Short quotations (fewer than 40 words)
For quotations of fewer than 40 words, add quotation marks around the words and incorporate the quote into your own text—there is no additional formatting needed. Do not insert an ellipsis at the beginning and/or end of a quotation unless the original source includes an ellipsis.
Example:
Effective teams can be difficult to describe because “high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another” (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470).
When you paraphrase, cite the original work using either the narrative or parenthetical citation format. Although it is not required to provide a page or paragraph number in the citation, you may include one (in addition to the author and year) when it would help interested readers locate the relevant passage within a long or complex work (e.g., a book).
Example:
Webster-Stratton (2016) described a case example of a 4-year-old girl who showed an insecure attachment to her mother; in working with the family dyad, the therapist focused on increasing the mother’s empathy for her child (pp. 152–153).
In APA, in-text citations are inserted in the body of your research paper to briefly document the source of your information. Brief in-text citations point the reader to more complete information in the reference list at the end of the paper.
Signal Phrase
If you refer to the author's name in a sentence you do not have to include the name again as part of your in-text citation. Instead include the date after the name and the page number (if there is one) at the end of the quotation or paraphrased section. For example:
Hunt (2011) explains that mother-infant attachment has been a leading topic of developmental research since John Bowlby found that "children raised in institutions were deficient in emotional and personality development" (p. 358).
Journal Article
Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185
Book
Jackson, L. M. (2019). The psychology of prejudice: From attitudes to social action (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000168-000
Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Books.
Other examples from APA Style 7th Edition
| Online Posting: General |
AuthorLastname, F. I. (Year, Month Day). Title of post [Description of form]. Retrieved from http://www.xxxx (If only author's screen name is available, use that for the author's name.) |
|
Entire website |
It is sufficient to give the website address in the text (in parentheses). |
|
Message Posted to Newsgroup, Discussion Group, Online Forum, etc. |
Rampersad, T. (2005, June 8). Traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions [Online forum comment]. Retreived from http://www.wipo.int/roller/comments/ipisforum/Weblog/theme_eight_how_can_cultural#comments |
| Message Posted to Electronic Mailing List |
Smith, S. (2006, January 5). Re: Disputed estimates of IQ [Electronic mailing list message]. Retrieved from http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ForensicNetwork/message/670 (Note: "Listserv" is a trademarked name for a specific software program, so use "electronic mailing list" instead.) |
|
Blog Post |
MiddleKid. (2007, January 22). Re: The unfortunate prerequisites and consequences of partitioning your mind [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/the_unfortunate_prerequisites.php (Note: "MiddleKid" is a screen name, which the author used when posting to this blog.) |
For additional examples, see pages 214-215 in the APA Publication Manual (2010).
Personal communications may be private letters, memos, non-archived electronic communications, personal interviews, etc. Because they do not provide recoverable data, they are not included in the reference list. The same is true of live performances.
Instead, you should cite these sources in your text with initial and last name of the communicator and as exact a date as possible.
Samples:
M. E. Daniels, Jr. (personal communication, July 4, 2009), explained in an email that . . .
(Butler Ballet, performance, December 13, 2008)
If you are citing a recording or archived copy of the performance or personal communication, these forms are recoverable and should be referenced in your Works Cited list as a video, online forum post, tape recording, etc.
