Referencing at universities in the Gulf: APA, theses, integrity

No regulator in the Gulf sets a citation style, so each university, college and department chooses one, and most choose APA. APA referencing at a UAE university, at Qatar University or at King Saud University is therefore settled by your own programme's handbook. EdCitation publishes this guide; its tools look every reference up in the publisher's record rather than writing it.

We read every rule below at its source on 27 September 2026: library guides and thesis handbooks from twelve universities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, and the UAE's accreditation standards. Several still teach APA 6. The last section quotes what EdCitation's free Verify references and Cite a source returned on real Gulf articles, faults included.

Which citation style do universities in the Gulf use?

APA in most programmes, with Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, MLA, Chicago and numbered systems where a department says so.

Qatar University's architects may use "APA, Harvard, Chicago (In order of preference)"; its chemical engineers, "any style consistently".

Harvard, Chicago and numbers mean different things in different places

Harvard has no single publisher. King Saud's dentistry college uses the Elsevier variant through a journal template, while EdCitation's Harvard follows Cite Them Right: compare each entry with the journal's examples, as our Harvard referencing guide explains. UAEU names Chicago/Turabian without saying which system; EdCitation builds only Chicago 18th edition author-date (Cite a source), so a department that wants notes and bibliography means writing the notes by hand. KFUPM's "(1)" is what EdCitation's Vancouver style puts in the text; its IEEE style uses "[1]". ACS and the Bluebook are outside EdCitation's six styles.

Why do so many Gulf guides still teach APA 6?

Because they predate the seventh edition. Four examples:

• The University of Bahrain's thesis guide, "2018 Edition", names "APA style (Sixth Edition)" (University of Bahrain, 2018). The APA guide posted beside it is a sixth-edition guide whose text still says "UCOL programmes utilise the APA referencing style" (University of Bahrain, n.d.).
• Khalifa University's APA guide, updated in December 2024, follows "the 6th edition" of 2010.
• The American University of Sharjah keeps APA 6 and APA 7 guides side by side.
• Sultan Qaboos University's thesis guide tells students to "keep up with updates", then gives APA 6 rules: every surname of three to five authors at the first citation, and "Place of publication: Publisher" (Sultan Qaboos University, n.d.).

APA 7 uses et al. for three or more authors "even the first citation" (American Psychological Association, 2019) and leaves out the publisher's location (American Psychological Association, 2020). EdCitation builds APA 7. If your handbook insists on APA 6, apply the older rules by hand from our list of rules that changed between editions, and ask first whether the current edition is accepted.

When the handbook's own example is wrong

Copy a handbook's pattern, never its sample. Two we read carry faults:

• The University of Sharjah's sample list prints "Szcz Ę Sna, A." for the surname Szczęsna, and gives "Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 526" as if it were a journal, where the publisher's record describes a chapter, pages 323 to 329, in the book Innovations in Biomedical Engineering. The same list puts Barnard after Rush and writes "Annals Of Human Biology" (University of Sharjah, 2022).
• The University of Bahrain's table gives "Doi: 12345" for a real chemistry textbook and "Retrieved from http:// http://www.uob.edu.bh" for others: placeholders, not identifiers.

What do Gulf thesis handbooks say about format?

Each sets its own, and they differ more than the styles do. For a thesis in English:

King Saud's dentistry manual also bars references to personal communications (King Saud University, 2019). KFUPM's "pica or elite" are typewriter sizes, a sign of how old some of this wording is (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, n.d.). See our guide to university thesis templates.

Arabic theses and length

Kuwait University sets Simplified Arabic, two points larger, for Arabic theses (Kuwait University, n.d.-a); Sultan Qaboos moves their binding margin to the right. Sultan Qaboos requires at least 30,000 words for a master's thesis and 100,000 for a doctorate, excluding preliminary pages, references and appendices; Bahrain gives about 80,000 for a theoretical thesis and 40,000 for an empirical one. In a Kuwait University thesis by articles, each article chapter keeps its reference list "exactly as it is presented in the published article" (Kuwait University, n.d.-c).

How do you cite Arabic sources in an English paper at a Gulf university?

In your programme's style: romanise the title, add an English translation in square brackets, and write names as the author publishes them. Our guide to citing Arabic sources in English papers shows each style; for papers written in Arabic, see Arabic citation styles. The Gulf guides add three things:

1. Order. In an Arabic thesis at Sultan Qaboos, Arabic sources come first, then English, each in APA.
2. A separate guide. Zayed University's APA guide sends Arabic-language sources to its own Arabic guide, and UAEU's citation guide has a section on Arabic sources.
3. Footnotes. Sultan Qaboos forbids footnotes for citing sources. Its English text contradicts itself on the Qur'an and hadith: one sentence rules footnotes out for them, and the list that follows allows them. Ask your supervisor which applies.

What does an academic integrity policy in the UAE and the Gulf say?

The regulator requires a statement; each university writes the definition. The UAE Commission for Academic Accreditation's 2019 Standards require every institution to have "a statement regarding academic integrity that clearly identifies types of academic offenses (including plagiarism)", and a catalogue with definitions of plagiarism (Commission for Academic Accreditation, 2019). We read that edition in a copy on the University of Sharjah's site; the CAA's own site did not show whether a later one replaces it. It names no referencing style.

The universities' own wording:

• UAEU defines plagiarism as "deliberately presenting another person's work as your own, without acknowledgement", with penalties from a warning letter to withdrawal of a degree already awarded (United Arab Emirates University, 2026).
• Qatar University cites section 6.4.1 of its Student Integrity Code, which includes "misrepresentation of the sources that were used" (Qatar University Library, 2025b).
• Kuwait University tells graduate students not to copy "more than two words in a row" without quotation marks (Kuwait University, n.d.-b).

Similarity limits in thesis rules

Five handbooks set a number. The University of Sharjah's declaration says total similarity is "not more than 15%", excluding references and quotations; KFUPM accepts a maximum 15% similarity index before the defence; Sultan Qaboos says the index must not exceed 20%; Bahrain says copied material "must not exceed 10%". King Saud's dentistry manual counts uncredited copying of "up to 20%" of a document as plagiarism and asks for no copying at all. A percentage counts matching text; it is not a verdict, as our guide to what similarity percentage is acceptable explains.

How do you build a reference list for a Gulf university?

1. Find your programme's handbook and note the style and edition.
2. Search for sources in EdCitation's Find sources.
3. Build each entry from its DOI in Cite a source, in the style the handbook names.
4. Correct by hand: stray formatting, older-edition rules, romanised Arabic titles. Cite a source sets APA titles in sentence case; glance at any name made of ordinary words.
5. Paste the list into Verify references and resolve every "check this" and "could not check".
6. Check that every quotation has its marks and its citation before the university's similarity check.

What did EdCitation return on Gulf references?

EdCitation is the best place to start: it looks each reference up in the publisher's record and never writes one, which no chatbot can promise, and it never writes any part of a student's paper. Cite a source builds APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, free with no account, covering most of the styles in the table above. The runs show what still needs your eye.

Cite a source on four Gulf DOIs

For 10.18295/squmj.10.2024.051, from the Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal, APA gave:

Abu-Shaheen, A., Ayyash, M., Osman, E. A., AlFayyad, I., Dahan, D., Torjoman, A., Zameer, S., & Heena, H. (2025). Vision-related quality of life among glaucoma patients in Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study. Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal, 25(1), 54–65. https://doi.org/10.18295/squmj.10.2024.051

Names and numbers are right, and the title is in sentence case, as APA 7 asks. The record wraps "cross-sectional study" in italic tags, and the formatted entry italicised those words in all six styles: remove them.

For 10.5339/qmj.2024.52, from the Qatar Medical Journal, APA gave "Qatar Medical Journal, Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press, 2024(4), 52." The publisher does not belong there, and Vancouver ran them together: "Qatar Med J. 2024;Hamad bin Khalifa University Press2024(4):52." Delete the publisher. The record holds no page or article number; the 52 matches the article's address on the journal's site.

For 10.25259/jksus_465_2024, from the Journal of King Saud University – Science, APA gave "Journal of King Saud University – Science, 37, Article 4652024", the record's article number, and "Aziz, Z. F. Ab." for the second author, because the record files "Ab." among the forenames. Check the byline.

For 10.29117/ansaq.2023.0174, an Arabic article in Qatar University's Ansaq journal, APA kept the script and added the record's English title: "الصمادي, ا. ع. (2023). فانتازيا التاريخ في رواية “ماء الورد” للكاتبة القطرية نورة فرج [The Fantasy of History in the novel “Water of Roses” by the Qatari author Noura Farag]. Ansaq journal, 7(1), 31–52." For an English paper, romanise the name and title, and put the translation in sentence case.

Verify references on six entries

Verify references answered on six real entries:

• The Sultan Qaboos article with its DOI: verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
• A Qatar University sharia journal article with its third author left out: "check this", "The publisher's record also names Ibrahim, who is not in your entry. Check the authors."
• The Ansaq article in Arabic script, without a DOI: verified, "Title, year and first author match a published record."
• The same article romanised, without a DOI: could not check, "This entry gives its title in romanised form or in translation, and the record may hold it only in the original script." It was not marked not found.
• Sharjah's sample with "Szcz Ę Sna": verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." It did not remark on the broken surname, so read the names yourself.
• Bahrain's textbook with "Doi: 12345": "check this", "The work was published in 2002, not 2001; the record has no date in 2001."

For $8 a month, Pro adds References from a file, which checks every reference in an uploaded paper and matches each in-text citation to the list. See pricing.

Quick questions

Which referencing style does Qatar University use?

It depends on the department: its library lists Harvard for biological and environmental sciences and civil engineering, Vancouver for pharmacy, MLA for English literature and ACS for chemistry.

Is APA 6 still used at Gulf universities?

In some guides, yes: Bahrain's 2018 thesis guide and Khalifa University's library guide follow the sixth edition. Ask whether APA 7 is accepted.

What does the King Saud University thesis format require for references?

Its College of Dentistry asks for the Journal of King Saud University – Science style, Elsevier-Harvard with titles, and bars personal communications.

Does the UAE set a referencing style?

No. The Commission for Academic Accreditation's 2019 Standards require an academic integrity statement that defines plagiarism, but name no style.

Can EdCitation check a reference list for a Gulf university?

Yes. EdCitation's Verify references checks each entry against the publisher's record, free, and marks a romanised Arabic entry it cannot compare as could not check, never as not found.

References

• American Psychological Association. (2019). Author–date citation system. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles/author-date
• American Psychological Association. (2020). Book references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/book-references
• American University of Sharjah Library. (2026). Citation style guides. https://aus.libguides.com/citation-style-guides
• Commission for Academic Accreditation. (2019). Standards for institutional licensure and program accreditation [PDF]. Ministry of Education, United Arab Emirates. https://old.sharjah.ac.ae/en/Compliance/Documents/CAA_Standards_2019.pdf
• KAUST Library. (2024). Thesis preparation. King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. https://library.kaust.edu.sa/theses
• Khalifa University Library. (2024a). APA style. https://library.ku.ac.ae/APAStyle
• Khalifa University Library. (2024b). IEEE citation format. https://library.ku.ac.ae/ieeecitation
• King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. (n.d.). Thesis/dissertation guidelines. College of Graduate and Interdisciplinary Studies. https://cgis.kfupm.edu.sa/academics/thesis-dissertation-guidelines
• King Saud University. (2019). Master thesis and doctorate dissertation manual [PDF]. College of Dentistry. https://dent.ksu.edu.sa/sites/dent.ksu.edu.sa/files/attach/MASTER%20AND%20DOCTORATE%20THESIS%20MANUAL_VDPG_2019_0.pdf
• Kuwait University. (n.d.-a). Formatting guidelines: Traditional thesis. College of Graduate Studies. https://grad.ku.edu.kw/research/traditional-thesis/formatting-guidelines
• Kuwait University. (n.d.-b). Citation and plagiarism. College of Graduate Studies. https://grad.ku.edu.kw/research/traditional-thesis/citation-and-plagiarism
• Kuwait University. (n.d.-c). Formatting guidelines: Article-based thesis. College of Graduate Studies. https://grad.ku.edu.kw/research/article-based-thesis/formatting-guidelines
• Qatar University Library. (2025a). Recommended styles by department. Citation Help. https://libguides.qu.edu.qa/c.php?g=281524&p=1875480
• Qatar University Library. (2025b). Plagiarism. Citation Help. https://libguides.qu.edu.qa/c.php?g=281524&p=1875380
• Sultan Qaboos University. (n.d.). Postgraduate theses writing guidelines at Sultan Qaboos University [PDF]. Deanship of Postgraduate Studies. https://www.squ.edu.om/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=sVltHyykFvA%3D&portalid=42&language=en-US
• United Arab Emirates University. (2026). Plagiarism and academic integrity. UAEU Catalog. https://www.uaeu.ac.ae/en/catalog/plagiarism_and_academic_integrity.shtml
• United Arab Emirates University Libraries. (2022). Citation basics. https://uaeu.libguides.com/Citation/basics
• University of Bahrain. (n.d.). A guide to APA referencing: 6th edition [PDF]. Deanship of Graduate Studies and Scientific Research. https://www.uob.edu.bh/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/A-GUIDE-TO-THE-APA-1.pdf
• University of Bahrain. (2018). Thesis writing guide handbook [PDF]. Deanship of Graduate Studies and Scientific Research. https://www.uob.edu.bh/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Thesis_Writing_Guide_final-Final.pdf
• University of Sharjah. (2022). Graduate students thesis handbook [PDF]. College of Graduate Studies. https://www.sharjah.ac.ae/-/media/project/uos/sites/uos/graduate-studies/graduate-studies-documentation/thesis-handbook.pdf
• Zayed University Library. (2024a). Citation style: APA. https://zu.libguides.com/apastyle
• Zayed University Library. (2024b). Citing your sources. https://zu.libguides.com/citation