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APA Citation Style:
In-text Citation

APA Style Blog: In-text Citation

Overview of In-text Citation

Citing References in Text

Learn how to cite references in the text, including how to implement the basic formats, cite multiple works, achieve clarity, and format references with missing author and/or date information.

Academic Writer

© 2016 American Psychological Association.

In-text Citation Examples

The following table shows the basic in-text citation styles:
Author type Parenthetical citation Narrative citation

One author

(Luna, 2020)

Luna (2020)

Two authors

(Salas & D’Agostino, 2020)

Salas and D’Agostino (2020)

Three or more authors

(Martin et al., 2020)

Martin et al. (2020)

Group author with abbreviation

First citation a

Subsequent citations



(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2020)

(NIMH, 2020)



National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2020)

NIMH (2020)

Group author without abbreviation

(Stanford University, 2020)

Stanford University (2020)

American Psychological Association (n.d). Author-Date Citation System. Retrieved from https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles/author-date.