Apa In Text Citation Example

In-Text Citation Example

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), in-text citations are a crucial part of academic writing, as they allow authors to credit the original source of their information and ideas. When using APA style, there are several ways to format in-text citations, depending on the type of source and the number of authors.

Single Author

For sources with a single author, the in-text citation should include the author’s last name and the year of publication, separated by a comma. For example: (Smith, 2020). If the author’s name is mentioned in the sentence, only the year of publication is included in parentheses: Smith (2020) found that…

Multiple Authors

For sources with two authors, both authors’ last names are included in the in-text citation, separated by an ampersand (&) if they are in parentheses, or “and” if they are in the sentence. For example: (Smith & Johnson, 2020) or Smith and Johnson (2020) found that… For sources with three or more authors, only the first author’s last name is included in the in-text citation, followed by “et al.” For example: (Smith et al., 2020).

No Author

For sources with no author, the title of the source is used in the in-text citation, in title case and enclosed in quotation marks. For example: (“The Impact of Climate Change”, 2020). If the source has a DOI (digital object identifier), it should be included at the end of the citation.

Multiple Sources

When citing multiple sources in a single sentence, the in-text citations should be separated by semicolons. For example: (Smith, 2020; Johnson, 2019; Williams, 2018). If the sources have the same author and year of publication, a lowercase letter is added to the year of publication to distinguish between them. For example: (Smith, 2020a; Smith, 2020b).