APA Citation Guide (7th edition)

Parenthetical and Narrative Citations

There are two main types of in-text citations for APA Style

• Parenthetical - this is when the author's name(s) and date appear in parentheses.
• Narrative - this is when the author's name(s) and the date are incorporated into the text to be a part of the sentence.

Parenthetical example

Participants are aware of privacy issues related to learning analytics but are not sure what should be done to address these issues (Jones, 2019).

Narrative example

Jones (2019) explained that many people are aware of privacy issues related to learning analytics but are not sure what should be done to address these issues.

Reference list entry

Jones, K.M. (2019) "Just because you can doesn't mean you should": Practitioner perceptions of learning analytics ethics. Portal, 19(3). 407-428. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2019.0025

One Author

Parenthetical: (Jones, 2019)

Narrative: Jones (2019)

Two Authors

Parenthetical: (Grant & Booth, 2009)

Narrative: Grant and Booth (2009)

Three or More Authors

Parenthetical: (Bavishi et al., 2016)

Narrative: Bavishi et al. (2016)

Group Author with Abbreviation

Parenthetical (first citation): (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2023)

Narrative (first citation): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2023)

Parenthetical (subsequent citations): (CDC, 2023)

Narrative (subsequent citations): CDC (2023)

Group Author without Abbreviation

Parenthetical: (Bradley University, 2021)

Narrative: Bradley University (2021)

Paraphrasing Example

The pay-on-demand article service was heavily used at Bradley University (Jaskowiak & Spires, 2016).

Example of a quotation with less than 40 words

“Both Get It Now and the traditional document delivery service, ILLiad, are heavily used and seem to be meeting the needs of the faculty, staff, and students” (Jaskowiak & Spires, 2016, p. 86).

Example of a quotation with 40 or more words (text must be blocked)

“While the enclosed space of the pods seems to be very popular, a number of individuals appear to like having the ability to spread out solo at tables that are designed for four-person or greater seating. Since usage of the study carrels is low, either the desire for increased space or privacy appears to drive the choice for pods or solo-occupied tables” (Jaskowiak, et al., 2019, p. 9).

Long Paraphrase (when a paraphrase continues for several sentences)

Czerwiec and Noe (2023) discussed the growing importance of using graphic medicine for education, reflection, research, and activism. They stressed that graphic medicine is a medium, not a genre, and stressed how powerful images can be for the reader. Additionally, libraries should collect graphic medicine titles that best fit their library's users' needs and interests. 

Quoting from sources with no page numbers

Example webpages with sections

To prevent infection hands should be washed "before, during, and after preparing food" (CDC, 2020, "Key Times to Wash Hands" section). 

Example online article (manually count paragraphs if not labeled for you)

To be completely ready for retirement, people "need to stock up on their emotional reserves" (Chamberlin, 2014, para. 1).  

For more in-depth information, go to APA Style: In-Text Citations or Chapter 8 of the book.

Some highlights:

• Instead of using the title of the resources, use the authors as the subject of your sentences.
• Paraphrasing is preferred over quoting in APA.
• If you are citing a reference for a whole paragraph, cite it at the beginning with the introductory sentence. If it's clear that the information is from the same source you do not have to repeat the citation. This is different than MLA.
• Personal communications like unpublished interviews, emails, letters, etc. only have in text citations and are not in the reference list.