Citing and Referencing (APA) IB: Sources not used in original language

This guidance comes from the IB, but where no other specific guidance is given would be equally relevant for other students.

Citing sources not in the language of submission

• You may use a source not written in the same language as the rest of your essay.
• When you quote (or paraphrase) that source in your text you should quote it in translation (i.e. in the same language as the rest of your essay). If you have translated the source yourself then you must also include the original quote as a footnote. Your supervisor may help you (if they can) by checking that your translation is an accurate representation of the meaning of the original text.
• If you are working with a published translation then cite and reference that rather than the work in the original language.
• If you are working with the source in the original language then you should cite and reference the source in the original language. The clearest way to do that is to put the title in the original language, immediately followed in square brackets by the title in the language of the essay. If using an academic paper you could do the same for the title of the journal.

e.g. de Saint-Exupéry, A. (1943). Le petit prince [The little prince]. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock.

The IB also say that:

"Where there is no official published translation, the student should write a brief summary alongside the source in the language of submission of a) the title, b) name of the author, c) the focus of the work and d) any other relevant details. This way, the examiner can assess the relevance and suitability of the source as required."

If necessary you could do this immediately after the bibliography, but in most cases (if you have included the translated title in square brackets as above) it should not be necessary.

For more examples, have a look at this page on the APA blog.

If citing a work you read in translation, you should cite the original author as the author or the work, but put the translator in round brackets after the title. For example, this book

Would be referenced in the bibliography as:

de Saint-Exupéry, A. (1995). The little prince (I. Testot-Ferry, Trans.). Ware, UK: Wordsworth Editions.

and cited in text as (de Saint-Exupéry, 1995).

Notice that in this case the year of publication is the year that the translation was published, not the year that the original work was published.