Skip to Main Content

APA 7th Edition Style Guide

Correctly cite and reference resources in APA (7th Edition) Style.

Author Names (Chinese, Malay, Indian)

Note: As the APA Citation Style does not specify guidelines for names which are in non-Western formats, the following style formats are recommendations by NIE Library.

Chinese Names

For Chinese names, the convention is to write the surname/family name first, followed by the given name. As such, do not invert the order of the name(s) when citing in APA style format.

Example: 

Siacor, K. H., Ng, B., & Liu, W. C. (2024). Fostering student motivation and engagement through teacher autonomy support: A self-determination theory perspective. International Journal of Instruction, 17(2), 583–598. http://www.e-iji.net/dosyalar/iji_2024_2_32.pdf

(Full name of author: Liu Woon Chia)

 

For Chinese names with English first names, cite the name(s) in this order:

  • Surname/Family name, (first name in initials), (given name in initials)

Example: 

Goh, J. W. P., Hairon Salleh, & Lim, S. Q. W. (2019). Understanding distributed leadership practices in the cultural context of Singapore schools. In S. Hairon & J. W. P. Goh (Eds.), Perspectives on school leadership in Asia Pacific context (pp. 11-30). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9160-7

(Full name of author: Jonathan Goh Wee Pin)

Malay & Indian Names

For Malay and Indian names, cite them in the same way as they appear in their respective publications.
Do not include patronymic nouns (bin, binti/binte), patronymic phrases (s/o, d/o), or titles such as Tun, Dato or Dr.
For in-text citations, use only the first name.

Example: 

Raman Daud. (2020). Cikgu Ariff yang kukenal (Kartini Anwar, Ed.). Nanyang Technological University, National Institute of Education (Singapore).

Seetha Lakshmi. (2018, July 6-8). Standard spoken Tamil, pedagogy and the contribution of the corpus data: An overview [Paper presentation]. 17th Tamil Internet Conference, Coimbatore, India. http://hdl.handle.net/10497/21390