APA Style Manual (p. 253) 8. How to cite works in the Text?

What to cite?

• General guidelines for citation.
  • Cite the work of those individuals whose ideas, theories, or research have directly influenced your work: The works that provide key background information, support or dispute your thesis, or offer critical definitions and data.
  • Cite only works that you have read and ideas that you have incorporated into your writing.

[Star Q] “What if your idea is genuine and original? Should you still cite something?”

[Star A] “No. However, according to the APA manual (p. 253), you need to provide documentation for all facts and figures that are not common knowledge (as background information regarding your idea). Also, you should make the best effort to find and acknowledge the sources of your ideas.”

When to Cite?

Whenever you do the following:

1. Paraphrase a work
2. Directly quote words
3. Refer to data
4. Reprint others work

How Many to Cite?

For most papers, cite one or two of the most representative sources for each key point.

How to Cite?

• Use author-date citation: Use surname of the author (do not include suffixes such as Jr.) followed by the year of publication.
• Each work used in a paper has two parts: an in-text citation that appears within the body of the paper and a corresponding entry in the alphabetical reference list at the end of the paper.
  • In-text citations have two formats: Parenthetical and Narrative.
    • Here are some rules to remember:
      • Do not include suffixes such as “Jr.”
      • Use only the year (not month or day).
        • If the year is unknown, use “n.d.” – It stands for (no date).
        • For works that have been accepted but not published: “in press”
        • For drafts that are in progress, use the year the draft was written.

Parenthetical Citation:

1. Placing both the name and the year, separated by a comma, in parentheses.
2. A parenthetical citation can appear within or at the end of a sentence.
   1. When a parenthetical citation is at the end of a sentence, put the period or other end punctuation after the closing parenthesis.
      1. EX1: Early onset results in a more persistent and severe course (Kessler, 2003).
      1. EX2: Falsely balanced news coverage can distort the public’s perception of expert consensus on an issue (Koehler, 2016).
3. If other text appears with the parenthetical citation, use commas around the year.
   1. EX: (see Koehler, 2016, for more detail).
4. When text and a citation appear together in parentheses, use a semicolon to separate the citation from the text; do not use parentheses within parentheses.
   1. EX: (e.g., falsely balanced news coverage; Koehler, 2016).

Narrative Citation:

1. The name of the author is incorporated into running text and date appears in parentheses immediately after the author name (not at the end of the sentence).
   1. EX1: Koehler (2016) noted the dangers of falsely balanced news coverage.
   1. EX2: Kessler (2003) found that among epidemiological samples…
      1. (X) Koehler noted the dangers of falsely balanced news coverage (2016).
2. In rase cases, the author and date might both appear in the narrative without using parentheses.
   1. EX: In 2016, Koehler noted the dangers of falsely balanced news coverage.

Citing Multiple Works in Parentethical Citation

• Place the citations in alphabetical order (as in the reference list to help readers with locating the works), separating them with semicolons.
  • EX1: (Adams et al., 2019; Shumway & Shulman, 2015; Westinghouse, 2017)
• Arrange two or more works by the same authors by year of publication (no-date first, in press last).
  • EX1: Zhou (n.d., 2000, 2016; in press)
  • EX2: (Department of Veterans Affairs, n.d., 2017a, 2017b, 2019)
  • In the case of multiple works in which some author names have been abbreviated to “et al.,” place the citations in chronological order (regardless of their order in the reference list).
• To highlight the work(s) most directly relevant to your point in a given sentence, place those citations first within parentheses in alphabetical order and then insert a semicolon and a phrase, such as “see also,” before the first of the remaining citations, which should also be in alphabetical order.
  • EX1: (Sampson & Hughes, 2020; see also Augustine, 2017; Melara et al., 2018; Pérez, 2014).

Citing Multiple Works in Narrative Citation

• If multiple sorces are cited within the narrative of a sentence, they can appear in any order.
  • EX1: Suliman (2018), Gutiérrez (2012, 2017), and Medina and Reyes (2019) examined

Special instructions regarding Narrative Citations

8.16 *Omitting the year* in repeated narrative citations

• In general, include the author and date in every in-text citation, and when you repeatedly cite a work, repeat the entire citation. However, if we cite a work using a narrative citation and re-cite the study using narrative citations in the same paragraph, then we omit the year in the second (or later) citation(s).
• But in a new paragraph, include the year in the first narrative citation (then do not repeat the year in subsequent narrative citations in that same paragraph).

*Note, this omitting-the-year rule applies to narrative citations only. If you made a narrative citation and cited the work again using parenthetical citation in the same paragraph, then you should have the year in the second parenthetical citation. 

First citation in a paragraph	Second citation in the same paragraph	Note
Narrative: Jung (2016)	Narrative: Jung said	Omit the year in the second narrative citation within the same paragraph
Parenthetical: (Jung, 2016)	Narrative: Jung (2016)	*Need the year in both citations regardless of the paragraph

*For parenthetical citation, you always need the last name and year even when you cite it multiple times within the same paragraph.

8.17 Number of Authors to Include in In-Text Citations

For a work with one author

• Include the author name in every citation.
• In parenthetical citation, for example,
  • (Jung, 2021)
• In narrative citations, for example,
  • According to Jung (2021) …

For a work with two authors

• Include the two authors’ names in every citation.
• In parenthetical citation, use an ampersand (&) between names for a work with two authors. For example,
  • (Walker & Allen, 2004)
• In narrative citations, spell out the word “and.” For example,
  • According to Walker and Allen (2004)

For a work with three or more authors.

• If there are three or more authors, include the name of only the first author plus “et al.” in every citation, including the first citation, unless doing so would create ambiguity.
  • Parenthetical citation: (Bradley et al., 1999)
  • Narrative citation: Bradley et al. (1999) showed…

How to Avoid Plagiarism?

• Copying entire passage(s) is obviously plagiarism.
• Patchwriting is also plagiarism: Copying a passage and changing a few words while the content is largely the same is also plagiarism.
  • Therefore, you must paraphrase the ideas of others (i.e., state in your own words; see Sections 8.23-8.24) or directly quote the words of others (see Sections 8.25-8.35).