Every in-text citation scenario you'll encounter — parenthetical vs narrative, direct quotes, paraphrases, block quotes, no author, no date, and tricky multiple-author rules.
APA 7th edition uses an author–date system. Every time you use information from a source, you must include an in-text citation with the author's surname and the year of publication. There are two formats:
Both are correct. Use narrative when you want to emphasise the author; use parenthetical when the idea is more important than who said it. For direct quotations, the page number is also required in both formats.
A paraphrase is information from a source expressed in your own words. Page numbers are recommended but not required for paraphrases — include them when it helps the reader locate the specific information.
A direct quotation reproduces the source's exact words within quotation marks. Always include the page number (or paragraph number for sources without pages).
Quotations of 40 or more words are formatted as a block quote: no quotation marks, indented 0.5 inch from the left margin, double-spaced. The citation appears after the final punctuation of the quote.
Spaced retrieval practice involves studying information and then being tested on it after varying delays. The delays between study and test increase over time so that the student is tested on information that is progressively more distant from when it was first studied. This method forces the learner to retrieve information from memory repeatedly, and retrieval itself strengthens memory traces. (Roediger & Butler, 2011, p. 22)
The citation after a block quote is placed after the final full stop — not before it, as with a short in-text quote.
If two sources shorten to the same "et al." citation — e.g. (Brown et al., 2020) for both Brown, Smith, Jones (2020) and Brown, Taylor, Williams (2020) — add as many names as needed to distinguish them:
(Brown, Smith, et al., 2020) and (Brown, Taylor, et al., 2020)
When a source has no identified author, use a shortened version of the title in place of the author name. Italicise book/report titles; use quotation marks for article/chapter titles.
If you cite two works by the same author published in the same year, add a lowercase letter after the year. The letter assignments are alphabetical by title and must match the reference list entries.
For organisations, government bodies, and corporations as authors, spell out the full name on first citation. If the organisation has a well-known abbreviation, you may introduce it and use the abbreviation in subsequent citations:
Personal communications — emails, interviews, phone calls, unpublished lectures — are cited in-text only. They do NOT appear in the reference list because readers cannot access them.
A secondary source is when you cite Source A after finding it quoted in Source B — you have not read A yourself. APA recommends always finding the primary source. When you cannot:
Only Roediger and Butler (2011) — the source you actually read — appears in the reference list. List the original author (Ebbinghaus) in the in-text citation for attribution, but do not add them to the reference list.
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