The purpose of the text citation is to briefly give readers the identity of the information you are citing, and allow them to find the information you provide in the reference list that enables readers to locate the exact piece of literature you used.
Every citation on the References page needs to be used at least once in your paper.
Every source documented in your paper should have a References entry.
Each in-text citation will, at a minimum, refer to an author's name or authors' names and the year of publication. (If there isn't an author, your in-text citation will refer to the first couple words of the article title.)
If the original source has page numbers, include the relevant page, too.
(Lastname, YYYY, p. #) e.g., (Smith, 2020, p. 14)
The moon is made of green cheese (Carter, 2013, p. 47). The moon is made of green cheese (Carter & Sousa, 2011, p. 47).
Experts agree that "the moon is comprised of green cheese" (Sousa & Thompson, 1974, p. 43).
Lunar geologist Dr. Carter (1942) reports that the moon is made of cheese (p. 47).
If you mention that author's name in your actual sentence, you must contextualize who they are. Putting them in your narrative indicates they're important, so you need to clarify why. Conversely, if the author is not someone significant, don't name them in-text.
Never refer to a professional researcher by their first name alone (Taylor discovered...). They are Smith or Dr. Smith or folklorist Dr. Taylor Smith. Even if you were on a first-name basis with that researcher, you would still apply professional courtesy and refer to their titles and last names.
Some say the moon is "green cheese" (Underwood et al., 2000, p. 134). Others argue that the moon is actually made up of various rocks (Stark et al., 1947). Everyone is disappointed by this development (Stark et al., 2009, p. 198).
It's harder to appropriately namedrop a team of people. Sometimes this can work in certain contexts, but it'll probably be easier to stick with parenthetical.
| In Your Paper | References | |
|---|---|---|
| Digital-only source |
Experts agree that "the moon is comprised of green cheese" (Moon Analysis, 2013). |
Moon analysis. (2013). Space Cheese Fan Club, http://ch.z/moon. |
| Print + digital source | The yellow cheddar became popular after astronaut Frank Borman orbited the moon ("Maker"). |
Maker of 'moon cheese' reports heavy demand. (1969, July 18). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1969/07/18/archives/maker-of-moon-cheese-reports-heavy-demand.html |
Your in-text citations are, essentially, an abbreviation of your full reference that makes it easy for your reader to very quickly find the citation by skimming the left margin. Author names are typically the first part of the citation, but if you have a source with no named author, the article title becomes the first part. This is what you'll put in parentheses in your paper. You don't have to use the full title -- just the first word or two will be sufficient.
Caveat: an unnamed author is one thing, but if you also cannot locate publisher info or a date, chances are you have a bad choice of article to use in your research. If you don't know who's creating the information, how do you know whether you should trust them?
See also:
She defused the antimatter cannon and closed the wormhole (Rogers, 2014, chap. 15). There is no cheese inside of wormholes (Underwood, 1942, Introduction section).
Rogers emphasizes the character's development by echoing a conversation from earlier in the book (Carter, 2013, para. 10).
The heroes renew their resolve to escape the moon following a tense conversation (Stark, 1948, 00:54:30-01:03:00).
If your source has a runtime rather than page numbers, you'll go by the time stamps of particular scenes or quotes.
Experts agree that "the moon is comprised of green cheese" (Sousa and Thompson, 1953, p. 43).
Sousa supports this theory but adds that "the core could be made of white cheddar" as well ("Deeper," 1990, p. 374).
Lunar geologist Dr. Carter (1993) reports that the moon is made of cheese (p. 47). Carter's colleague Dr. Slate has further evidence that it is made of brie and stilton in particular (Moon and Crackers, 1974, p. 178, 234).
Source Cited Another Source (Indirect/Secondary Citation) |
This is what you'll use when you've read an article that mentions another study. You want to use the info that other study mentions, but you can't find a copy of the full original. Instead, you will cite the article you've actually read in your References (which means your in-text citation will be based on that), but you'll name-drop the other study in your paper. If you're pulling in a quote or specific info that was repeated from somewhere in the article you actually used, indicate this by mentioning that what you're pulling in is secondhand from the source you actually looked at.
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Association, Corporation, Government Agency, etc as Author |
Names of group authors are always spelled out in the first citation. The name should appear in the first in-text citation as it does in the reference citation. Reference List Author Name: Don't Abbreviate
First Parenthetical Citation: Full Name AND Abbreviation
However, in following citations, they are sometimes abbreviated and sometimes not. How to decide: You need to give enough information in the text citation for someone to find the reference list citation. Following Text Citations: Just the Abbreviation
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Two Different Sources, One Sentence |
In this example, there are no page numbers because we're referring to the overall/main idea of the authors' works rather than specifically citable information. A semicolon ( ; ) separates the authors of the different sources from each other. A further example:
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Same Author, 2 Different Works |
Because APA Style includes the year of publication, the two articles will be clearly distinguishable from one another, provided they were published in different years.
If the articles are by the same person and were published in the same year, add letters after each year to make the difference clear, both in your References page and your in-text citations, e.g. (Carter, 2011a, p. 5) and (Carter, 2011b, p. 10). |
Same Name, Different People |
Same Last Name, Different First Name:
If two different authors have the same last name, you need to include their first initials to keep them distinct from each other, even if the years of publication are different.
Same Last Name, Same First Initial:
On your references page, you may include their full first name in brackets in your citation: Rogers, S. [Shmeve]. (2015). This is an article title stand-in... Rogers, S. [Steve]. (1942). This is another article title stand-in... |
Same Authors, Titles, AND Dates |
Add letters after each year to make the difference clear.
Which letter goes to which source depends on the order they're listed on the References page (alphabetically). Include the letter in the References entry as well as the parenthetical. No date? Place a hyphen between the "n.d." and the assigned letter.
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Though written essays are kind of the default format -- or at least, incredibly common -- you do still need to worry about citations when creating presentations, movies, infographics, or other types of works! The only thing that doesn't apply is all the 'Times New Roman size 12 double-space' formatting rules.
You do also have more flexibility in how and where you include citations, too!
You can use traditional parenthetical citations, especially if you've used multiple sources on one slide.
You can also go less formal [unless your professor has said otherwise!] by tucking the citation into the corner of the slide (Greene). You even have the flexibility to include extra info that MLA wouldn't normally allow but can help contextualize the source (Green, NPR Morning Edition).
You must also include a Works Cited slide! We could create hanging indents, but it's not strictly necessary. A bulleted list might also work in this situation.
You can add a formal parenthetical citation at the appropriate times in your video in some corner of the video.
Recommendation: wherever you place it, keep it consistent! E.g. if the first one is the bottom-left corner, make all the citations in the bottom-left corner. This helps your reader know where to look as well as to know what that pop-up means each time it appears.
There's no rules about size/font/format! Just pay attention to how it contrasts to your video's background.
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