IN-TEXT CITATIONS APA Style

Paraphrases & Direct Quotes

It identifies the source of information in the body of your

writing.

What is an in-text

citation?

If you do not, it is plagiarism or stealing the

words.

One is for paraphrases

.

The other is for direct quotes.

There are 2 types of

In-text citations.

For paraphrasing remember :

Same meaning but different words.

For example, There are 2

and a quarter million people

in Dubai. Change to: Dubai has a

population of 2.25 million.

You do not need “quotation marks” for paraphrases. But, you need to note the source of

the information.

Do it like this : (Author, year)

Put it in the body of your writing, not at

the bottom of a page.

Open parenthesi

s mark

Year source

publishedAuthor’s last name only

Closed parenthesis

mark

Comma, space

(Author, year)

Page numbers are not noted in APA for paraphrases.

What about just a number from

a table, or graph?

For example, here is a table

that says 1½ million cats live in the UAE.

Country PopulationCats

UAE 1.5 million

Oman 3.2 million

Qatar 1 million

Did you count the 1 ½ million yourself ? No !

You read it.

Write it the same way but add the page number :

(Smith, 2005, p. 4)

So, you must note the

source of your information.

The complete citation (full author name, year, title, city, publisher, & pages) must be in the Reference List at

the end of your paper.

What if the source is a website? Again, write the

author’s last name and year.

If there is no author, write the first 2-3

words of the title of the webpage in italics

and the year.

For example,

Complete Citation for Reference List:

Endangered Animals of the World. (2009). Retrieved December 2, 2009, from Animal World http://www.animalworld.org

In-text Citation:

(Endangered Animals, 2009).

A DIRECT QUOTE is when you use the

exact words from a book or other source.

You must use “quotation

marks” around these words and note the page

number.

Open parenthesi

s mark

Letter “p” lower case. Dot. Page number

Author’s last name only. Comma. Space.

Closed parenthesis

mark

Year. Comma.Space.

(Author, year, p. #)

But, the author’s name, year, and page number must appear in parentheses.

Words words words words words words words words words words words wordsWords words words words words wordsWords words words words words wordsWords words words words words wordsWords words words words words wordsWords words words words words wordsWords words words (Smith, 2004, p. 23).

For quotes of more than 40

words, tab over and create a

block.

No quotation marks are

needed around this block.

What if you don’t need all the words and want to delete

some words in a quotation?

Use . . . (dot, dot, dot) in place of the

words you deleted.

This is called an ellipsis. “words . . . words”

What if you need to add a word so it makes sense?

Use square brackets to show that the

word you added was not in the original.

“She [Lady

MacBeth] suffered from

guilt.”

I hope you understand how to write in-text

citations.

Ask your teacher or your friendly librarian

if you have any questions.