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APA Citation Style:
In-text Citation

APA Style Blog: In-text Citation

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.