APA Referencing: In-Text Citation Style Guide
APA Style Referencing
The American Psychological Association (APA) style is often
used within the social sciences. The main difference to the in-text citations
from the Harvard style is the inclusion of a comma after the author’s name:
(Peterson, 2004).
In-text citations are written in the format of surname of
author, year of publication and (only with direct quotes) the page number with
the letter p. in front of it. For example, (Perry, 2004, p. 35) for a direct
quote where the page number is needed, or, if a paraphrase, you can simply have
the author’s surname and year of publication: (Perry, 2004). There should always
be a comma between the surname and the year of publication, and another comma
between the year and the page number in the case of direct quotes.
If you already use the author’s surname in the body of your
work just before the paraphrase or quote, then you will only include the year
of publication in brackets: (2004). If you use more than one text from the same author and written in the same year,
you can use letters of the alphabet to distinguish the works, and then clarify
which works each letter refers to in your reference list at the end of your
work, for example: (Perry, 2004a) and (Perry, 2004b, p. 35). The second reference in this example follows a direct quote,
so the page number is included as well.
If you have two authors
with the same last name, you can include their initials in the in-text
citations: (K. Perry, 2007) and (R. Perry, 2009). For texts with up to three authors, you can place all of
their names in the brackets, and use the symbol “&” before the last name:
(Harrison, Turner & Viveck, 2006). For texts with more than three authors, give the name of the first author (the one
listed first on the title), use the Latin abbreviation “et al.” to show that
some names are omitted. Make sure to include the period after the abbreviation,
and a comma after the period. For example: (Jameson et al., 1974).
When quoting indirect
sources, in the case where the author you are quoting from is already
quoting from another text, include the surname of the original author as well
as the author you are quoting from in the following format: (Jung, as cited in
Marin, 2012, p. 413). In this example, you are quoting from the work of Marin,
who is herself quoting from the original work of Jung. If you use Jung’s name
in the body of your work, simply leave it out of the reference.
For electronic
sources or media you should still include the author’s surname and year of
release, for example, (Cameron, 1997) for the film Titanic by director James Cameron.
For media or websites with no publication date indicated,
you should use the abbreviation n.d.. For example, (Julies, n.d.) or simply
(n.d.) if the author’s name is already in the body of your work. Media or
electronic sources with no author listed, such as certain websites, should
simply include the name of the media, for example (Wikipedia.com, 2014) or (“Greensleeves,” 1845).