APA In-text Citations

Mary MacLeod

Business Librarian

ELEMENTS OF APA IN-TEXT CITATIONS

(1) SURNAME(S) (or BRIEF TITLE if no AUTHOR)

(2) YEAR work was published.

… and sometimes (with direct quotations and some paraphrases):

PAGE NO. (or with websites, PARAGRAPH NO.)

In-text citations must easily relate to your reference list!

HOW TO INTEGRATE IN-TEXT CITATIONS

Examples:

Recent research demonstrates a strong correlation between cultural values and the effectiveness of web interface designs—particularly in an international context (Gould, 2005).

According to Gould (2005), the implications …

In 2005, Gould reviewed …

HOW TO INTEGRATE IN-TEXT CITATIONS

Note!• Parentheses are commonly used in APA in-text

citations, but are not always used.• If you refer to the same study again within the

same paragraph, use just the surname, not the year, unless leaving out the year would create confusion.

• APA style requires the year of publication in an in-text citation. Do not include a month, even if the source is listed by month and year.

BUT WHAT IF…?

A WORK WITH TWO AUTHORS

Examples:• More recent research indicates that small

businesses can indeed manage the drain of knowledge workers and survive in a high technology environment (McDougall & Hurst, 2007).

• According to McDougall and Hurst (2007), significant factors …

A WORK WITH THREE TO FIVE AUTHORS

Identify all authors the first time you cite the source.

• Helms Mills, Weatherbee, & Coldwell (2006) concluded that …

But In subsequent citations, use only the first author’s name followed by “et al.”

• Helms Mills et al. (2006) advised that…

A WORK WITH SIX OR MORE AUTHORS

Use the first author’s name followed by “et al.” in both the first and subsequent citations.

Examples:

• Recent research in this area produced quite different results (Wolchik et al., 2000).

• Wolchik et al. (2000) surveyed…

TWO OR MORE WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR IN THE SAME YEAR

When your list of references includes more than one work by the same author in the same year, use lowercase letters (“a,” “b,” and so on) with the year to order the entries in the reference list. Use those same letters with the year in the in-text citation.

• Research by Koul (2007b) has suggested new options for…

AUTHORS WITH THE SAME LAST NAME

To avoid confusion, use initials with the last names if your reference list includes two or more authors with the same last name.

• Research by K. Dye (2004) revealed that . . .

• More recent studies have revealed no correlation between gender and turnover rates (K. Dye, 2004).

ORGANIZATION AS AUTHOR

If the author is an organization or government agency, provide the name of the organization in the parenthetical citation or within your text when you cite the source.

• January 2008 showed the strongest month to month increase in motor vehicles sales in the past two and a half years (Statistics Canada, 2008).

ORGANIZATION AS AUTHOR

If the organization has a familiar abbreviation, you may include it in brackets the first time you cite the source and use the abbreviation alone in later citations.

FIRST CITATION:• Marketing has recently been re-defined as “the activity, set of

institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (American Marketing Association [AMA], 2008).

SUBSEQUENT CITATIONS:• (AMA, 2008).

N0 AUTHOR IDENTIFIED

Either refer to the title of the work in your text or include the first word or two of the title in the parenthetical citation.

Titles of articles and chapters are put in quotation marks; titles of books and reports are italicized.

• Travellers can exert a positive influence upon

local environments they visit by adopting ethical practices such as avoiding pre-packaged holidays, eating local foods, and being sensitive to local customs and religious practices (“Travellers’ code,” 2008).

TWO OR MORE WORKS IN THE SAME PARENTHESES

When you provide two or more works in a parenthetical citation, put them in the same order that they appear in the reference list, separated by semicolons.

• Several current research studies have indicated that early research results … are inconclusive (Helms Mills et al. , 2006; MacDougall & Hurst, 2007).

PERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Interviews, memos, letters, e-mail, and similar unpublished person-to-person communications should be cited as follows:

• University rating systems must be examined closely because data

requested of universities was often imprecisely defined and consequently data supplied was subject to the interpretation of individual institutions and frequently not legitimately comparable. (T. E. Weatherby, classroom communication, November 30, 2007).

Do not include personal communications in your reference list!

A WEBSITE

When possible, cite a web document just as you would any other document.

Example:

• K. Dye (2004) found that, contrary to widespread management opinion, research has not established a reliable correlation between gender and turnover rates in industry.

A WEBSITE

Websites may lack authors’ names or dates. In addition, they may lack page numbers (required in some citations).

What follows are APA’s guidelines for handling sources without authors’ names, dates, or page numbers.

A WEBSITE

UNKNOWN AUTHOR

If no author is named, refer to the title of the document in the text of your paper or give the first word or two of the title in your parenthetical citation.

• Investment advisors fall into two distinct categories distinguished by the services they provide and the clients they typically serve (“Investment advisors”, 2007).

A WEBSITE

UNKNOWN DATE

When the date is unknown, APA recommends using the abbreviation “n.d.” (for “no date”).

• “LazyTown” is now a household name in Iceland and has taken hold in American households as well (Bryson, n.d.).

A WEBSITE

NO PAGE NUMBERS

APA ordinarily requires page numbers for quotations, and it recommends them for summaries or paraphrases from long sources. When an electronic source lacks stable numbered pages, your citation should include — if possible — information that will help readers locate the particular passage being cited.

A WEBSITE

NO PAGE NUMBERS

When an electronic document has numbered paragraphs, use the paragraph number preceded by the symbol ¶ or by the abbreviation “para.”: (Hall, 2001, ¶ 5) or (Hall, 2001, para. 5)

If neither a page nor a paragraph number is given and the document contains headings, cite the appropriate heading and indicate which paragraph under that heading you are referring to.

A WEBSITE

NO PAGE NUMBERS

Example:

• Alex MacBeath, CEO of Grant Thornton International, concluded that his own strengths lay in “establishing a vision, and communicating that message and vision constantly and consistently throughout the organization” (Hutchinson & Vibert, 2004, para. 24).

NOTE: Electronic files that are PDFs usually have stable page numbers. For such sources, give the page number in the parenthetical citation.

INDIRECT SOURCE

If you use a source that was cited in another source (a secondary source), name the original source in the text of your paper. List the secondary source in your reference list and include it in your parenthetical citation, preceded by the words “as cited in.” In the following example, Dye is the secondary source.

Example:

• In a major statistical review which analyzed all previous studies, Cotton and Tuttle (1986) concluded that women workers were more likely to leave their jobs than males working in similar positions (as cited in K. Dye, 2004).

BASIC FORMAT FOR A QUOTATION

Ordinarily, introduce a long quotation with a phrase which includes the author’s last name followed by the year of publication in parentheses. Put the page number (preceded by “p.”) in parentheses after the quotation.

BASIC FORMAT FOR A QUOTATION

Examples:• MacDougall and Hurst (2007) demonstrate

through their research that “young businesses can not only survive but thrive in the knowledge-intensive high-technology arena” (p. 197).

• Recent research has demonstrated that “young businesses can not only survive but thrive in the knowledge-intensive high-technology arena” (MacDougall & Hurst, 2007, p. 197).

And these are the basics of

APA in-text citation!