Cite a source in the characters it was published in: simplified for most journals from mainland China, traditional for most from Taiwan and Hong Kong. EdCitation publishes this guide, and its tools take each reference from the publisher's record rather than composing one, which is why the rule matters: the record holds the characters as printed, and a title converted from one set to the other may not match it.
In an English paper the styles add a romanised title, and the question of which set and which spoken language, Mandarin or Cantonese, runs through names, romanisation and mixed lists. We read each official standard and style page on 26 and 27 September 2026, and every translation from them is ours. EdCitation's free Cite a source builds the entry from a DOI and Verify references checks the finished list; we ran both on real articles in both sets, and Find sources on a search in characters, and quote what came back, faults included.
Where are simplified and traditional Chinese characters standard?
Simplified characters are the legal standard in mainland China; traditional forms are the standard in Taiwan and in Hong Kong's schools. Each has its own official list.
Mainland China
China's language law names the national common language and script as 普通话 (Putonghua, standard Mandarin) and 规范汉字 (standard characters). Revised on 27 December 2025 and in force from 1 January 2026, its article 19 lets traditional and variant characters be kept or used in six cases, among them "出版、教学、研究中需要使用的" (where publishing, teaching or research needs them) (Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, 2025). The list of standard characters is the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, published by the State Council in 2013: 8,105 characters in three levels of 3,500, 3,000 and 1,605, replacing the earlier lists for "社会一般应用领域" (general use in society) (Liang, 2013).
Taiwan
Taiwan's Ministry of Education announced its 常用國字標準字體表 (standard forms of the common national characters) on 1 September 1982, and still offers its 4,808 characters for download (Ministry of Education, 2025).
Hong Kong
Hong Kong's Education Bureau publishes 《香港小學學習字詞表》, a list of 3,171 characters and 9,706 words for primary schools. Its recommended forms are traditional; beside each it shows common variants and the simplified form, with Cantonese and Putonghua readings, and the printed edition appends the 常用字字形表 of standard shapes (Education Bureau, n.d.).
We did not read the official rules for Macau, Singapore or Malaysia, so this guide says nothing about them.
Is written Cantonese different from written Mandarin?
Yes. Hong Kong schools have taught pupils to read and write standard written Chinese, based on Putonghua, while a separate written Cantonese has grown up in everyday use. Bauer (2018) describes Hong Kong Cantonese and Putonghua as "mutually-unintelligible", and written Cantonese as standard characters used in non-standard ways, mixed with characters found only in Cantonese and with English letters, which leaves it almost unreadable to Putonghua speakers from the mainland and Taiwan. Children learn it, he writes, informally, from seeing it everywhere, not at school.
His article's Chinese abstract is itself written in Cantonese: 香港粵語同普通話係兩種相互無法互通嘅語言, its version of the sentence on mutual unintelligibility. A source in written Cantonese is cited the same way as any other: keep its characters, romanise and translate the title as your style asks.
Romanising Cantonese: Jyutping
Jyutping is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong's romanisation for Cantonese, finalised in 1993, with tones as the numbers 1 to 6 at the end of each syllable, as in fu1 and fu6 (Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, n.d.). No style or library guide we read asks for Jyutping in a reference list. The Library of Congress reads every character by its standard Mandarin pronunciation (Library of Congress, 2012), so a Cantonese title is romanised in pinyin, as a Mandarin one is. Use Jyutping when you discuss Cantonese sounds in your text.
Which characters do you use in the reference itself?
The characters of the edition you read. APA's own example keeps a film title in traditional characters, 臥虎藏龍, with the translation [Crouching tiger, hidden dragon] after it, and says a title may stay in its original script where romanising is not practical (Adams, 2021). MLA prefers the original characters, then a transliteration if you give one, then the translation (Modern Language Association, 2017).
The University of Edinburgh (n.d.) disagrees for running text: its guide to essays in Chinese studies asks for one set throughout and says a source in one form may be converted to the other for consistency. That is sound for your own sentences. In the reference, keep the published form, because that is what the record, the catalogue and a checker hold; the section on converting shows what happens otherwise.
Can one reference list mix simplified and traditional characters?
Yes. Each entry follows its own source, so a list with a Beijing journal and a Taipei one carries both sets. What keeps the list in order is the romanisation: MLA alphabetises mixed entries by their transliteration (Modern Language Association, 2017), and APA files a title in another script by its transliterated form (Adams, 2021).
Pinyin, Wade-Giles or Jyutping: how do you romanise a title?
Hanyu Pinyin, without tone marks, unless your department says otherwise. Mainland law makes pinyin the unified standard for romanising names, place names and texts (Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, 2025), and the Library of Congress has used it in place of Wade-Giles, leaving out tone marks (Library of Congress, 2012). Hong Kong Baptist University Library (2026) gives the same advice for English papers.
The styles set it out differently:
- APA 7: a romanised title, then an English translation in square brackets; its own example, a news page about fruit from Kaohsiung, keeps tone marks: Gāoxióng shuǐguǒ (Adams, 2021).
- MLA 9: the characters, the transliteration, then the translation, in a post written for the eighth edition.
- Chicago: the English in square brackets straight after the pinyin title, in sentence caps and roman type (University of Chicago Press, n.d.). EdCitation builds Chicago's author-date system only.
Syllables apart or together?
Here two respected sources disagree. The Library of Congress spaces every syllable of a title, Ming Qing xiao shuo bi jiao yan jiu, and joins only names: Sun Zhongshan, Ouyang Xiu. Edinburgh spaces by words, so Zhongguo, never Zhong guo. Either is defensible; one list uses one.
Wade-Giles in older sources
Keep it where it is printed. Edinburgh tells students never to change Wade-Giles to pinyin inside a quotation, and the Library of Congress table lists the correspondences, such as ch‘ing for qing. Our guide to transliteration and romanisation compares pinyin with the other systems.
How are names in characters written in a reference?
Surname first, and in the author's own spelling where they print one. In characters the name is written whole, 劉秋玲. In pinyin the given name is one word: Kang Youwei in the Library of Congress table, and Mao Zedong, not Mao Ze Dong, in Edinburgh's. Syllables hyphenated in Wade-Giles are joined in pinyin (Library of Congress, n.d.).
Many authors from Taiwan and Hong Kong publish under other spellings. Taiwan's consular bureau offers passport applicants four systems, Wade-Giles, Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II, Tongyong Pinyin and Hanyu Pinyin, and respects the applicant's choice (Bureau of Consular Affairs, 2026). Hong Kong names are often Cantonese spellings: Bauer's reference list gives Cheung Kwan Hin 張群顯. Use the printed form, not a pinyin you make yourself. Order, initials and hyphens across styles are in our guide to names in references across cultures.
Simplified vs traditional characters: how do they compare in a reference?
| Point | Simplified | Traditional |
|---|---|---|
| Official list | Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, 2013: 8,105 characters | Taiwan: standard forms, 1982, 4,808 common characters; Hong Kong: Education Bureau list, 3,171 |
| Where standard | Mainland China | Taiwan; Hong Kong schools |
| Example | 历 | 歷 (history) or 曆 (calendar) |
| In your reference | As published | As published |
| Romanisation in English papers | Hanyu Pinyin, no tones | Hanyu Pinyin, no tones; names as the author prints them |
| Cantonese sources | Rare | Written Cantonese appears in Hong Kong; romanised by Mandarin reading in catalogues |
| Built from the record | Cite a source keeps the characters | Cite a source keeps the characters |
Why might a converted title not match a database?
Because conversion is not one to one, and the record holds only the published form. The 2013 table's own appendix pairs 2,546 standard characters with 2,574 traditional ones and untangles 96 groups in which one simplified character stands for several traditional characters (Ministry of Education & State Language Commission, 2013). 干 answers to 干, 乾 and 幹; 历 to 歷 and 曆. Software converting from simplified must guess, and a wrong guess makes a title nobody published.
We tested it. EdCitation's Verify references verified a Taiwanese article in its traditional characters with its DOI. The same entry converted to simplified, without the DOI, came back "could not check": "This entry is written in characters the search cannot match yet." It was not called not found. In Find sources, 書面粵語 (written Cantonese, traditional) reported 99,598 records and 书面粤语, the same words simplified, 86,680, with none of the first ten results in common.
How do you cite a source in Chinese characters, step by step?
- Paste the DOI into EdCitation's Cite a source and choose your style, so the characters, numbers and journal come from the record.
- Open the article's own page and check the authors' names and their order against it.
- Keep the title in the set it was published in, simplified or traditional.
- Romanise the title and names as your style asks, in one system for the whole list, usually pinyin without tones.
- Add an English translation of the title in square brackets.
- Use each author's own printed spelling.
- Run the list through Verify references and read the reason given for each entry.
What does EdCitation return for sources in simplified and traditional characters?
The characters the record holds, never a conversion, which makes Cite a source the best free place to start: EdCitation looks the reference up and never writes it, so the title in 歷 or 历 is the publisher's, not a guess. It builds APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, free with no account, and screens for retraction. EdCitation never writes any part of a student's paper.
Four DOIs through Cite a source
- 10.1360/sste-2024-0233, Scientia Sinica Terrae, simplified. APA began "董云鹏, 惠博, 王博", nine authors in characters, cited "(董 et al., 2025)". Romanise them, and the journal came back in the record's capitals, "SCIENTIA SINICA Terrae".
- 10.1515/glochi-2016-0003, Global Chinese, simplified. The Crossref record swaps surname and given name, but APA gave "詹卫东, & 陶红印. (2016)", cited "(詹 & 陶, 2016)", matching the publisher's page, which prints 詹 卫东 and 陶 红印. For an English-language paper, romanise it as Zhan, W., & Tao, H.
- 10.1075/lali.00111.hua, Language and Linguistics, Taiwan, traditional. The title kept its characters and the authors came back as "Huang, Y., & Wen, D. (2022)". The journal came as "Language and Linguistics. 語言暨語言學". We could not open the publisher's page, which answered with a bot check.
- 10.53106/160957582025050098003, 比較教育, Taiwan, traditional. APA gave "劉秋玲. (2025). 轉動中的全球融合教育:臺灣國小教師對於融合教育態度的探究 [Global Inclusion Education on the Move: …]. 比較教育, (98), 75–114.", issue 98 with no volume, as the journal's page shows it. Put the translation in sentence case.
A mixed list through Verify references
We pasted five entries. The Taiwanese entry in characters with its DOI: verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." Its simplified conversion: "could not check", as above. The Global Chinese entry in pinyin with its DOI: "could not check", since the record's title is "in another script or language from your entry". A romanised entry without a DOI: "could not check", because the record "may hold it only in the original script". Bauer's article, whose record lists his own name in characters, 包睿舜, as a second author, was verified: "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." No entry was called not found.
Find sources in characters
A search for 書面粵語 in Find sources returned, third, "面向粵語母語者的普通話語調與節奏教學", Su Yuan, 2023, STiLE: Scholarship of Teaching in Language Education, by an author at HKUST. Its record makes Yuan the surname; the page prints only "Su Yuan", so we could not confirm which it is. Some results in the simplified search showed given name first, as "洪漫 黄". For a whole paper, References from a file (Pro, $8 a month) checks every reference and matches each citation to the list.
Quick questions
Should I use simplified or traditional Chinese characters in my references?
Whichever the source was published in. A reference points to a published work, and EdCitation's Cite a source gives the characters its record holds.
Is written Cantonese the same as written Mandarin?
No. Bauer (2018) describes written Cantonese as using characters, words and English letters that make it hard for Putonghua readers to follow. It has no formal standard, and schools teach standard written Chinese instead.
Should I romanise Chinese titles in pinyin or Wade-Giles?
Pinyin, without tones, unless your department says otherwise. Keep Wade-Giles where a source or quotation prints it, and keep authors' own spellings.
Can I mix simplified and traditional characters in one reference list?
Yes. Each entry keeps its own source's characters, and the list is alphabetised by the romanised forms.
Does EdCitation convert between simplified and traditional characters?
No. EdCitation keeps the record's own characters, and Verify references marks a converted entry it cannot match as "could not check", never as not found.
References
- Adams, A. (2021, August 23). When and how to transliterate titles in references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/transliterated-titles-references
- Bauer, R. S. (2018). Cantonese as written language in Hong Kong. Global Chinese, 4(1), 103–142. https://doi.org/10.1515/glochi-2018-0006
- Bureau of Consular Affairs. (2026, May 29). 請問我首次申請護照外文姓名要怎麼拼音？有什麼可以參考？ [How do I romanise my name when I first apply for a passport?]. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan. https://www.boca.gov.tw/cp-35-7873-3a928-1.html
- Education Bureau. (n.d.). 《香港小學學習字詞表》 [Lexical lists for Chinese learning in Hong Kong primary schools] [PDF]. https://www.edb.gov.hk/attachment/tc/curriculum-development/kla/chi-edu/resources/primary/lang/curriculum-materials/int_lexical%20list_TC_2026.pdf
- Hong Kong Baptist University Library. (2026, May 21). In English papers (APA, MLA, and Chicago style). Citation guide. https://hkbu.libguides.com/c.php?g=925331&p=6685685
- Liang, J. (2013, August 28). 国务院公布《通用规范汉字表》 [The State Council publishes the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters]. Ministry of Education. http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/s5147/201308/t20130828_156388.html
- Library of Congress. (n.d.). Pinyin conversion project: New Chinese romanization guidelines. Retrieved September 27, 2026, from https://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/romcover.html
- Library of Congress. (2012). Chinese romanization table [PDF]. https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/chinese.pdf
- Linguistic Society of Hong Kong. (n.d.). Jyutping romanization scheme. https://lshk.org/jyutping-scheme/
- Ministry of Education. (2025, September 16). 常用字下載 [Download the common characters]. Language resources portal, Taiwan. https://language.moe.gov.tw/material/info?m=9fe3ff5a-5a8c-4817-9e60-6337dd55a509
- Ministry of Education & State Language Commission. (2013). 通用规范汉字表 [Table of general standard Chinese characters] [PDF]. State Council. https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2013-08/19/W020130822615096093968.pdf
- Modern Language Association. (2017, February 8). When translating from a language that does not use roman characters, like Chinese, do I include the original characters or a transliteration? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/nonroman-characters/
- Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. (2025). 中华人民共和国国家通用语言文字法 [Law on the standard spoken and written Chinese language] (revised December 27, 2025). http://www.npc.gov.cn/c2/c30834/202512/t20251227_450731.html
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.). Citation, documentation of sources (Q&A No. 79). The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Documentation/faq0079.html
- University of Edinburgh. (n.d.). Style guide for essays in Chinese studies [PDF]. https://edwebcontent.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/imports/fileManager/Style%20Guide%20for%20Essays%20in%20Chinese%20Studies.pdf