To in-text cite in APA style, follow these key guidelines:
- Use the author-date method, which includes the author's last name and the year of publication in parentheses. For example: (Jones, 1998)
- If you mention the author's name in the sentence, place the year in parentheses immediately after the name: Jones (1998) found that...
- For direct quotations, include the page number after the year, separated by a comma and preceded by "p." or "pp." for multiple pages. Example: (Jones, 1998, p. 23)
- If the source has no page numbers (such as websites or e-books), use paragraph numbers (para. 4), section headings, or timestamps instead: (Jones, 1998, para. 4)
- For two authors, include both last names joined by an ampersand (&) in parentheses: (Smith & Lee, 2020), or "and" in narrative citations: Smith and Lee (2020)
- For three or more authors, use the first author's last name followed by "et al.": (Brown et al., 2019)
- When citing multiple sources in one parenthesis, separate them with semicolons and list alphabetically: (Jones, 2015; Smith, 2014)
- Place the in-text citation before the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence
- For indirect sources, use "as cited in": (Brown, 1829, as cited in Mahone, 2018)
In summary, an APA in-text citation looks like this:
- Paraphrase: (Author, Year) or Author (Year)
- Direct quote: (Author, Year, p. Page Number)
This brief citation corresponds to a full reference entry in the reference list
