Start Here General Format Guidelines on writing an APA style paper In-Text Citations Resources on using in-text citations in APA style The Basics General guidelines for referring to the works of others in your essay Author/Authors How to refer to authors in-text, including single and multiple authors, unknown authors, organizations, etc. Reference List Resources on writing an APA style ...
When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, like, for example, (Jones, 1998).
*for more than two authors (3 or more), list only the first author’s name followed by “et al.” in every citation, even the first, unless doing so would create ambiguity between different sources.
These APA citation examples, templates, and explanations will help you cite in APA. This APA citation guide covers books, journals, websites, and more!
APA Style is widely used by students, researchers, and professionals in the social and behavioral sciences. Scribbr’s APA Citation Generator automatically generates accurate references and in-text citations for free. This citation guide outlines the most important citation guidelines from the 7th edition APA Publication Manual (2020).
APA Style provides guidelines to help writers determine the appropriate level of citation and how to avoid plagiarism and self-plagiarism. We also provide specific guidance for in-text citation, including formats for interviews, classroom and intranet sources, and personal communications; in-text citations in general; and paraphrases and direct quotations.
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APA Citation Examples The most common sources you will be citing in APA format will include journal articles, well-chosen web-based sources, and books or pieces from edited books. The examples below explain how to create the references for these commonly used sources, and the chart at the bottom of the second page explains how to cite these references in your paper.
For more information and examples: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed., Chapter 10 (find it at our Citing and Writing Station) APA Style website Citation Style Research Guide on the library’s website Last update: January 2025
Reference Citation Examples Click on the type of source below to see the correct citation example. Plug in the information for your book using the formatting in these examples. Pay special attention to capitalization, punctuation, and italicization.
The reference list provides a reliable way for readers to identify and locate the works cited in a paper. APA Style papers generally include reference lists, not bibliographies. In general, each work cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and each work in the reference list must be cited in the text.
These OWL resources will help you learn how to use the American Psychological Association (APA) citation and format style. This section contains resources on in-text citation and the References page, as well as APA sample papers, slide presentations, and the APA classroom poster.
Based on APA Publication Manual, 7th Edition (2020). The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is the APA's official citation guide and provides a more detailed explanation of how to use APA style.
For more information, see APA (7th ed.) or the webpage citation on the APA style website. Example 1: Entire website When you are not citing a specific page, but the entire website, it is sufficient to just give the address of the site in the text (no reference list entry is needed), as follows:
Example of a Citation for an Authored Book Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Books. Parenthetical citation: (Sapolsky, 2017, p. 91) Narrative citation: Sapolsky (2017) develops this argument (pp. 94-95) Note: Page numbers appear at the end of in-text citations.
Master APA citation with 10 examples for perfect papers, including in-text citations, references, and formatting for sources like books, journals, and websites, ensuring accuracy and consistency in academic writing and research papers.
The above example is for a magazine article that appears in print. Detailed information on magazine citations, including how to cite magazine articles found online, can be found in Chapter 10 of the 7th edition of the APA manual (p. 320).
APA provides different reference formats for over 100 source types, including books, articles, and webpages. See examples!