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RISE Article Research & APA Boot Camp: APA In-Text Citations

In-Text APA Citations

In-text citations are easy to do in comparison to the reference list citations!

What:

  • APA uses the parenthetical author/date combination.
  • In-text citation are in the body of the paper  and briefly identify the cited work by its author and date of publication.

Why:

  • This helps readers to locate the corresponding entry in the reference list at the end of the paper.
  • You have to cite sources to avoid plagiarism

Step 1: In-Text Authors

One author:

  • Patel,

Two Authors:

  • Patel & Lopez,

Three or more authors

  • Chen et al.,

Authors with the same last name:

To avoid confusion, include the first initials

  • E. Johnson, 
  • L. Johnson,

Organization Names:

  • American Psychological Association,
    • In second and subsequent in-text citations to this author, you can abbreviate to APA, )

 

Step 2: In-Text Date

The second component of in-text citations is the date. It is simply the date the source was published

  • (Patel, 20212)
  • (Patel & Lopez, 2023)
  • (Chen et al., 2022)

If you have citations with the same authors and they are published in the same year, differentiate with an "a" or "b"

The a or b is based on the order the citations are in your reference list

  • (Patel & Lopez, 2023a)
  • (Patel & Lopez, 2023b)

No date

If no author or date is given, use the title in your signal phrase or the first word or two of the title in the parentheses and use the abbreviation "n.d." (for "no date"). This will be rare and generally only with webpages.

  • (Patel & Lopez, n.d.)