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Educational Leadership: In-Text/Parenthetical Citations (7E)

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Printable PDF Guide to In-Text Citations

APA 7E In-Text/Parenthetical Citations

In-text citations, or parenthetical citations, are those that are inside the running text, or narrative of your text, and act as pointers to the more complete reference list at the end of the paper. In-text citations can follow very different rules than citations found in the reference list, so it’s important to place them in separate mental compartments.

The in-text citation needs the author and the year of the document.  The basic template looks like this:

(Author, year)

APA states that direct quotations, those in parentheses, should be rare; APA favors paraphrasing. However, if there is a direct quotation, the in-tet citation will include the page number or page span. You will also include a page number or page span when quoting or paraphrasing a long work, such as a book. The template would look like this:
"There is a space after p. and pp."

(Author, year, p. x)

(Author, year, pp. xx-xx)

Notice that the year always follows the author, and the page number(s) is always at the end. Number of authors and number of times cited is key to understand APA in-text "Year always follows the author(s) whether in running or in-text citation."citations.

One Author

Research by Garcia (2017) found blah.

Research found blah (Garcia, 2017).


Two Authors 

"Use and in the running text, but use the ampersand (&) inside parentheses."

Garcia and Bartle (2017) found blah.

Research found blah (Garcia & Bartle, 2017).

 

Three or More Authors 

Et al. is an abbreviation of a Latin phrase that means "and others."
It stands in for two or more other names you haven't typed.Order matters Always cite the last names in the order they appear on the source

Garcia et al. (2017) found blah.

Research found  blah (Garcia et al., 2017).

Garcia et al. (2017) found "blah" (p.25). 

No Author (Not Anonymous, Not Corporate Author) "This is completely different from citations in reference lists."

Research found blah (Title of Article in Quotation Marks and Title Case,” 2017)

Research found blah (Title of Book in Italics and Title Case, 2017)

In Title of Article in Quotation Marks and Title Case (2017)

In Title of Book in Italics and Title Case (2017) the author states "blah" (p. 45).

Multiple SourcesText repeated below

Several studies (Lowe, 2015; Mancha, 2007; Smith & Jones; 1993) have found blah.

In a multiple sources, in-text citation order the different citations alphabetically as they appear in the reference list, so the reader can find them easily. Each is separated by a semi-colon.

Same Author/Same Year/Different Works

Research found (Garcia, 1981a)

Garcia (1981b) found"Order same author and same year alphabetically by title in the reference list."

In your reference list, these would look like:

 

Garcia, C. (1981a). Article title.   [other article citation information].

Garcia, C. (1981b). Book title.   [other book citation information].

Citing Someone Who is Being Cited by Someone

"Cite only in your reference list that which you have read and used yourself."

Petry (as cited in Quarton, 2017) found that

Some research showed blah (Petry, 1975, as cited in Quarton, 2017).

 

Big Quotations/Small Quotations

If you have a direct quotation that is less than 40 words, blend the quotation smoothly into your writing and use quotation marks.  If the quotation is 40 words or more, place it in a free-standing, indented text block, do not use quotation marks, and do maintain double spacing. End with a period, then place the in-text citation.

Garcia’s (2017) work found that

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duis dolor nunc, eleifend nec placerat vel, rhoncus et sem. Fusce ullamcorper scelerisque libero, nec eleifend felis tristique vitae. Fusce varius luctus nisi, ut mattis ligula. Nam a tincidunt magna, vitae volutpat mauris. elit. (p. 215)

Direct Quotation or Paraphrase?

APA 7E makes a strong statement about paraphrasing almost everything. Any text that you are quoting exactly from the original should be enclosed in quotation marks, and the in-text citation should include a page number. As a courtesy, you may include a page number for a paraphrase from a long work, such as a book.

If you are making a very general reference to the overall subject of an article/essay, then you do not need quotation marks and you also do not need a page number. Examples of this are common in the introduction to research articles:

There have been several areas of investigation, including measures of disposition (Zhang, 2000; Garcia & Smith, 2009), measures of decision-making (Lejuez et al., 2004; Macapagal & Janssen, 2011), and measures of impulsivity (Lee, 2014).