APA in-text citations give the author's surname and the year of publication, in brackets or in the sentence, so the reader can find the full source in your reference list. APA 7 is an author-date system.
Because citations appear constantly, small rules about ampersands, "et al." and page numbers matter. This page covers every common situation in the 7th edition with examples.
APA in-Text Citation Basics
- Parenthetical: (Smith, 2020). Narrative: Smith (2020) found...
- Two authors: (Smith & Okafor, 2020), or Smith and Okafor (2020).
- Three or more: (Smith et al., 2020) from the first citation.
- Quotations: add a page number, such as (Smith, 2020, p. 14).
- Every citation must match an entry in the reference list.
Parenthetical and Narrative Citations
APA gives you two forms. Good writing alternates between them so the prose does not become a list of brackets.
Parenthetical: Retention improved with spaced practice (Smith, 2020).
Narrative: Smith (2020) found that retention improved with spaced practice.
Use the narrative form when the author is the focus ("Smith argues..."), and the parenthetical form when the idea matters more than who said it.
Inside brackets, join two authors with "&". In running text, use "and": Smith and Okafor (2020).
One, Two and Three or More Authors
APA 7 simplified the rules. Three or more authors take "et al." from the very first citation.
| Authors | Parenthetical | Narrative |
|---|---|---|
| One | (Smith, 2020) | Smith (2020) |
| Two | (Smith & Okafor, 2020) | Smith and Okafor (2020) |
| Three or more | (Smith et al., 2020) | Smith et al. (2020) |
"Et al." takes a full stop after "al" and is not italicized. Always name both authors of a two-author work.
If two different sources would both shorten to the same "Smith et al., 2020", write out as many names as needed to tell them apart, then use "et al.".
Group and Organizational Authors
When an organization wrote the work, it is the author. If it has a well-known abbreviation you will use again, introduce it in the first citation.
First parenthetical: (World Health Organization [WHO], 2023)
First narrative: World Health Organization (WHO, 2023)
Later citations: (WHO, 2023) or WHO (2023)
Spell the organization out in full in the reference list, whatever you use in the text.
No Author or No Date
When there is no author, move the title into the author position. Use italics for standalone works such as books and reports, and quotation marks for parts of works such as articles and web pages, in title case.
No author, web page: ("Adolescent Sleep Patterns," 2022)
No author, report: (Annual Health Survey, 2021)
No date: (Mensah, n.d.)
Use "Anonymous" only when the work is actually signed "Anonymous". Never guess a date; use "n.d." for "no date".
Same Author, Same Year and Multiple Works
If you cite two works by the same author from the same year, add lower-case letters to the year: (Smith, 2020a) and (Smith, 2020b). Assign the letters in the order the works appear in your reference list, which is alphabetical by title.
To cite several works at once, separate them with semicolons in alphabetical order, as in the reference list.
(Adeyemi, 2019; Mensah & Lopez, 2021; Smith et al., 2020)
Same author, different years: (Smith, 2018, 2020)
Quotations, Pages and Paragraphs
A direct quotation always needs a location. Use "p." for one page and "pp." for a range.
"Spacing creates desirable difficulty" (Smith, 2020, p. 14).
Smith (2020) described the effect as "robust across cohorts" (pp. 14–15).
For sources without page numbers: (Nguyen, 2021, para. 4) or (Nguyen, 2021, Discussion section).
Quotations under 40 words go in double quotation marks within your sentence. Quotations of 40 words or more form a block quotation: a new line, indented 0.5 inch, with no quotation marks, and the citation after the final full stop.
Page numbers are optional for paraphrases, but APA encourages them when you paraphrase a specific passage of a long work.
Secondary Sources
If you read about Brown's idea only in Smith's work, cite Brown "as cited in" Smith. Only Smith, the source you read, goes in the reference list.
(Brown, 1998, as cited in Smith, 2020)
Brown (1998, as cited in Smith, 2020) argued that...
Use secondary citations sparingly. Where you can, find and read the original.
Personal Communications
Emails, private interviews, unrecorded lectures and conversations cannot be retrieved by your reader. Cite them in the text only, with initials, surname and an exact date; they do not appear in the reference list.
(J. Okafor, personal communication, March 3, 2024)
J. Okafor (personal communication, March 3, 2024) explained that...
Omitting the Year in Repeated Narrative Citations
Within one paragraph, after the first narrative citation that includes the year, you may leave the year out of later narrative citations of the same source.
Nguyen (2021) surveyed first-year students about sleep. Nguyen found that shorter sleep was linked to lower grades.
- Parenthetical citations always include the year.
- In a new paragraph, include the year again.
- Keep the year if two works by the same author could be confused.
In-Text Citations in a Real Paragraph
Spaced practice consistently outperforms cramming in undergraduate revision (Smith & Okafor, 2020). Building on this, Okoro et al. (2022) found the effect held across four cohorts, while a meta-analysis attributed it to the effort of retrieval rather than to time alone (Mensah, 2021). As Mensah put it, "difficulty is the mechanism, not a side effect" (p. 212).
The paragraph uses a two-author parenthetical citation with "&", a narrative "et al." citation, a second parenthetical citation and a quotation with its page number. The year is omitted from the repeated narrative mention of Mensah.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
| Mistake | Correct form |
|---|---|
| Smith & Okafor (2020) found... | Smith and Okafor (2020) found... |
| (Smith, Okafor, & Lee, 2020) on first citation | (Smith et al., 2020) |
| Quotation with no page number | (Smith, 2020, p. 14) |
| Grouped citations by importance | Alphabetical order |
| Guessed date | (Mensah, n.d.) |
| Personal communication in the reference list | Text only |
| Citation with no reference entry | Every citation matches an entry |
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Frequently Asked Questions
In a parenthetical citation the author and year are both in brackets: (Smith, 2020). In a narrative citation the author is part of the sentence: Smith (2020) found...
For works with three or more authors, from the first citation: (Smith et al., 2020).
Not required, but APA encourages them when you paraphrase a specific passage, especially from a long work.
Use "n.d.": (Mensah, n.d.).
After the final punctuation mark of the quotation, with no full stop after the citation.
Cite it whenever you use its ideas. In a paragraph about one study, later narrative mentions can drop the year.