Thesis citations and bibliography: APA, Chicago, MLA and ISO 690 examples

Updated 18 October 2026 · overminder

Your supervisor or department usually decides the citation style. What matters is choosing one and applying it consistently.

One book in four styles

In the text

• Author–date (APA): “… public space as a meeting place (Gehl, 2010, p. 23).”
• MLA: “… a meeting place (Gehl 23).”
• Footnotes (Chicago notes-bibliography): a superscript number points to a note with the source and page.

Footnotes and Ibid.

1. Jan Gehl, Cities for People (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010), 23.
2. Ibid., 25.      (same work as the previous note, different page)
3. Gehl, Cities for People, 41.   (shortened form later on)

A journal article with a DOI (APA 7)

Moreno, C., Allam, Z., Chabaud, D., Gall, C., & Pratlong, F. (2021). Introducing the “15-minute city”: Sustainability, resilience and place identity in future post-pandemic cities. Smart Cities, 4(1), 93–111. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4010006

Tips

• Write down the page number while you read.
• Keep DOIs and ISBNs: they rebuild a reference in seconds.
• Never mix styles in the same thesis.

With Gradus

Paste a DOI, an ISBN or a web address and the source fills itself in (Zotero and BibTeX import too). Switch style and every citation, footnote, Ibid. and the bibliography update across the whole thesis.