Psychology: In-Text Citations

Basic Principles

Rules

There are a few different ways to include in-text citations, but in general, there are two main ways in which to do this narrative and parenthetical: 

• Parenthetical: Use parentheses after you paraphrase or quote the author(s) in this format: 
  • One author: (LastName, YYYY)
  • Two authors: (LastName & LastName, YYYY)
  • Three to five authors: (LastName, LastName, LastName, & LastName, YYYY)
    • After the first citation, only use the author's first name followed by et al.: (LastName et al., YYYY)
  • Six or more authors: (LastName et al., YYYY)
• Narrative: Mention the author or authors' names in the sentence without parentheses followed directly by the year of publication in parentheses, like this: LastName & LastName (YYYY) found that....
  • Examples: 
    • Smith and Jones (2019) found that.... 
      • Notice that 'and' is spelled out as a narrative in-text citation whereas the ampersand (&) is used in a parenthetical in-text citation.
    • A study by Harris (2017) discovered...
    • Miller et al. (2004) argues that...
      • No need to write out all the authors' names when there are three or more for a narrative in-text citation; just LastName et al. (YYYY) format. 
      • Exception: When you cite more than one publication that has the same first author and year. To avoid confusion, spell out each authors' last name until you get to an author that is different from the others, like this:
        • Miller, Choi, Herr, et al. (2018)
        • Miller, Choi, Tipton, et al. (2018)

See this guide on APA in-text citations for more details, examples, and information on in-text citations: https://libguides.pvcc.edu/citationstyles/apa7-intext

Short Quotations (fewer than 40 words)

Rules

Add quotations around the words and incorporate the quote into your text. Before adding punctuation to the end of the quote (such as a comma or period), first add the in-text citation in parentheses followed by the punctuation mark. Be sure to add the page number (from the PDF) at the end. See the example below for an example. 

Example

Although there is a small but statistically significant correlation between mentions to research outputs on Twitter and future citations, the researchers "did not directly test that high altmetric scores today make high citations tomorrow more likely" (Thelwall et al., 2010, p. 5). 

Long Quotations (40 or more words)

Rules

• Don't use quotation marks 
• Start the block quotation on a new line and indent the entire block 0.5 in from the left margin
• Double-space the entire block
• Do not add an extra space before or after.
• For the in-text citation, either:
  • Cite the source in parentheses after the quotation’s final punctuation or;
  • Cite the author and year in the narrative before the quotation and place only the page number in parentheses after the quotation’s final punctuation.
• Do not add a period after the closing parentheses

Examples

Narrative in-text citation to a block quote:

With regards to differentiating between negative perfectionism and positive perfectionism, Aldahadha (2018) concluded that:

The fear of rejection and constant concern about the possibility of failure and mistrust with others may be the main cause of anxiety and stress, all of which may be due to negative perfectionism and these emotions may lead to defense and negative social relations with others. The results of several studies have shown that negative perfectionism has other bad outcomes, which are more psychological stress due to feelings of failure, loss of self-control, and fear of loss, followed by loss of motivation and procrastination. (p. 9)

Parenthetical in-text citation to a block quote: 

With regards to differentiating between negative perfectionism and positive perfectionism, one researcher concluded that:

The fear of rejection and constant concern about the possibility of failure and mistrust with others may be the main cause of anxiety and stress, all of which may be due to negative perfectionism and these emotions may lead to defense and negative social relations with others. The results of several studies have shown that negative perfectionism has other bad outcomes, which are more psychological stress due to feelings of failure, loss of self-control, and fear of loss, followed by loss of motivation and procrastination. (Aldahadha, 2018, p. 9)