Basic In-Text APA Citation format
- Standard format - (Author's last name, Publication year)
- Or, use a signal phrase to cite a source in-text using the author's last name, followed year of publication in parentheses.
Example: According to Moyer (2011), "New college students often had some initial difficulty using APA style.”
- No date - use n.d. in place of the year (Author’s last name, n.d.)
Tricky In-Text APA Citation format
- Unknown author - use title (or first few words of the title) in place of author. Example: ("Television," 2010).
- If the title is italicized in the References page citation, italicize it in the in-text citation. Example: (Wuthering Heights, 2011).
- Titles of books and reports are italicized; titles of articles, chapters, and web pages are in quotation marks.
Tangled In-Text APA Citation format
- Multiple Authors
- 2 authors - use both last names with & between. Example: (Smith & Jones, 2014, p. 65)
- 3 or more authors – Use the first name and then “et al.” Example: (Smith et al., 2014)
​Punctuation - Carefully proofread your citations for proper use of punctuation (periods, commas, quotation marks, italics, etc.)
If your in-text citation question is more complicated, contact a Librarian who can provide you the answer in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition, which is not available online.
For more assistance, please contact a Librarian.
