A referencing style is a set of rules and standards that determine how you cite and reference the sources you use in your work in text and in the reference list.

Particular referencing styles are preferred by certain academic disciplines because they work better with the kind of texts that are most commonly used in that discipline. SAE Institute uses the American Psychological Association (APA) author–date citation style (7th edition) that has two parts: in-text citations, that appear in the body of the paper, and a corresponding reference which appears in an alphabetised list at the end.

The official APA official manual provides formatting and referencing advice for works that are to be published. Since student assignments are not considered to be "published", the SAE Institute has adapted the official guide to provide slightly modified instructions for using APA style referencing in undergraduate students' assessments.

The modifications to APA official rules have been made in the following areas:

• Using Images/Figures and Tables;
• Using URLs for referencing online resources from academic databases (see Reference list);
• Including a page number in the in-text citation for both quoting and paraphrasing from resources that have page numbers.

If you are publishing (e.g. journal article, thesis), please consult the APA official style guide or the Publication Manual as the examples provided in the SAE APA7 Referencing guide may differ slightly from the requirements outlined in the official guide.