Skip to Main Content
We are working to upgrade the research experience by making ongoing improvements to our Research Guides.
You may encounter changes in the look and feel of the Research Guides website along with structural changes to our existing guides. If you have any questions or concerns about this process please let us know.

APA Boot Camp

APA Style 7th edition (2020)

See Basic information below relating to In-Text Citations.

See the APA Style Manual (Chapter 8) for details and additional information and the APA website on In-Text Citations.

In-Text Citations
Why to use:  Avoid plagiarism by giving credit to your sources.

What:     Author-Date citation system

Author type Parenthetical
Citation
Narrative
citation
one author (Rebar, 2020) Rebar (2020)
two authors (Rebar & Greene, date) Rebar and Greene (2020)
three or more authors (Rebar et al., 2020) Rebar et al. (2020)

Group author with abbreviation

   First citation

   Subsequent citations


(National Institutes of Health [NIH], 2020)


(NIH, 2020)


National Institutes of Health (NIH, 2020)


NIH (2020)

Group author (without abbreviation) (Creative Commons, 2020) Creative Commons (2020)

Direct Quotations:

Add a comma after date, the abbreviation for page (p.) or pages (pp.) if the quotation continues from one page to the next, and show page number(s) where direct quote appears in the original work. If a page number is not available, you may need to show a section of the work (or website), a paragraph number (counting down from the top of a webpage), etc.

(Rebar et al., 2020, p. 19)   
(Rebar & Greene, 2020, pp. 19-20)   
(Rebar, 2020, para. 5)

When to use:   (also see other information in APA Manual)

Paraphrasing Quotations
Cite only sources you have read Cite primary sources whenever possible
Works you use for facts, ideas, theories, etc. Cite secondary sources, but use sparsely

Where to use:

Author named in text Show date in parentheses immediately after author name(s)        as stated by Rebar (2020)
Author not named in text Show author(s) and date in parentheses immediately after ideas, facts, etc. used in your paper (even if in the middle of a sentence)  
More than one reference for an idea, fact, etc

(Rebar & Greene, 2020; Smith et al., 2019)

Use a semicolon between author in-text citations if showing more than one reference for an idea, fact, etc.
Place the citations in alphabetical order when citing them parenthetically, and separate them with semicolons (as shown above).

In-Text Citations in APA online website

Last updated on Mar 15, 2024 12:25 AM