Where and How to Use APA In-Text Citations

If there is only one known author from print sources

In this case, follow author-date format, as in the example from APA generator:

If there are multiple authors

Follow this example of reference for two authors:

If there are from three to five authors, use this example:

In your subsequent citations, only use:

Likewise, if there are more than six authors, only use:

If there is no author or an organization

When sources have no known author or an organization, cite it by title in a signal phrase. Alternatively, use the first word or two in the parentheses. Titles of books and reports are italicized; titles of articles, chapters, and web pages should be in quotation marks. If there is a well-known organization as an author that you refer to, follow this example:

If there is no page number

In such case, for APA 6 style, use chapter or paragraph number, yet only if the chapter or a paragraph are clearly present in the original source. If it is not the case, the page number is not required.

How to combine multiple sources in one APA citation

Such authors are separated with a semicolon and are sorted alphabetically. Follow example created by citation machine:

If there are different authors with a same last name

If such thing happens, provide the first initials of both authors like in the provided example below:

If there are multiple works and author is the same

According to APA format rules, the book’s title or an article like in the example below:

If there are two or more works by same author, published in a same year

Here each source is distinguished with an addition of a lower-case letter after publication’s year. As an example:

Books and sources with editors in-text citations

Electronic sources with no author or non-print sources

If page’s author is unknown, start with existing title instead. If publication date is not listed, use abbreviation (n.d.). Like in this citer example:

However, if you cite from an online periodical, the final result should look this way:

How to cite indirect sources

An indirect source is when you have a source that is also cited in a different source. If such challenge is faced, name original source in your signal phrase. Next, list secondary source in a reference list and include this secondary source in parentheses. As an example: