APA 6th Referencing: In-Text Citations

Authors

Sample in-text and end-text reference citations are outlined throughout this Library Guide and in the APA Style Central Database.

It is important to take note of the following general rules.

Authors can be individual people or a group (such as corporations, associations, government agencies).

• Personal authors: For individual people, the information you provide in a citation about an author depends upon the number of authors.
  • Single author: When citing a single author in an in-text citation, insert the surname of the author.
  • Two authors: Where there are two authors, both surnames should be used:
    • Davidson and Porter (2012) demonstrated that . . .
    • It has been demonstrated that . . . (Davidson & Porter, 2012).
  • Three, four, or five authors: Where there are three, four, or five authors, all surnames should be used the first time the in-text reference appears in the document. For all subsequent citations, include only the surname of the first author followed by “et al.”
    • First mention:
      • Smith, Grierson, Malthus, and Nicholson (2015) found . . .
      • According to evidence . . . (Smith, Grierson, Malthus, & Nicholson, 2015).
    • Subsequent mention:
      • Smith et al. (2015) suggest . . .
      • The study concluded . . . (Smith et al., 2015).
  • Six to seven authors: Where there are six or seven authors, use the first surname only followed by et al.
    • According to Abercrombe et al. (2008) . . .
    • It was shown that . . . (Abercrombe et al., 2008).
  • Eight or more authors: Where there are eight or more authors, use the first surname only followed by et al. in the in-text reference. For the End-text reference, include the first six authors, followed by and ellipsis ( . . . ) then the last author’s name.
    • In-text:
      • According to Owen et al. (2014) . . .
      • It was shown that . . . (Owen et al., 2014).
    • End Text:
      • Owen, A., Dufes, C., Moscatelli, D., Mayes, E., Lovell, J., Katti, K., . . . Stone, V. (2014). The application of nanotechnology in medicine: Treatment and diagnostics. Nanomedicine, 9(9), 1291-1294. doi:10.2217/NNM.14.93
• Corporate authors: For a group, the name of the group is written in full the first time they occur in an in-text citation.
  • If you wish to abbreviate names, write the name in full the first time that it occurs, and place the abbreviated form in brackets. In subsequent citations, you can then just use the abbreviation.
    • First mention:
      • (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2014).
    • Subsequent mentions:
      • (ABS, 2014).
         
• More than one work by the same author in the same year: If there is more than one work by the same author, the end-text references are to be listed in date order. If the author has more than one work in the one year, use lower case letters of the alphabet.
  • (Jones, 2016a, 2016b)
     
• Two authors with the same surname: If two authors being cited in text share the same surname, use their initials in all citations, for example:
         This was confirmed by J. J. Smith (2012), who.....
         R. A. Smith (2009) considered.....
   

        (G. Roberts & Kuridrani, 2007)
        (P. Roberts et al., 2019)

  Notes: If a reference list includes publications by two or more primary authors with the same surname, include the first author’s initials in all text citations, even if the year of publication differs. Initials help the reader to avoid confusion within the text and to locate the entry in the list of references. See APA publication manual, section 6.14 "Authors with the Same Surname" and section 6.25 "Order of References in the Reference List".
   
• In-text citations (2 or more works):
• Order two or more authors cited within the same parentheses alphabetically in the same order in which they appear in the reference list. Separate references with a semicolon;
  • (Cooper & Carver, 2012; Douziech, Hellweg, & Verones, 2016; Pandey, Shukla, & Habibi, 2015)
     
• Order two or more works by the same author by the year of publication.
  • (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010, 2013)
     
• Identify works by the same author (or same two or more authors), with the same publication date, by the suffixes a, b, c, etc. after the year. Repeat the year each time. 
  • (Australian Bureau of Statistics, n.d.-a, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c)
     
• Formatting Names With Multiple Parts:
  If the surname is hyphenated, include both names and the hyphen in the reference list entry and in-text citation.
  If the surname has two parts separated by a space and no hyphen, include both names in the reference list entry and in-text citation.
  If the surname includes a particle (e.g., de, de la, der, van, von), include the particle before the surname in the reference list entry and in-text citation.
  If the surname includes a suffix (e.g., Jr., Sr., III), include the suffix after the initials in the reference list entry but do not include it in the in-text citation.
   

  If the surname includes a particle (e.g., de, de la, der, van, von), keep the author’s original capitalization even in reference list entries:

  de Haan, A. D., Deković, M., & Prinzie, P. (2012). Longitudinal impact of parental and adolescent personality on parenting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 189-199. doi:10.1037/a0025254

  However, capitalize the name if it (a) begins a sentence or (b) is the first word after a colon when what follows the colon is an independent clause.
  
  See APA style blog entry: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2017/05/whats-in-a-name-two-part-surnames-in-apa-style.html