Referencing at Malaysian and Singapore universities: APA, Harvard

Universities in Malaysia and Singapore set no national referencing style. Faculties and thesis manuals name a style, and your module outline or supervisor decides. APA is the common ground: seven of the eight universities whose guides we read name it, and Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) made it compulsory for theses in 2026.

EdCitation publishes this guide; every rule below was read in the universities' own guides on 2 October 2026. Malay name rules and Gaya UKM have their own guide, Indonesian and Malaysian citation. We also ran local sources through EdCitation's free Cite a source and Verify references; the final section quotes each answer word for word, faults and all.

Which referencing style do Malaysian and Singapore universities use?

The one your faculty or module names: NUS Libraries (2026c) tells students to ask supervisors, departments or publishers, and UiTM's library sends them to their lecturer and faculty (Perpustakaan Tun Abdul Razak, n.d.).

What is the NUS citation style?

NUS has none for the whole university: the department or module sets it. NUS Libraries (2026c) covers nine styles, legal citation among them, and names no default. Its Chicago page, built on the 17th edition, says History and some social sciences prefer Chicago because footnotes leave room to comment on sources (NUS Libraries, 2026a). EdCitation builds Chicago 18 author-date only.

The thesis rules come from departments:

• Psychology: the thesis proposal should "conform to APA style" (Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, 2025).
• Geography: Harvard is favoured for the honours thesis unless the material needs footnotes (Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, 2018).
• History: The Chicago Manual of Style, "15th ed. onwards", every reference in the footnotes, UK spelling (Department of History, National University of Singapore, 2024).

Harvard referencing in Singapore

NUS Libraries (2026b) gives an Australian-style Harvard: no comma before the year, (Jackson 2000); a page as (Sandman & Krieg 2011, p. 94); "viewed 11 January 2010" for an online source; and a journal entry beginning "Dietrich, C 2015". That is the pattern of Australia's 2002 Style manual.

EdCitation's Harvard follows Cite Them Right, the UK version, with a comma before the year and "Available at:". Our guide to Australian university referencing sets the two side by side; the same changes turn our output into NUS's form.

How do NTU and SMU cite Singapore government sources?

In APA 7, with the agency as author and "Singapore" usually added to its name: NTU's APA page (Nanyang Technological University Library, 2026a) cites Singapore Department of Statistics. (2019). Report on the household expenditure survey 2017/18, and an NTU thesis with its repository:

Lau, W. K. (2020). Behaviors maintaining perceptual continuity [Doctoral dissertation, Nanyang Technological University]. Digital Repository of NTU. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/144248

SMU Libraries (2026) puts a white paper's command number after the title:

Parliament of Singapore. (1989). Maintenance of religious harmony (Cmd Paper 21 of 1989). Singapore National Printers.

What does APA referencing look like at Malaysian universities?

At Universiti Malaya, APA 7 with local rules. UM's library cites an agency under its official name, in Malay where that is the name: Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia. (2020, October 5). Annex 2a: Management of suspected case not required admission (Universiti Malaya Library, 2025b). It drops a/l and a/p (son of, daughter of) from Indian and Sikh names: Narrayani a/p Jeganathan becomes Narrayani Jeganathan (Universiti Malaya Library, 2025a). A UM thesis is labelled [Unpublished master's thesis] or similar, or cited from the student repository (Universiti Malaya Library, 2025c). For Malay names without bin or binti, see names across cultures.

UiTM referencing: the library guide and the 2026 thesis rule

Perpustakaan Tun Abdul Razak (n.d.), UiTM's library, gives examples in APA 7, MLA and Harvard, and lists a "UiTM Law In-House Style" among footnote styles. Its Harvard is neither Cite Them Right nor Australian: "[online]", "Available from:" and "[accessed 30 August 2023]".

Copy the pattern from such examples, never the facts. The APA example gives Ekström's article in the Journal of Documentation as 78(7), 90-98, the Harvard example as pp.248-265, and the publisher's record, through Cite a source, as 248–265 (Ekström, 2022).

For theses the rule changed. UiTM's Institute of Postgraduate Studies recommended "APA, IEEE, Harvard, Chicago or House style" in 2024; its 2026 edition says referencing "must follow the APA style", for theses in English, Malay or Arabic (Institute of Postgraduate Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 2026). It names no edition, says the format was first built on APA's 6th edition, and its sample page still uses the older "Retrieved … from the World Wide Web": ask your supervisor which edition.

Which thesis manuals set the style at USM and UTM?

Each graduate school's own. USM's guide of April 2019, the newest we found on its institute's site, says USM "does not impose any restriction on the citation styles", calls Harvard "the most common citation style", and still points to the APA manual's 5th edition (Institute of Postgraduate Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2019). The abstract comes in Bahasa Malaysia first.

UTM's 2023 guidelines accept the Harvard system, the Vancouver system and APA, one used throughout (School of Graduate Studies, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2023). They also ask for an alphabetical, unnumbered list, which suits Harvard and APA but not a numbered Vancouver list: ask before choosing Vancouver.

Similarity checks and Malay titles

UTM requires each chapter to show no more than 20% similarity in Turnitin before submission. Our guide to what similarity percentage is acceptable explains what such a figure measures.

For Malay-language sources, NUS History puts a translated title in square brackets after the original and recommends Kamus Dewan for Malay spelling; UKM's law examples keep Malay titles as they stand. Our guide to citing a non-English source gives each style's rule.

How do you cite a statute or a case in Singapore and Malaysia?

In your faculty's legal style, usually in footnotes. NUS's C J Koh Law Library (2026) follows the McGill Guide's 8th edition, the last with Singapore rules: Protection from Harassment Act (Cap 256A, 2015 Rev Ed Sing), s 4. Since the 2020 Revised Edition came into force on 31 December 2021, it says, the short title is generally enough, and a chapter number is needed only for a repealed or historical version.

NTU points to the Singapore Academy of Law's style guide, 2004 edition (Nanyang Technological University Library, 2026b), yet its APA page cites Education Act (Cap 87, 2013 Rev Ed) s 61(1) (Singapore), the chapter form NUS calls unnecessary for a current Act. In Malaysia, the University of Malaya Law Review (2022) manual follows the Faculty of Law's UM citation style for legal works, third edition; UKM's law faculty puts the section first (Faculty of Law, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, n.d.).

How do you build a reference list for a Malaysian or Singapore university?

1. Find the rule that binds you, with its date and edition: module outline, faculty guide or thesis manual.
2. Look each article, book and web page up in EdCitation's Cite a source by DOI, ISBN or address: APA 7 for most courses, Harvard as the base for a local Harvard.
3. Correct by hand what your guide does differently: names, Harvard punctuation, a translated title, "[Press release]", missing pages.
4. Write statutes, cases and Hansard in your faculty's legal style, checked at the legislature's or court's own site.
5. Check the whole list in Verify references, then resolve each "check this" and "could not check" against the source.
6. Before a thesis goes in, meet the manual's similarity rule.

What did EdCitation return on Malaysian and Singapore sources?

Cite a source is the strongest free start for any university in this guide. It reads each source's details from the publisher's record, so an author, volume or DOI is looked up, never composed; a chatbot printing a reference has no record behind it. It sets the entry in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE or Vancouver, screens for retraction, and needs no account. Those six are all it builds: no McGill, UM legal style, Gaya UKM or Chicago notes. EdCitation leaves every word to you: it never writes any part of a paper.

Cite a source on a UiTM journal article and two government pages

For 10.24191/ajue.v19i2.22239, in UiTM Press's Asian Journal of University Education, APA returned:

Othman, N. A. F., Jaini, A., Ismail, M., Zainoddin, A. I., Mohamad Radzi, S. F., & Sundram, V. P. K. (2023). Gamification in online learning: A case study among university students in Malaysia. Asian Journal of University Education, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.24191/ajue.v19i2.22239

Sentence case, Malaysia kept capitalised. Add from the PDF the pages, 282–293, which the record lacks, and check one spelling: the byline prints Kaliani, the record "Kailani", which Chicago prints in full (Othman et al., 2023).

For NTU's Ministry of Health example, whose address had moved, APA returned:

Strengthening our readiness to live with the omicron variant. (2026, July 30). Ministry of Health. https://www.moh.gov.sg/newsroom/strengthening-our-readiness-to-live-with-the-omicron-variant/

The date is wrong: the page shows 5 January 2022, signed by the ministry; 30 July 2026 is an update date in its code. We corrected the page's details before the entry was built and got "Ministry of Health. (2022, January 5). Strengthening our readiness to live with the Omicron variant."; add "[Press release]" as NTU does.

For a Malay-language page of Malaysia's Ministry of Higher Education, APA returned "Azahari, N. F. A. (2026, March 13). KPT Terima Dokumen Akhir Pelan Tindakan 2026-2028 bagi RPTM. MoHE." The date is right. The page shows no byline: the name came from a hidden field. The Malay title kept its capitals in APA and Vancouver on a rerun too. With the ministry as author and a translation typed in, it returned "Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi. (2026, March 13). KPT terima dokumen akhir Pelan Tindakan 2026-2028 bagi RPTM [MOHE receives the final document of the 2026-2028 Action Plan for the RPTM]."

Verify references on ten entries

We pasted ten entries, most from the guides above, and Verify references answered:

• The UiTM Press article, NTU's thesis and UiTM's Ekström example: verified, the first and last with "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." Ekström's wrong pages, 90-98, were not questioned: take pages from Cite a source.
• NTU's statistics report: "check this", "The address answers that there is no page there. Check the address." Right: it now returns a not-found error.
• NTU's statute, "Education Act (Cap 87, 2013 Rev Ed) s 61(1) (Singapore).": "could not check", "A court case or a statute is not in the publishers' records. Check it at the court's or the legislature's own site, or in a law report." Singapore Statutes Online is the place to check it.
• UM's thesis, SMU's white paper, UM's ministry annex, the Police Act and NTU's Straits Times article: "could not check", the page or the library catalogue not answering, on two or three tries each. None was called not found.

For a whole thesis, the Pro plan ($8 a month) adds References from a file: upload the file, and every reference is looked up and every in-text citation matched to the list. The pricing page has the rest.

Quick questions

What referencing style does UiTM use?

APA for theses: the 2026 thesis guidelines say referencing "must follow the APA style". UiTM's library also covers MLA and Harvard for coursework, where your lecturer decides.

What is the NUS citation style?

NUS has none for the whole university. Psychology asks for APA, Geography favours Harvard, History uses Chicago footnotes, and the library covers nine styles.

Is Harvard referencing used in Singapore?

At NUS, yes: the library's Harvard page follows an Australian-style pattern, and Geography favours Harvard for honours theses.

How do I cite a Singapore statute?

In your faculty's legal style. Under the 2020 Revised Edition the short title is generally enough, as in Penal Code 1871, according to NUS's law library.

Can EdCitation format Gaya UKM or a legal style?

No. EdCitation's Cite a source builds six general styles only, so Gaya UKM, McGill and UM's legal style are written by hand.

References

• C J Koh Law Library. (2026). Canadian guide to uniform legal citation: Legislation. National University of Singapore. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/McGill/Legislation
• 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). Research graduate program student handbook (2025) [PDF]. https://fass.nus.edu.sg/psy/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2025/08/GraduateStudentHandbook-05Aug2025.pdf
• Ekström, B. (2022). A niche of their own: Variations of information practices in biodiversity citizen science. Journal of Documentation, 78(7), 248–265. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2021-0146
• Faculty of Law, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. (n.d.). The UKM Law Faculty footnoting style (ULFFS) [PDF]. https://www.ukm.my/fuu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/FOOTNOTING-FACULTY-OF-LAW-STYLE-ULFFS.pdf
• Institute of Postgraduate Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia. (2019). Format thesis guidelines [PDF]. https://ips.usm.my/images/downloadIPS/viva/viva_exam/FormatThesisGuidelines_210219.pdf
• Institute of Postgraduate Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA. (2024). Guidelines on thesis/dissertation format [PDF]. https://ipsis.uitm.edu.my/images/Thesis_Portal/IPSis_Thesis_Guideline_2024.pdf
• Institute of Postgraduate Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA. (2026). 2026 guidelines on thesis/dissertation format [PDF]. https://ipsis.uitm.edu.my/images/IPSis%20Thesis%20Guideline%202026.pdf
• Nanyang Technological University Library. (2026a). Citation styles: APA 7th. https://libguides.ntu.edu.sg/c.php?g=935202&p=6768552
• Nanyang Technological University Library. (2026b). Citation styles: Legal citations. https://libguides.ntu.edu.sg/c.php?g=935202&p=6999620
• NUS Libraries. (2026a). Citation styles: Chicago/Turabian. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation/chicagoturabian
• NUS Libraries. (2026b). Citation styles: Harvard. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation/harvard
• NUS Libraries. (2026c). Citation styles: Overview. https://libguides.nus.edu.sg/citation
• Othman, N. A. F., Jaini, A., Ismail, M., Zainoddin, A. I., Mohamad Radzi, S. F., & Sundram, V. P. K. (2023). Gamification in online learning: A case study among university students in Malaysia. Asian Journal of University Education, 19(2), 282–293. https://doi.org/10.24191/ajue.v19i2.22239
• Perpustakaan Tun Abdul Razak. (n.d.). Citing and referencing. Universiti Teknologi MARA. https://ptar.uitm.edu.my/libguides/subjects/guide.php?subject=cite_reference
• School of Graduate Studies, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. (2023). Thesis writing guidelines 2023 (6th ed.) [PDF]. https://sps.utm.my/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Thesis-Guideline-18.10.2023-1-1.pdf
• SMU Libraries. (2026). How do I use APA citation style: Reports and documents. Singapore Management University. https://researchguides.smu.edu.sg/c.php?g=421741&p=6627442
• Universiti Malaya Library. (2025a). Author: Indian & Sikh names (without surname / family name). https://umlibguides.um.edu.my/c.php?g=939660&p=6807632
• Universiti Malaya Library. (2025b). Government document. https://umlibguides.um.edu.my/c.php?g=939660&p=6807661
• Universiti Malaya Library. (2025c). Thesis. https://umlibguides.um.edu.my/c.php?g=939660&p=6807664
• University of Malaya Law Review. (2022). University of Malaya Law Review style & citation manual 2022/2023 (4th ed.) [PDF]. https://universityofmalaya-law-review.squarespace.com/s/UMLR-4-612.pdf