Every research article must cite relevant, timely and veritable literature articles to corroborate any claims an author is making in the research article.
As a researcher, you must avoid excessive and any forms of inappropriate citations among author group. This is as a result of such being considered as a form of misconduct which is called a manipulation.
As a non-research article author, that is either review or opinion, the citations of your references must be relevant to the core and it must be fair and balanced in connection with the current state of your research or scholarly topic. However, if you are unsure about citing a source for your research article, it is best that you should contact the journal editorial office for advice.
Hence, any source used must be cited through a permanent identification, for example, permanent Digital Object Identifier or an International Standard Serial Number.
In the main-text references, the following category of references is only required to be added to the main-text only if it is deemed to be necessary and it should be included in the formal references list.
Personal Communication
Use a personal communication citation only when a recoverable source is not available. For example, if you learned about a topic via a classroom lecture, emails, letters or conversation (inclusion with the ones on social media), should only appear within the main-text and not as a formal end references. Also, the source must be placed in (parentheses).
Unpublished Observations
Unfinished observations are research which is not accepted for publication either in a peer-review journal or formal publication.
However, it is very important as an author to obtain permission from the person you are quoting in your article. Hence, the process of obtaining author’s permission should be made prior to submission so that the people being quoted in the text can verify their content quoted in the text but if the permission was not granted, the personal communication must be excluded from the article.
Reference Lists
These lists are the various types of articles that should be added to the reference lists;
Articles in a Website Link
Any articles that as references to the website links should be included in the reference link. These should include the title of the site, the URL, and date the website was accessed.
In press or Forthcoming Articles
Articles that are accepted to be published in a peer-reviewed journal but which have not been published should be referred to as “forthcoming or in the press” in place of the publication dates.
Preprint Articles
Articles which may have been published in institutional repositories or print servers should also be cited in the reference list. The list should include the names of the author, the title of the articles, the DOI of the preprint and the date the preprint was posted. However, if the preprint has been formally published in a peer-reviewed journal, the author should cite the version instead of the preprint.
A Preprint of your Submission
If a submission to our journal as a preprint available, this should also be declared in the manuscript and cited. Thus, once the article has been published it is important that the author should update the preprint to state that the article has been published.
Thesis
It is encouraged by the authors to cite their thesis where it is relevant to their submission. However, this should be in the following style
Author name, thesis or dissertation, “title” University, year published Database (identification number); (DOI) where it is available.
APA Referencing Style Guide
This guide introduces the APA referencing style with examples of citation styles for different types of resources.
1. Book: Reference format for print books
Author, Initial. (Year). Book title. City of publication, Country/State: Publisher.
One Author
Abdul, K. (2020). The Rewards and Challenges of Entrepreneurial Marketing in SMEs. Portland, Oregon, USA: AB Journals.
Multiple Authors
Fahadi B., Pius M.N., Zawadi L.R., & Adam Y.M.M. (2020). Safe Drinking Water from Contaminated Sources with SODIS Technique (3rd ed.). Portland, Oregon, USA: AB Journals.
In-text citations:
One Author
Abdul (2020) states….
….can lead to a more successful outcome (Abdul, 2020)
Multiple Authors
… as the findings suggested (Fahadi, Pius, Zawadi & Adam 2020)
… as the findings suggested (Fahadi et al. (2020)
2. E-books
Primus E.E. (2019). Impact of Macroeconomic Variables on Foreign Direct Investment Flow in Nigeria: ARDL Model. https://doi.org/10.1036/0011223345
Elena G.P., Lubinda H., & Yulia V.R. (2019). Africa 4.0 as a Perspective Scenario for Neo-Industrialization in the 21st Century: Global Competitiveness and Sustainable Development. Retrieved from https://abjournals.org/african-journal-of-economics-and-sustainable-development-ajesd
3. Journal Articles
Author, Initial. (Year). Article title. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page number(s). DOI
Paulo, M.L M. (2020). COVID-19: Psychological Impact. African Journal of Biology and Medical Research, 3(2), 182-187.
Ajao I.O., Awogbemi C.A., & Ilugbusi A.O. (2020). Vector Autoregressive Models for Multivariate Time Series Analysis on Covid-19 Pandemic in Nigeria. African Journal of Biology and Medical Research, 3(2), 171-181.
