What does GB/T stand for?

GB/T stands for “Guójiā Biāozhǔn/Tuījiàn” (国家标准/推荐), meaning “National Standard/Recommended.” The “T” indicates it's a recommended (not mandatory) standard, though it's required by most Chinese academic institutions.

Which version of GB/T 7714 should I use?

GB/T 7714-2025 is the current edition. China's national standards platform lists it as published on 2 December 2025 and in force from 1 July 2026, fully replacing GB/T 7714-2015. The standard is recommended rather than mandatory, so follow the edition your university or journal names. Many templates and reference-manager styles still produce 2015 output.

What changed in GB/T 7714-2025?

Summaries published by Chinese university libraries and journal offices list these changes: Western author surnames are no longer written in full capitals (Smith J, not SMITH J); a new code [PP] for preprints; dedicated formats for proceedings, theses, reports, standards, web pages, archives, maps, datasets and preprints; “DOI” generalised to “persistent identifier”; and access dates dropped for non-online sources. The edition is a non-equivalent adoption of ISO 690:2021.

Do I need to use document type codes like [M] and [J]?

In practice, yes. The 2015 edition lists the code as optional for print sources and required for electronic ones, but Chinese universities and journals expect it on every entry, and every format in the 2025 edition includes it. It goes straight after the title: [M] book, [J] journal article, [D] thesis, and so on.

How do I cite a patent in GB/T 7714?

Applicant or owner. Title: patent number[P]. Publication date. For example: 邓一刚. 全智能节电器: 200610171314.3[P]. 2006-12-13. A patent retrieved online uses [P/OL] and adds the citation date in square brackets and the URL.

How do I cite sources in both Chinese and English?

Cite each source in its original language. The separators between elements (“. ”, “, ”, “: ”, “//”) are fixed by the standard and are the same for Chinese and English entries; Chinese entries do not switch to 、or 。. In the numeric system everything is numbered in order of first citation. In the author-date system the list is grouped by language (Chinese, Japanese, Western, Russian, other) and then sorted by author and year. Some journals also ask for an English translation after each Chinese entry.

Can I use GB/T 7714 with LaTeX?

Yes, the gbt7714 package on CTAN provides BibTeX styles for both numeric and author-date systems. Use \bibliographystyle{gbt7714-numerical} or \bibliographystyle{gbt7714-author-year} in your document. Check the package's release notes for 2025-edition support.

GB/T 7714 Reference Format: 2015 and 2025 Editions

GB/T 7714 format at a glance

Every reference follows the same skeleton: Author. Title[type code]. Publication details. These patterns apply in both the 2015 and 2025 editions; the differences between the two are in the next section.

Source	Format	Example
Journal article [J]	Author. Title[J]. Journal, Year, Volume(Issue): Pages.	袁训来, 陈哲, 肖书海, 等. 蓝田生物群: 一个认识多细胞生物起源和早期演化的新窗口[J]. 科学通报, 2012, 57(34): 3219.
Book [M]	Author. Title[M]. Edition. Place: Publisher, Year: Pages.	陈登原. 国史旧闻: 第1卷[M]. 北京: 中华书局, 2000: 29.
Thesis [D]	Author. Title[D]. Place: Institution, Year: Pages.	马欢. 人类活动影响下海河流域典型区水循环变化分析[D]. 北京: 清华大学, 2011: 27.
Conference paper [C]	Author. Title[C]//Editor. Proceedings title. Place: Publisher, Year: Pages.	贾东琴, 柯平. 面向数字素养的高校图书馆数字服务体系研究[C]//中国图书馆学会. 中国图书馆学会年会论文集: 2011年卷. 北京: 国家图书馆出版社, 2011: 45-52.
Patent [P]	Applicant or owner. Title: Patent number[P]. Publication date.	邓一刚. 全智能节电器: 200610171314.3[P]. 2006-12-13.
Web page [EB/OL]	Author. Title[EB/OL]. (Published or updated date)[Citation date]. URL.	萧钰. 出版业信息化迈入快车道[EB/OL]. (2001-12-19)[2002-04-15]. http://www.creader.com/news/20011219/200112190019.html.

The Chinese examples are the ones printed in the GB/T 7714-2015 standard; volumes, issues and pages have been checked against each work's own record (the 蓝田生物群 article is Chinese Science Bulletin 2012, 57(34): 3219–3227, doi:10.1360/csb2012-57-34-3219). List up to three authors; with four or more, give the first three followed by ", et al" (", 等" for Chinese sources). Writing in Chinese? See the Chinese-language version of this guide.

GB/T 7714-2025 vs GB/T 7714-2015

GB/T 7714 (《信息与文献参考文献著录规则》, "Information and documentation: Rules for bibliographic references and citations to information resources") is China's recommended national standard for reference lists. China's National Public Service Platform for Standards Information records:

GB/T 7714-2025: published 2 December 2025, in force from 1 July 2026, status current, fully replaces GB/T 7714-2015. It is a non-equivalent adoption of ISO 690:2021.
GB/T 7714-2015: replaced the 2005 edition and was itself superseded on 1 July 2026.

Chinese university libraries and journal editorial offices summarise the revision like this:

Item	2015 edition	2025 edition
Western author names	Surname in full capitals: SMITH J	Surname with initial capital only: Smith J. Given names in pinyin should be written in full
Document types	Dataset [DS] and map [CM] exist; no preprint code	Adds preprint [PP]; datasets get their own rules and examples
Types with their own format	Monographs, contributions, serials, patents, electronic resources	Adds separate formats for proceedings, theses, reports, standards, websites and web pages, archives, maps, datasets, preprints
Meaning of [EB]	Electronic bulletin	Website or web page
Identifier	DOI	Persistent identifier (DOI, CSTR and others)
Dates	Publication, update and citation dates	Created/published or modified date, plus citation date; no access date for non-online sources
Carrier codes	MT, DK, CD, OL	Adds MM (microform)
Dissertations	Pages optional	The cited page numbers are expected
Online journal articles	URL, with the DOI where one exists	Both the URL and the DOI (persistent identifier) are recorded

Which edition should you use? The standard is recommended, not mandatory, so your university, journal or publisher decides. Author guidelines issued after July 2026 are moving to the 2025 edition, but many current templates, EndNote and Zotero styles and LaTeX packages still output 2015. Check the latest instructions and keep one edition throughout.

Citation Systems

GB/T 7714 supports two in-text citation methods. Use one per document.

Numeric System

Sources are numbered in order of first appearance, with the number in square brackets, usually set as a superscript:

The research confirmed previous findings[1]. Later studies expanded on this work[2,3].

Separate non-consecutive numbers with commas [2,5] and join a run with a hyphen [1-3]. A source keeps its first number when cited again; put page numbers outside the bracket, as in [4]15-17.

Author-Date System

Citations give the author surname and year in parentheses. For a work with several authors only the first is cited: the surname plus "et al." for Western authors, the full name plus "等" for Chinese authors:

The research confirmed previous findings (Zhang, 2020). Later studies expanded on this work (Li et al., 2021).

To point to a page, the standard sets the page number as a superscript outside the parentheses: (Zhang, 2020)⁴⁵. Some journals ask for (Zhang, 2020: 45) instead.

Document Type Codes

The code sits in square brackets directly after the title:

Code	Document type	Code	Document type
[M]	Book (monograph)	[S]	Standard
[C]	Conference proceedings	[P]	Patent
[G]	Collected works	[DB]	Database
[N]	Newspaper	[CP]	Computer program
[J]	Journal	[EB]	Electronic bulletin (2025: website, web page)
[D]	Dissertation or thesis	[A]	Archive
[R]	Report	[CM]	Map
[DS]	Dataset	[Z]	Other
[PP]	Preprint (new in 2025)

Carrier codes describe how you accessed the source: [MT] magnetic tape, [DK] disk, [CD] CD-ROM, [OL] online, and from 2025 [MM] microform. Combine them with a slash for electronic sources: [M/OL] online book, [J/OL] online journal article, [EB/OL] web page, [P/OL] patent retrieved online. OL is never used on its own.

Citing Books (Monographs)

Format: Author. Title[M]. Edition. Place: Publisher, Year: Pages.

The Western-language examples below use 2015-edition capitalisation (surname in capitals). Under the 2025 edition write Horn B K P, Beale H, and so on. Every work shown is real.

Single author:

[1] HORN B K P. Robot vision[M]. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986.

Edited book (the standard records the name only, without a role such as "ed."):

[2] BEALE H. Chitty on contracts[M]. 36th ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 2025.

With four or more authors, list the first three and add ", et al" — the same rule as for articles, shown below.

A chapter in a book uses a double slash: Chapter author. Chapter title[M]//Book author or editor. Book title. Place: Publisher, Year: Pages.

Citing Journal Articles

Format: Author. Title[J]. Journal Name, Year, Volume(Issue): Pages.

[3] KANAMORI H. Shaking without quaking[J]. Science, 1998, 279(5359): 2063-2064.
[4] MYBURG A A, GRATTAPAGLIA D, TUSKAN G A, et al. The genome of Eucalyptus grandis[J]. Nature, 2014, 510(7505): 356-362.

Both entries were checked against the journals' records today (doi:10.1126/science.279.5359.2063 and doi:10.1038/nature13308). The second shows the "list three, then et al" rule.

Online journal article:

Format: Author. Title[J/OL]. Journal Name, Year, Volume(Issue): Pages[Citation date]. URL. DOI.

Citing Electronic Resources (EB/OL)

Format: Author. Title[EB/OL]. (Published or updated date)[Citation date]. URL.

[5] 萧钰. 出版业信息化迈入快车道[EB/OL]. (2001-12-19)[2002-04-15]. http://www.creader.com/news/20011219/200112190019.html.

The date in parentheses is when the page was published or updated; the date in square brackets is when you accessed it. Both use YYYY-MM-DD. An online source that is really a journal article, book, report or standard takes [J/OL], [M/OL], [R/OL] or [S/OL] rather than [EB/OL]. Databases use [DB/OL], datasets [DS/OL] and, in the 2025 edition, preprints [PP/OL].

Citing Dissertations and Theses

Format: Author. Title[D]. Place: Institution, Year: Pages.

[6] 马欢. 人类活动影响下海河流域典型区水循环变化分析[D]. 北京: 清华大学, 2011: 27.

Master's and doctoral theses both use [D]. A thesis retrieved from a database takes [D/OL] plus the citation date and URL.

Citing Conference Papers

A conference paper is a contribution within a proceedings volume, joined by a double slash:

Format: Author. Title[C]//Proceedings editor. Proceedings title. Place: Publisher, Year: Pages.

[7] 贾东琴, 柯平. 面向数字素养的高校图书馆数字服务体系研究[C]//中国图书馆学会. 中国图书馆学会年会论文集: 2011年卷. 北京: 国家图书馆出版社, 2011: 45-52.

Citing Patents

Format: Applicant or owner. Title: Patent number[P]. Publication date.

This example comes from the appendix of GB/T 7714-2015:

[8] 邓一刚. 全智能节电器: 200610171314.3[P]. 2006-12-13.

The patent number follows the title after a colon and comes before [P]. For a patent found online, use [P/OL] and add [citation date] and the URL after the publication date.

Citing Standards

The two editions differ here.

2015 edition: 全国信息与文献标准化技术委员会. 文献著录: 第4部分 非书资料: GB/T 3792.4—2009[S]. 北京: 中国标准出版社, 2010: 3.
2025 edition: GB/T 3792—2021 信息与文献 资源描述[S].

Author Name Formatting

Chinese names in Chinese: surname then given name, in full: 张伟, 李小明
Chinese names in pinyin: surname first. 2015: ZHANG Wei. 2025: Zhang Wei, with the given name in full
Western names: surname first, then initials without full stops. 2015: SMITH J, JOHNSON A B. 2025: Smith J, Johnson A B
Organizations as authors: give the full name
Author limits: list up to three authors; with more, give three and add "et al" (or "等")

Reference List Formatting

Numeric system: number entries in order of first citation
Author-date system: group entries by language (Chinese, Japanese, Western, Russian, other), then sort by author and year
Punctuation is fixed: a period between elements, a colon between place and publisher, a comma before the year, "//" between a contribution and its host
Titles are not italicized

GB/T 7714 vs Western Styles

Feature	GB/T 7714	APA
Document type codes	[M], [J], [D] after the title	Not used
Author names	Surname first with initials; full capitals in 2015, initial capital in 2025	Surname, Initials
Title formatting	No italics	Italics for books/journals
Online resources	[EB/OL], [J/OL] compound codes	Described in prose
Et al. threshold	After 3 authors	Varies by style

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Missing document type codes: include [M], [J], [D] straight after the title
Missing citation dates: [EB/OL] and [J/OL] entries need the access date in square brackets
Using [J] for an online article: if you give a URL or DOI, the code is [J/OL]
Dropping the "//": conference papers and book chapters need it between the contribution and the host
Mixing editions: SMITH J and Smith J should not appear in the same list

Sources

National Public Service Platform for Standards Information (SAMR), record for GB/T 7714-2025, accessed 21 September 2026
GB/T 7714—2015, Information and documentation: Rules for bibliographic references and citations to information resources. Beijing: Standards Press of China, 2015
East China University of Technology Library, summary of changes in GB/T 7714-2025, accessed 21 September 2026
Anhui University of Science and Technology Library, notice on GB/T 7714-2025, accessed 21 September 2026
gbt7714 BibTeX package on CTAN

Wonders helps you find, read and organize sources, then exports your library as BibTeX or RIS or sends it to Zotero. Pick a GB/T 7714 CSL style in Zotero, or the gbt7714 package in LaTeX, to produce the reference list.