To do in-text citations in APA style, follow these key guidelines:
- Use the author-date method: include the author's last name and the year of publication in parentheses, for example, (Field, 2005)
- For direct quotations, also include the page number, for example, (Field, 2005, p. 14)
. If there are no page numbers (e.g., websites or e-books), use a paragraph number or other locator, such as (Field, 2005, para. 1)
- In-text citations can be either parenthetical or narrative:
- Parenthetical citation: The citation appears in parentheses at the end of the sentence, e.g., (Parker, 2019)
* Narrative citation: The author's name is part of the sentence with the year in parentheses, e.g., Parker (2019) found that...
- Place the in-text citation before the final punctuation mark in a sentence
- For multiple authors:
- Two authors: include both names separated by an ampersand (&) in parentheses, e.g., (Smith & Jones, 2020)
* Three or more authors: use the first author's last name followed by "et al.", e.g., (Brown et al., 2018)
- If citing multiple works in one citation, separate them with semicolons, e.g., (Smith, 2019; Jones, 2020)
- When citing indirect sources, use "as cited in" to indicate the secondary source, e.g., (Brown, 1829, as cited in Mahone, 2018)
- If you mention the author's name in the text, you only need to include the year in parentheses immediately after the name, and page number at the end if quoting, e.g., Srinivasan and Collard (2023) argued... (p. 289)
In summary, an APA in-text citation typically looks like this:
- Paraphrase: (Author, Year)
- Direct quote: (Author, Year, p. Page Number)
Every in-text citation must correspond to a full reference entry in the reference list
. Example:
- Paraphrasing: Social media use is linked to anxiety symptoms in teenagers (Parker, 2019).
- Direct quote: Parker (2019) found that "social media usage correlates with anxiety symptoms" (p. 67)
This approach ensures clear attribution and allows readers to locate the original source easily.
