- Consistent with data from recent flu seasons, "the overall hospitalization rate for the season increased to 29.7 per 100,000" (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020, Severe Disease section).
- In the Federal Drug Administration's (FDA) Technology Modernization Action Plan (2020), "[modernization] of FDA's technology infrastructure will involve dynamic, enterprise-wide collaboration among Agency programs" ("Building the Foundation" section).
- Western countries are experiencing problems on where to send their recyclable waste. Until 2018, "China used to accept 55% of the world's plastic and paper waste" (British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 2020, para. 2).
- Makena, a drug to prevent premature birth, may be taken off the market because "Makena's manufacturer struggled to compete with the cheaper, compounded 17P" (Huetteman 2020, "How Makena cornered the market" section, para. 26).
Note: Kindle location numbers are no longer required with in-text citations. Instead, provide the page number or any of the information listed above.
For audiovisual works, cite the time stamp of when the quotation began in place of where you would normally cite a page number.
- Habits are "mental associations that we form when we repeat an action over and over again in a given context and then get a reward" (Wood, 2020, 15:15).
When to Use Page Numbers in an In-Text Citation
Page numbers are only required for direct quotations. However, there may be times when you may want to refer to a specific part of a source, in which case you can include page numbers in your parenthetical citation. It is not mandatory, though, to include page numbers for segments that do not have a direct quotation.
. the study dropout rate was a disappointing 50% (Smith & Jones, 2016, p. 3).
For more see page 269 in the APA manual.
Using "et al." in Parenthetical Citations
If you are citing a source with three or more authors, you need to use "et al." in your citations. In APA 6, a work with between three and five authors would be listed the first time, with the use of "et al." each subsequent time the in-text citation was used. In APA 7, any in-text citation with three or more authors will use "et al.".
| Author Type | Parenthetical citation | Narrative citation |
|---|---|---|
| One author | (Porth, 2020) | Porth (2020) |
| Two authors | (George & Franco, 2020) | George and Franco (2020) |
| Three or more authors | (Smith et al., 2020) | Smith et al. (2020) |
In text, a citation with more than three authors can be parenthetical:
Reference list errors are prevalent in scholarly journals (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2011).
Or it can be part of the narrative:
Onwuegbuzie et al. (2011) used content analysis to determine that reference list errors are prevalent in scholarly journals.
Similar to APA 6, for works with a group author with an abbreviation, the first citation will spell out the author, followed by the abbreviation in brackets. For example:
(American Psychological Association [APA], 2020) or American Psychological Association (APA, 2020)
Subsequent citations will use the abbreviation only. For instance,
(APA, 2020) or APA (2020)
Citing One Author Throughout One Paragraph
If you’re citing the same author/source repeatedly throughout one paragraph, inserting multiple citations is technically correct but lacks flow and readability. For example,
Dogs are man’s best friend (Smith, 2015). In a randomized controlled trial, dogs preferred their owners to all other people (Smith, 2015). The results of this study have implications for dog behavior (Smith, 2015). However, the study also had a small sample size, so more research into this area is necessary (Smith, 2015).
Alternatively, using the author's name in your writing can make the paragraph flow better and prevent you from having to repeat the citation subsequent sentences. (Also see p. 174 in the APA manual.) For example,
Smith (2015) notes that dogs are man’s best friend. In a randomized controlled trial conducted by Smith, dogs preferred their owners to all other people. The results of his study have implications for dog behavior. However, his study also had a small sample size, so more research into this area is necessary.
The technique of using authors' names in the text of your paper is also helpful when you want to compare the work of two or more authors and make be citing them alternately throughout a paragraph. For example,
Smith (2015) notes that dogs are man’s best friend. In a randomized controlled trial conducted by Smith, dogs preferred their owners to all other people. Lincoln's (2016) work built on this idea even further and provided some evidence of variation in levels of preference based on amount and type of training the dog had received. Her study revealed that dogs who had spent time in formal training programs with their owners showed a higher the preference for those owners than dogs who had participated in more informal training. The results of both studies have implications for dog behavior and the possible causes for variations in that behavior (Lincoln, 2016; Smith, 2015). However, both studies also had small sample sizes, so more research into this area is necessary.
