APA 7th referencing

In-text citations are included in your writing to acknowledge the sources of information you have used to support your ideas. They briefly identify a work by its author and year of publication and direct readers to a reference list entry with the full details of the source. In-text citations are required for both paraphrasing and quoting. Additional locator information, such as a page or paragraph number, is also included in some instances.

In brief, this page shows how to:

Types of in-text citations

In-text citations can be presented in two ways:

Information prominent - Author(s) and year appear within brackets.

It could be argued that mental flexibility is a key factor in well-being (Palladino & Wade, 2010).

Author prominent - Author(s) appear as part of the sentence, followed by the year in brackets.

Palladino and Wade (2010) argue that mental well-being is linked with flexible thinking.

Tip! Join author names with an & when they appear within brackets and use and when they appear as part of the sentence.

Multiple sources for the same information

When including multiple sources to support a particular point in your writing or demonstrate a consensus (synthesising):

  • The in-text citation includes all sources in the same set of brackets, ordered alphabetically. Separate the citations with semi colons
  • Include a reference list entry for each source

Multiple sources example

There is an established consensus that the current trend towards a warming climate is directly linked to human activity (Hegerl, 1996; Levitus et al., 2017; NASA, n.d.; Robinson et al., 2014; Santer et al., 2003).

Multiple works by the same author(s) - published in the same year

  • Add a, b, c after the year to differentiate works by the same author(s) published in the same year
  • Order alphabetically by the title of the work in the reference list
  • For references that have no date (shown by n.d.), use the following forms for the date in the in-text citation and reference list: (n.d.-a), (n.d.-b) etc.

In-text citation

(Clarke & Fawcett, 2014b).

Clarke and Fawcett (2014a) suggest that…

Reference list

Clarke, P. N., & Fawcett, J. (2014a). Life as a mentor. Nursing Science Quarterly, 27(3), 213-215. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894318414534492

Clarke, P. N., & Fawcett, J. (2014b). Life as a nurse researcher. Nursing Science Quarterly, 27(1), 37-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894318413509708

Different authors with the same surname

If referring to two or more publications where the primary (first) authors have the same surname, include the first author’s initials in all in-text citations, even if the year of publication differs. Initials help avoid confusion within the text and help readers locate the correct reference list entry.

In-text citation examples

(B. Johnson, 2017). OR According to B. Johnson (2017)…

(M. Johnson et al., 2016). OR M. Johnson et al. (2016) state…

Authors citing other authors

Academic content such as books and journal articles will often contain a lot of citations. When do you need to credit the original author (primary source)? Cite the original author when:

  • They are quoted by your source (the secondary source)
  • When a specific study is discussed in the secondary source, and you reproduce findings or arguments from that study without accessing the primary source
  • Indigenous knowledges are cited by a non-Indigenous author, or knowledges cited are connected to a particular community or language group to which the Indigenous author does not belong (find out more about referencing Indigenous knowledges).

When citing a secondary source:

  • The in-text citation should include author details from the primary source, as well as the author, year of publication and page/paragraph number from the secondary source
  • If you are citing Indigenous knowledges, you should also include the community or language group the knowledge originates from if this information is known
  • Only the secondary source is included in the reference list.

In-text citation

“We are part of the land, it is part of us” (Philippe, 2008, as cited in Maldonado et al., 2013, p. 610).

OR

Philippe (2008, as cited in Maldonado et al., 2013) states “we are part of the land, it is part of us” (p. 610).

In-text citation - Indigenous knowledges

Sixteen plant parts, collected from eight separate species were assessed by the University of Western Sydney’s Health Research Institute for their antioxidant and antimicrobial potential, their effectiveness long established within the Aboriginal community (Mbabaram knowledge, as cited in Packer et al., 2019, p. 5).

Reference list

Maldonado, J. K., Shearer, C., Bronen, R., Peterson, K., & Lazrus, H. (2013). The impact of climate change on tribal communities in the US: Displacement, relocation, and human rights. Climatic Change, 120(3), 601-614. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0746-z

Packer, J., Turpin, G., Ens, E., Venkataya, B., Mbabaram Community, Yirralka Rangers, & Hunter, J. (2019). Building partnerships for linking biomedical science with traditional knowledge of customary medicine: A case study with two Australian Indigenous communities. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 15, 69-81. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-019-0348-6

Still confused about who to reference when the information you are looking at contains another reference? Watch this short, three minute video for further explanation, as well as examples: https://youtu.be/tkwboeng0WY

Quotations

Quoting is when you copy the exact words from another source into your work. Check out Integrating sources: Quoting for information and examples.

Short quotations (40 words or less)

  • Place quotation marks around the quote “ ”
  • The in-text citation includes the author, year of publication and page number (or another identifier if there are no page numbers)

Quoting example - with page numbers

“A flexible mind is a healthy mind” (Palladino & Wade, 2010, p. 147).

OR

According to Palladino and Wade (2010), “a flexible mind is a healthy mind” (p. 147).

Quoting example - without page numbers

Lee (2015) states that, “in APA style, double quotation marks are used to enclose quoted material” (para. 1).

OR

“In APA style, double quotation marks are used to enclose quoted material” (Lee, 2015, para. 1).

When the text you are quoting is more than 40 words long, use a freestanding block of text which:

  • Starts on a new line
  • Is indented from the left margin
  • Does not include quotation marks

The in-text citation appears in brackets after the final punctuation mark and includes the author, year of publication, and page number or another identifier.

Block quotation example

In-text citations are important in academic writing, drawing the parallel between the author’s work and the sources which support it:

The function of any citation-signaller is to alert the reader to some kind of association between the citing text and the cited text. Citation-signallers may additionally, by using page references or chapter numbers, single out a particular part of the text as especially relevant. (Langham, 2005, p. 361)

Page numbers and other identifiers

When quoting, page numbers are included in in-text citations to pinpoint the specific location within a source that you are referring to. It helps the reader locate the exact information, making it easier for them to verify your claims or consult the source directly.

If page numbers are not available, include another identifier such as a paragraph number, heading or section name, or timestamp.

Identifier Example
Page number (Thomas et al., 2018, p. 23).
Paragraph number (World Health Organization, 2025, para. 3).
Heading or section name (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2024, Education and Employment section).
Heading or section name
with paragraph number 		(American Psychiatric Association, 2022, Pica section, para. 1).
(Brosnan, 2020, Linking Cooperation section, para. 3).
Timestamp (Audiovisual material)
Use the format: HH:MM:SS		 (Sandberg, 2019, 1:55:51).
(Leaver, 2012, 1:30).
Slide number (Richardson, 2015, slide 9).