There are two parts to every citation: a short, in-text citation, and a corresponding full citation on your References page. As a general rule, if you cite it in the body, list it in the references.
Citations found in the body of an APA paper often contain two elements: the author and a year. This gives readers just enough information to find the full citation in the References page at the end of the paper. In-text citations may be styled either as a narrative or parenthetical citation.
A narrative citation introduces the Author (2022) by name in a sentence, with the publication year directly after their name in parentheses. The idea being paraphrased generally follows the narrative citation. There is no need to add another citation at the end; however, if a page number is necessary, it would come just before the period, like so (p. 1).
An author or publication may be introduced in narrative form, even when presenting an idea in the author's own words. In this instance, the Author (2022) would state "their concept in their own words, including a page number, when possible, after the quotation marks (but before the period)" (p. 5).
When referencing two or more authors in an in-text citation...
Bernecker and Kramer (2020) found that when students believed they had a limited amount of willpower, they were less likely to exercise during the stressful time of final exams than students who believed they had a nonlimited amount of willpower.
If the author is not mentioned by name in the sentence, place both surname and year in parentheses at the end of the cited idea, but before the period (Author, 2022).
When directly quoting a source, “the citation will fall before the period, but after the quotation marks” (Author, 2022, p. 45).
In the instance of a source with multiple authors, two would be listed by surname with an ampersand between (Author & Author, 2022), and three or more would be listed by the first author, using et al. for the remainder (Author, et al., 2022).
A source with no author may be identified by organization or title—whichever is listed at the beginning of the full citation entry (Title of a Wikipedia article, 2022).
Multiple works expressing the same paraphrased concept may share parentheses. These would be ordered alphabetically, and separated by a semicolon (American Psychological Association, 2020; Author, 2022).
Employees experience negative outcomes such as stress and disengagement when their organizational leaders lack emotional and social skills (Nowack & Zak, 2020)
A full-text reference page citation needs to have four elements: author, date, title, and source. The style and order of those elements might vary, depending on the type of source, but we can help you navigate that!
You will learn about indenting and other general APA formatting requirements on the next page of this guide.
Here are a few of the most commonly cited types of sources.
American Psychological Association. (2020).Concise guide to APA Style (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000173-000
Author, A. (2022). The book title: Italicized and written in sentence case (1st ed.), 1-45. Publisher.
Author, A., & Author, B. (2022). The article title is also written in sentence case, but not italicized. The Journal Title Is Italicized, (1)2, 34-56. https://doi:xxxxxx
Author, A., Author, B., & Author, C. (May 1, 2022). The title of the newspaper article or blog post is not italicized. Name of the Website Is Italicized. https://www.link-to-article-goes-here
Bernecker, K., & Kramer, J. (2020). Implicit theories about willpower are associated with exercise levels during the academic examination period. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 9(2), 216–231. https://doi.org/10.1037/spy0000182
Nowack, K., & Zak, P. (2020). Empathy enhancing antidotes for interpersonally toxic leaders. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 72(2), 119–133. https://doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000164
Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d.). APA style (7th edition). https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html
Title of a Wikipedia article. (2022, May 1). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/permalink-to-most-recent-archived-version-of-article
General rules
Author last name, first initial. Periods. Italics.
Specific resources:
Book
Chapter
Article in a journal
Newspaper
Blog
Youtube