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APA 7th Edition Citation Guide

In-Text Citations

How to Use This Guide

Citations in APA style include two parts: (1) in-text citations, which are connected to (2) reference list citations.

This guide will help you create in-text citations that correlate with the corresponding reference list citations. Please see Reference Examples for more details on the reference list.

Note: All sources that are cited in the text must appear in the reference list at the end of the paper except for Personal Communications and similar unrecoverable sources.

Handling In-Text Citations

When mentioning the author in the text of your sentence, provide the author's last name, immediately followed by the date in parentheses.

Example:
Johnson (2008) argues that...

When not mentioning the author in the text of your sentence, provide the author and date at the end of the sentence in parentheses.

Example:
... hypothetical results (Johnson, 2008).

When quoting or paraphrasing a specific detail, include the page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence.

Example:
"... forgetfulness" (p. 678). Alternative example: "... forgetfulness (Johnson, 2008, p. 678).

When writing your paper, you have two basic choices to make when presenting a source to the reader:

  1. You can choose to refer to a work in general.
  2. You can specifically quote or paraphrase the words and content of that source.

You can also choose to mention the author in the text of your sentences or you can choose to omit the author's name.

For additional examples, please visit the In-Text Citations: Author/Authors page on Purdue Online Writing Lab.

From the APA Style Blog

In-Text Citations