, Article e00220. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sciaf.2019.e00220](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sciaf.2019.e00220)
- Nwabueze, J. C., Sogbanmu, T. O., & Ugwumba, A. A. A. (2020). Physicochemical characteristics, animal species diversity and oxidative stress responses in dominant fish from an impacted site on the Lagos Lagoon, Nigeria. *Ife Journal of Science, 22*(2), 81–93. [https://doi.org/10.4314/ijs.v22i2.8](https://doi.org/10.4314/ijs.v22i2.8)
- University of Lagos. (2017). *Plagiarism policy* [PDF]. [https://unilag.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/PLAGIARISM-POLICY.pdf](https://unilag.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/PLAGIARISM-POLICY.pdf)
- University of Lagos Department of Zoology. (2016). *Bachelors (B.Sc.) & Masters (M.Sc.) dissertations presentation guidelines* [PDF]. Faculty of Science, University of Lagos. [https://tosogbanmu.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/zoology-department-pg-thesis-presentation-guidelines.pdf](https://tosogbanmu.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/zoology-department-pg-thesis-presentation-guidelines.pdf)
- University of Lagos Directorate of Academic Affairs. (n.d.). *Student life cycle guidelines* [PDF]. [https://unilag.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Student-Life-Cycle-GUIDELINES-Hyperlinked.pdf](https://unilag.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Student-Life-Cycle-GUIDELINES-Hyperlinked.pdf)
- University of Lagos Distance Learning Institute. (2021). *Proposed research project format: To be in use as from 2021/2022 session* [PDF; archived copy]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20240803011455/https://dli.unilag.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Project-Format-Final-for-2021-2022-Session.pdf](https://web.archive.org/web/20240803011455/https://dli.unilag.edu.ng/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Project-Format-Final-for-2021-2022-Session.pdf)
- University of Lagos Library. (n.d.). *Research help*. [https://library.unilag.edu.ng/?page_id=1530](https://library.unilag.edu.ng/?page_id=1530)
- University of Lagos School of Postgraduate Studies. (n.d.). *Forms*. [https://spgs.unilag.edu.ng/?page_id=1559](https://spgs.unilag.edu.ng/?page_id=1559)