Citing Sources in the Text
Directory to In-Text-Citation Models
One author
More than one author
Unknown author
Two or more works by the same author in the same year
Two or more authors with the same last name
Corporation, organization, or government agency as author
Indirect citation (quotation from a secondary source)
Two or more works cited in the same parentheses
When citing ideas, information, or words borrowed from a source, include the author’s last name and the date of publication in the text of your research project. In most cases, you will want to use a signal phrase to introduce the works you are citing, since doing so gives you the opportunity to put the work and its author in context. A signal phrase includes the author’s last name, the date of publication, and a verb that describes the author’s attitude or stance:
Smith (2011) complains that . . .
Jones (2012) defends her position by . . .
Use a parenthetical citation—(Jones, 2012)—when you have already introduced the author or the work or when citing the source of an uncontroversial fact. When quoting from a source, also include the page number: Smith (2011) complains that he “never gets a break” (p. 123). When you are paraphrasing or summarizing, you may omit the page reference, although including it is not wrong.
One author
| SIGNAL PHRASE | Upton Sinclair (2005), a crusading journalist, wrote that workers sometimes “fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting” (p. 134). |
| PARENTHETICAL CITATION |
|
| REFERENCE-LIST ENTRY | Sinclair, U. (2005). The jungle. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1906) |
More than one author In a signal phrase, use the word and between the authors’ names; in a parenthetical citation, use an ampersand (&). When citing a work by three to seven authors, list all the authors in your first reference; in subsequent references, just list the first and use et al. (Latin for and others).
| SIGNAL PHRASE | As Jamison and Tyree (2001) have found, racial bias does not diminish merely through exposure to individuals of other races. |
| PARENTHETICAL CITATION | Racial bias does not diminish through exposure (Jamison & Tyree, 2001). |
| FIRST CITATION | Rosenzweig, Breedlove, and Watson (2005) wrote that biological psychology is an interdisciplinary field that includes scientists from “quite different backgrounds” (p. 3). |
| LATER CITATIONS | Biological psychology is “the field that relates behavior to bodily processes, especially the workings of the brain” (Rosenzweig et al., 2005, p. 3). |
For works with more than seven authors, list the first six, an ellipsis ( . . . ), and the last author.
Unknown author To cite a work when the author is unknown, the APA suggests using a shortened version of the title.
An international pollution treaty still to be ratified would prohibit all plastic garbage from being dumped at sea (“Plastic Is Found,” 1972).
The full title of the article is “Plastic Is Found in the Sargasso Sea; Pieces of Apparent Refuse Cover Wide Atlantic Region.”
Two or more works by the same author in the same year When your list of references includes two works by the same author, the year of publication is usually enough to distinguish them. Occasionally, though, you may have two works by the same author in the same year. If this happens, alphabetize the works by title in your list of references, and add a lowercase letter after the date (2005a, 2005b).
Middle-class unemployed workers are better off than their lower-class counterparts, because “the white collar unemployed are likely to have some assets to invest in their job search” (Ehrenreich, 2005b, p. 16).
Two or more authors with the same last name Include the author’s initials.
F. Johnson (2010) conducted an intriguing study on teen smoking.
Corporation, organization, or government agency as author Spell out the name of the organization the first time you use it, but abbreviate it in subsequent citations.
(National Institutes of Health, 2012)
(NIH, 2012)
Indirect citation (quotation from a secondary source) To quote material taken not from the original source but from a secondary source that quotes the original, give the secondary source in the reference list, and in your essay acknowledge the original source and cite the secondary source.
E. M. Forster said “the collapse of all civilization, so realistic for us, sounded in Matthew Arnold’s ears like a distant and harmonious cataract” (as cited in Trilling, 1955, p. 11).
Two or more works cited in the same parentheses List sources in alphabetical order separated by semicolons.
(Johnson, 2010; NIH, 2012)