APA: In-Text Citations

American Psychology Association (APA) is a common citation style used mostly in social sciences. The 6th edition of the APA manual describes the standards for in-text citations, footnotes, endnotes, references, and the whole paper in general.

When you write about earlier research, APA style requires you to use the past tense only. For example, “Smith (1976) found… .” Team of professionals from College-Writers.com can explain you the details.

APA Basics

APA format implies using the author-date style of in-text citations. Always include the author’s last name and the year of publication in parentheses. At the end of the paper, include a full list of references.

If you refer to some ideas from another work but don’t use direct quotes, it’s not necessary to include page numbers in your in-text citations. Just write the author’s name and the year of publication.

Italics, Quotes, and Capitalization

• Titles of long works, for example, books, should be written in italics.
• When citing short works, like articles or songs, use quotation marks.
• Capitalize proper nouns.
• When writing titles of used works, capitalize all long words (four letters and longer). The only exceptions from this rule are nouns, adverbs, verbs, pronouns, and adjectives.
• When writing a hyphenated compound word, capitalize both words.
• Capitalize the first word after a colon or a dash, even if this word is “the.”

Short Quotes

If you use direct quotes, include the author’s name, followed by the year of publication, and page number. Put a signal phrase before a quotation, for example, “According to Smith (1976)… .”

If you don’t use a signal phrase, include the author’s name, the year, and the page in parentheses after the quotation, for example: (Smith, 1976, p.113).

Long Quotes

If your quotation is longer than 40 words, write it in a separate block without using quotation marks. This block should be indented by ½ inch from the left margin, just like the first line of a new paragraph. Indent every line of the citation block and use double spacing. Include a parenthetical citation after the last punctuation mark.

Paraphrase or Summary

Although providing the page number is not required for paraphrases, APA allows and encourages you to include it in your in-text citations.