APA Citation Style (7th Edition)

These guidelines will help you get started. For more detailed information, see the APA Manual, chapter 8; and the In-Text Citations page on the APA Style website.

Each time you quote or paraphrase a source, you must include an in-text citation and an entry in your reference list.

An in-text citation includes the author’s name and the year the work was published. You can include a citation in brackets at the end of a sentence (parenthetical citation) or work the author’s name into the sentence as a part of your writing (narrative citation). For example:

• Parenthetical citation: (Jones, 2003)
• Narrative citation: Jones (2003) believed you could be flexible when necessary.

Quoting versus paraphrasing

A direct quotation involves copying exact words or phrases from your source material, while paraphrasing involves restating someone else's ideas or thoughts in your own words. A direct quotation requires quotation marks and a page number (or paragraph number if there are no pages), but paraphrasing does not.

Quotation guidelines

Include page numbers when you are quoting or referring to specific passages (see the APA Manual, section 8.13). For example: 

• Parenthetical citation: Another author found that “you could be a little flexible to facilitate the flow of your writing” (Jones, 2003, p. 17).
• Narrative citation: Jones (2003) found that "you could be a little flexible to facilitate the flow of your writing" (p. 17).

If a work has no page numbers, give a heading or section name or a paragraph number instead. If the full heading is long, you can shorten it and put quotation marks around it. For example: 

• Heading or section name: (CDC, 2019, Signs and Symptoms section)
• Abbreviated heading or section name: (CDC, 2019, “Treatment” section)
• Paragraph number: (Brown & Lawton, 2013, para. 4)

If a quotation is longer than 40 words, format it like this:

• Indent the whole quotation 0.5 inches from the left margin.
• If it is more than one paragraph, indent the first line of each subsequent paragraph.
• Add the author, year, and page number in parentheses at the end of the block quotation. For example: (Jones, 2003, p. 17)

Author variations

To cite a work with two authors, include both authors’ last names. For example: 

• Parenthetical citation: (Robinson & Randall, 2016)
• Narrative citation: According to Robinson and Randall (2016), …

For a work with three or more authors, include only the first author’s last name, followed by the abbreviation “et al.” (which means “and others”). For example: 

• Parenthetical citation: (Wolsink et al., 2019)
• Narrative citation: A study by Wolsink et al. (2019) showed … 

If the work is by an organization, use the name of the organization in the in-text citation. If you want to abbreviate the organization name, include the full name and abbreviation the first time you mention it. After that, include only the abbreviated name. For example: 

• First parenthetical citation: (American Psychological Association [APA], 1985)
• Subsequent parenthetical citations: (APA, 1985)
• First narrative citation: The American Psychological Association (APA, 1985) reported …
• Subsequent narrative citations: According to the APA (1985), …

If a work has no listed author, put the title in the in-text citation instead. For example: 

• Parenthetical citation: (Narcissistic Personality Disorder, 2019)
• Narrative citation: On the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (2019) webpage …

Personal communications are works that cannot be recovered by readers. They include emails, letters, personal interviews, phone conversations, unrecorded lectures, and more. Personal communications are cited only in the text and not in your reference list. Here is an example of how to cite personal communications in a parenthetical citation: 

(J. L. Smith, personal communication, September 24, 2019)

Note: For more information, see the APA Manual, section 8.9.