APA 7th Citation Guide

Basic principles of citation are covered in Sections 8.10–8.36 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition. This guidance is the same as in the 6th edition.

APA Style uses the author–date citation system, in which a brief in-text citation directs readers to a full reference list entry. The in-text citation appears within the body of the paper (or in a table, figure, footnote, or appendix) and briefly identifies the cited work by its author and date of publication. This enables readers to locate the corresponding entry in the alphabetical reference list at the end of the paper.

Each work cited must appear in the reference list, and each work in the reference list must be cited in the text (or in a table, figure, footnote, or appendix).

Both paraphrases and quotations require citations.

The following are guidelines to follow when writing in-text citations:

• Ensure that the spelling of author names and the publication dates in reference list entries match those in the corresponding in-text citations.
• Cite only works that you have read and ideas that you have incorporated into your writing. The works you cite may provide key background information, support or dispute your thesis, or offer critical definitions and data.
• Readers may find a long string of citations difficult to understand, especially if they are using assistive technology such as a screen reader; therefore, include only those citations needed to support your immediate point.
• Cite primary sources when possible, and cite secondary sources sparingly.
• Cite sources to document all facts and figures that you mention that are not common knowledge.
• To cite a specific part of a source, provide an author–date citation for the work plus information about the specific part.
• Even when sources cannot be retrieved (e.g., because they are personal communications), still credit them in the text (however, avoid using online sources that are no longer recoverable).

Source

The author–date citation system is covered in Sections 8.10–8.36 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition. This guidance has been revised from the 6th edition.

APA Style uses the author–date citation system, in which a brief in-text citation directs readers to a full reference list entry. The in-text citation appears within the body of the paper and briefly identifies the cited work by its author and date of publication. This enables readers to locate the corresponding entry in the alphabetical reference list at the end of the paper. Each work cited must appear in the reference list, and each work in the reference list must be cited in the text.

In-text citations have two formats:

• In parenthetical citations, the author name and publication date appear in parentheses.
• In narrative citations, the author name is incorporated into the text as part of the sentence and the year follows in parentheses.

Parenthetical Citations

Both the author and the date, separated by a comma, appear in parentheses for a parenthetical citation. A parenthetical citation can appear within or at the end of a sentence.

     Falsely balanced news coverage can distort the public’s perception of expert consensus on an issue (Koehler, 2016).

Narrative Citations

The author’s last name appears in your sentence, and the date appears in parentheses immediately after the author’s name for a narrative citation. The author’s name can be included in the sentence in any place it makes sense.

     Koehler (2016) noted the dangers of falsely balanced news coverage.

In rare cases, the author and date might both appear in the narrative. In this case, do not use parentheses.

     In 2016, Koehler noted the dangers of falsely balanced news coverage.

Figure 8.2 Correspondence Between a Reference List Entry and an In-Text Citation

Exceptions to the Basic In-Text Citation Styles

• when two works in a paper would both abbreviate to the same “et al.” form  (spell out as many surnames as needed to disambiguate)
• when multiple works in a paper have an identical author (or authors) and publication year  (append letters to the years)
• when the first authors of multiple references in a paper share the same surname but have different initials  (use initials in the in-text citations)

Dates in a Citation

• The year in the in-text citation should match the year in the reference list entry.
• Use only the year in the in-text citation, even if the reference list entry contains a more specific date (e.g., year, month, and day).
• For works with no date, use “n.d.” in the in-text citation.
• For works that have been accepted for publication but have not yet been published, use “in press.”

Further Guidelines for In-Text Citations

• Each in-text citation must correspond to only one reference list entry.
• Do not include suffixes such as “Jr.” in the in-text citation.
• For works with an unknown author (see Section 9.12), include the title and year of publication in the in-text citation.
• Chapter 10 of the Publication Manual (7th ed.) includes more than 100 reference examples, each of which includes examples of the parenthetical and narrative citations.
• For more guidance and examples, see the Publication Manual. 

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Repeating a Citation

When repeating a citation, show the entire citation; do not, for example, include only a page number (the abbreviation “ibid.” is not used in APA Style). Instead, use the following guidelines:

Paraphrasing is covered in Sections 8.23 and 8.24 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition. This guidance has been expanded from the 6th edition.

Paraphrasing

Restates another’s idea in your own words. You should try to paraphrase more than using direct quotations where possible because it allows you to summarize and synthesize information from one or more sources, focus on significant information, and compare and contrast relevant details.

When you paraphrase, cite the original work using either the narrative or parenthetical citation format:

Parenthetical:

     The conclusion reached in a recent study (Cochrane, 2019) was that . . .

Narrative:

     Cochrane (2019) concluded that . . .

Long paraphrases

If a paraphrase continues for several sentences, cite the work being paraphrased on the first mention. Once you have cited the work, you do not need to repeat the citation as long as your writing makes it clear that you are paraphrasing the same work.  However, if you incorporate multiple sources or switch among sources, repeat the citation so the source is clear. 

Reintroduce the citation if the paraphrase continues into a new paragraph. 

Example from APA Style website:

Velez et al. (2018) found that for women of color, sexism and racism in the workplace were associated with poor work and mental health outcomes, including job-related burnout, turnover intentions, and psychological distress. However, self-esteem, person–organization fit, and perceived organizational support mediated these effects. Additionally, stronger womanist attitudes—which acknowledge the unique challenges faced by women of color in a sexist and racist society—weakened the association of workplace discrimination with psychological distress. These findings underscore the importance of considering multiple forms of workplace discrimination in clinical practice and research with women of color, along with efforts to challenge and reduce such discrimination.

Direct Quotations

Quotations are covered in Sections 8.25 and 8.34 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition. This guidance has been expanded from the 6th edition.

A direct quote reproduces words verbatim from another work. When quoting directly, always provide the author, year, and page number or the page range of the quotation (in both parenthetical and narrative in-text citations). Use direct quotations:

• when reproducing an exact definition
• when an author has said something memorably or succinctly, or
• when you want to respond to exact wording (e.g., something someone said).

Short Quotations (fewer than 40 words)

For quotations of fewer than 40 words, add quotation marks around the words and incorporate the quote into your own text—no additional formatting is needed.

Parenthetical:

One page number

     Effective teams can be difficult to describe because “high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another” (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470).

Page-range

     "Classroom management strategies should aim to enhance student social and moral growth" (Wubbels, 2011, as cited in Woodcock & Ruepert, pp. 655-656). 

Narrative:

     Ervin at al. (2018) assert that effective teams can be difficult to describe because “high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another” (p. 470).

Block Quotations (40 words or more)

Format quotations of 40 words or more as block quotations:

• Start a block quotation on a new line and indent the whole block 0.5 in. from the left margin.

• Double-space the entire block quotation.

• Do not add extra space before or after it.

• If there are additional paragraphs within the quotation, indent the first line of each subsequent paragraph an additional 0.5 in. See an example in Section 8.27 of the Publication Manual.

• Either (a) cite the source in parentheses after the quotation’s final punctuation or (b) cite the author and year in the narrative before the quotation and place only the page number in parentheses after the quotation’s final punctuation.

• Do not add a period after the closing parenthesis in either case.

Block Quotation with parenthetical citation:

Researchers have studied how people talk to themselves:

Block Quotation with narrative citation:

Flores et al. (2018) described how they addressed potential researcher bias when working with an intersectional community of transgender people of color:

Learn more:

• Paraphrases
• Quotations

Quoting from material with no page numbers

If you want to directly quote from written material that does not contain page numbers (e.g., webpages and websites, some ebooks), or eJournals that do not have continuous page numbers, then provide readers with another way of finding the quoted passage. APA Style lists many approaches on their website linked under "Learn More." Use the approach that will help readers find the quotation the easiest.

The author–date citation system is covered in Sections 8.10–8.36 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition. This guidance has been revised from the 6th edition.

The format of the author element of the in-text citation changes depending on the number of authors and is abbreviated in some cases.

• For a work with one or two authors, include the author name(s) in every citation.
• For a work with three or more authors, include the name of only the first author plus “et al.” in every citation (even the first citation).
• If you cite different works of 3+ authors which shorten to the same in-text citation form, write out as many names as needed to distinguish the references, and abbreviate the rest of the names to "et al." in every citation. 

The following table shows the basic in-text citation styles:

* Define the abbreviation for a group author only once in the text, choosing either the parenthetical or the narrative format. Thereafter, use the abbreviation for all mentions of the group in the text.

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Citing multiple works is covered in Sections 8.12 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition. This guidance has been revised from the 6th edition.

Different citations of about equal weight

Order the citations within the parenthesis in alphabetical order as they would appear in the reference list, separated by a semicolon.

Example

(Adams et al., 2019; Shumway & Shulman, 2015; Westinghouse, 2017)

Two or more works by the same authors

Order the citations by year of publication. Citations with no date go first, then works with dates in chronological order, and have in-press citations last.

Example

(Zhou, n.d., 2000, 2016, in-press)

or Zhou (n.d., 2000, 2016, in-press)

Emphasis of work over related works

To emphasize works which relate to your point the most in a given sentence, place those citations first within parentheses in alphabetical order, followed by a semicolon and a phrase, like "see also", before the first of the remaining citations, keeping these also in alphabetical order.

Example

(Sampson & Hughes, 2020; see also Augustine, 2017; Melara et al., 2018; Perez, 2014)

Multiple works where some author names have been abbreviated to "et al."

Place the citations in chronological order (despite the order that they appear in the reference list)

Example

(Carraway et al., 2013, 2014, 2019)

Source

Secondary sources are covered in Section 8.6 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition. This guidance has been expanded from the 6th edition.

Citing secondary sources (Citing a source within another source)

In scholarly work, a primary source reports original content; a secondary source refers to content first reported in another source.

• Cite secondary sources sparingly—for instance, when the original work is out of print, unavailable, or available only in a language that you do not understand.
• If possible, as a matter of good scholarly practice, find the primary source, read it, and cite it directly rather than citing a secondary source. For example, rather than citing an instructor’s lecture or a textbook or encyclopedia that in turn cites original research, find, read, and cite the original research directly (unless an instructor has directed you to do otherwise).

Follow these directions when citing a secondary source:

• In the reference list, provide an entry for the secondary source that you used. In the text, identify the primary source and write “as cited in” the secondary source that you used.
• If the year of publication of the primary source is known, also include it in the text citation.

Example

If you read a work by Lyon et al. (2014) in which Rabbitt (1982) was cited, and you were unable to read Rabbitt’s work yourself, cite Rabbitt’s work as the original source, followed by Lyon et al.’s work as the secondary source. Only Lyon et al.’s work appears in the reference list.

Parenthetical citation

(Rabbitt, 1982, as cited in Lyon et al., 2014)

Narrative citation

Rabbitt (1982; as cited in Lyon et al., 2014)

If the year of the primary source is unknown, omit it from the in-text citation.

Allport’s diary (as cited in Nicholson, 2003)

Source

Missing reference information is covered in Section 9.4 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition. This guidance is the same as in the 6th edition.

Sometimes the information needed to create a reference list entry is missing or unknown. When this is the case, there are various strategies to adapt the reference.

The following table shows the basic structure of an APA Style reference to a published work, adapted for missing information, along with the corresponding in-text citations. Refer to the reference examples and Chapters 9 and 10 of the Publication Manual for specific details for the type of work being cited.

Anonymous Authors

For a missing author, do not use “Anonymous” as the author unless the work is actually signed “Anonymous.” If the work is signed “Anonymous,” use “Anonymous” in the reference and in-text citation.

Anonymous. (2017). Stories from my time as a spy. Bond Publishers.

Parenthetical citation: (Anonymous, 2017)

Narrative citation: Anonymous (2017)

If the work is not actually signed “Anonymous,” the title moves to the beginning of the reference and is used in place of the author name, as shown in the table.

Presentation of the Date

The date in the reference list entry for a work with a publication date may be a year only, and month and year, or a specific date (e.g., a month, day, and year); however, in the in-text citation, provide the year only.

For an in-press work, use “in press” for the date in both the reference list entry and in-text citation.

For a work with no date, use “n.d.” in both the reference list entry and the in-text citation.

Italics in the Title and Source

Italic formatting within the title or source varies by reference and is not shown in the table. In general, the title is italicized for a work that stands alone (e.g., book, report, webpage on a website), and some part of the source is italicized for a work that is part of a greater whole (e.g., journal article, newspaper article).

See the reference examples and Chapters 9 and 10 of the Publication Manual for information on what to italicize within a reference.

Source

Personal communications are covered in Section 8.9 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition. This guidance is the same as in the 6th edition.

Because readers cannot retrieve the information in personal communications, personal communications are not included in the reference list; they are cited in the text only. Give the initial(s) and surname of the communicator, and provide as exact a date as possible, using the following formats:

Narrative:
E.-M. Paradis (personal communication, August 8, 2019)

Parenthetical:
(T. Nguyen, personal communication, February 24, 2020)

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