APA In-Text Citations: Page Numbers, Et Al., Quotes and Every Edge Case

APA uses an author–date system: each source you use gets a short citation in your text and a full entry in the reference list (APA Style). The example sources below are made up; the rules come from the APA Style website, linked in each section.

What is the difference between parenthetical and narrative citations?

A parenthetical citation puts the author and year in parentheses, separated by a comma. A narrative citation makes the author part of your sentence, with the year in parentheses right after the name (APA Style).

• Parenthetical: Students who sleep less tend to report more stress during exam weeks (Rivera, 2023).
• Narrative: Rivera (2023) found that students who sleep less report more stress during exam weeks.
• Both in the sentence (rare, no parentheses): In 2023, Rivera found that...

Use a narrative citation when you want to put the author's name at the beginning of a sentence or emphasize who made the claim. Both forms are equally correct.

How do you cite one, two or three or more authors?

This table follows APA's basic citation styles:

Three rules hide in that table:

• "&" or "and"? Use "&" inside parentheses and spell out "and" in the running text.
• Et al. starts immediately. For three or more authors, use the first author plus "et al." in every citation, including the first one.
• Abbreviate a group once. Define the abbreviation the first time you cite the group, then use it every time after. You don't have to abbreviate; APA suggests it when the abbreviation is well known, avoids clumsy repetition or will appear at least three times (APA Style). The reference list always spells out the full name.

How do you cite page numbers in APA?

Page numbers are required for direct quotations and optional for paraphrases. When quoting, give the author, year and page in both citation forms (APA Style):

For webpages and ebooks without page numbers, pick whichever locator helps readers find the passage fastest. Count paragraphs yourself if they aren't numbered, and shorten a long heading if needed. Don't use Kindle location numbers: use the page number if the ebook shows one, or one of the alternatives above (APA Style).

For a paraphrase, a page number isn't required, but you may add one when it helps readers find the passage in a long or complex work such as a book (APA Style).

Does the citation go before or after the period?

Before the period. When a parenthetical citation ends a sentence, the sentence's final punctuation comes after the closing parenthesis (APA Style):

• Correct: Most first-year students underestimate how long a literature search takes (Chen et al., 2021).
• Incorrect: Most first-year students underestimate how long a literature search takes. (Chen et al., 2021)

With a short quotation, the closing quotation mark comes first, then the citation, then the period:

• Rivera (2023) described exam weeks as "the point where sleep becomes negotiable" (p. 118).
• Exam weeks are "the point where sleep becomes negotiable" (Rivera, 2023, p. 118).

The one exception is the block quotation (next section), where the citation follows the final punctuation and gets no period of its own.

How do you format a quote in APA?

APA distinguishes short quotations from block quotations by length (APA Style):

A block quotation with a parenthetical citation ends like this:

... which is why the authors recommend moving early exams to later in the day. (Rivera & Okafor, 2023, p. 129)

If the sentence that introduces the block already names the authors and year, as in "Rivera and Okafor (2023) explained:", put only the page at the end: (p. 129).

APA's other quotation rules (APA Style):

• Don't add an ellipsis at the start or end of a quote (unless the original has one there); use one for words you leave out in the middle.
• Put your own additions or explanations inside a quote in square brackets, not parentheses.
• If you italicize words for emphasis, add [emphasis added] right after them.
• You may change the first letter's capitalization and switch single and double quotation marks without saying so.
• Periods and commas go inside closing quotation marks; other punctuation goes inside only if it belongs to the quote.

APA also suggests paraphrasing more often than quoting, and quoting when you need an exact definition, when the author said something memorably, or when you are responding to the exact wording.

How do you cite several sources in one parenthesis?

Put them in alphabetical order by first author, separated by semicolons. For several works by the same author, give the name once and list the years in order: works with no date first, then dated works from oldest to newest, then "in press" (APA Style).

• (Chen et al., 2021; Okoro, 2024; Rivera & Okafor, 2023)
• (Example Sleep Institute, n.d., 2019, 2024)
• To put the most relevant source first: (Rivera & Okafor, 2023; see also Chen et al., 2021; Okoro, 2024)

In a narrative sentence, the sources can appear in any order.

How do you cite two works by the same author from the same year?

Add lowercase letters to the year, (Okoro, 2024a) and (Okoro, 2024b), in both the citation and the reference list. The letters follow the alphabetical order of the titles in the reference list; works without a date become n.d.-a and n.d.-b (APA Style).

How do you cite a source with no author or no date?

No author: use the title in place of the author, in title case: italic for a stand-alone work such as a book, report or webpage, and in quotation marks for an article or chapter (APA Style, title case).

• (Study Tips for Finals, 2024) for a webpage
• ("Colleges Rethink Early Exams," 2025) for an unsigned news article

Use "Anonymous" only if the work is actually signed "Anonymous."

No date: write "n.d.": (Example Writing Center, n.d.). For a work accepted but not yet published, write "in press" (APA Style).

How do you cite a source you found in another source?

Use "as cited in" when you could not read the original. Name the original work, then the source you actually read. Only the source you read goes in the reference list (APA Style).

• (Hartley, 1998, as cited in Rivera, 2023)

APA asks you to use secondary citations sparingly, for example when the original is out of print or in a language you can't read. Whenever you can, find the original and cite it directly.

How do you cite an email, interview or lecture?

Sources your readers can't retrieve, such as emails, text messages, personal interviews and unrecorded lectures, are personal communications: cite them in the text only, with initials, surname and an exact date, and leave them out of the reference list (APA Style).

• (J. Torres, personal communication, March 3, 2026)
• J. Torres (personal communication, March 3, 2026) explained...

If a lecture was based on published research, cite that research instead. Quotes from participants you interviewed for your own study are not personal communications.

What about citing the same source again?

APA doesn't use "ibid." Every parenthetical citation repeats the author and year. In narrative citations, you can drop the year the second and later times you name the same source within one paragraph, unless you cite several works by the same author (APA Style). Two more small rules from the same page: the in-text citation uses only the year even if the reference has a full date, and suffixes such as "Jr." are left out.

Edge cases at a glance

Need the matching reference list entries? See APA 7 citation examples, or build one from your source's details with the APA reference generator. For citing many sources at once in a review, see how to write a literature review.