Citations document information sources used in academic research, and they serve as an "address" of sorts to those sources. Regardless of the format/style you're using (APA, MLA, SBL, AMS, ACS, CSE, Chicago, or others), they usually take two forms within the same work: 1) Reference or complete citations, and 2) shorter in-text or parenthetical citations (sometimes also called "author-date" citations) that correspond with/refer to the reference citations. Read on to learn more about each:
- 1) Reference or complete citations, are the complete entries that are usually found gathered together in bibliographies, reference lists, and works cited or works consulted lists that usually appear at the back of books, at the end of articles and papers, and even on some web pages. APA style uses the term References in its list of documented sources at the end of the paper or document. These full citations in the References list contain all the information necessary (an "address") for the reader to locate those sources to consult them for themselves (similar to how an address for a residence or business enables you to find its location). See below a portion of a sample References page* from a Sample Student Paper following 7th edition guidelines:
*(American Psychological Association, n.d., p. 10)
- 2) In-text citations (often called "parenthetical citations" because the citation appears within parentheses) occur in the research text narrative (such as the body of a paper, a book chapter, or an article) and are enclosed in parentheses, like this: ( ).
- These parenthetical citations are a kind of short-hand (abbreviated) version of the full references located in references/works cited lists and refer the reader to the complete citation in the reference or works cited lists.
- Except in a very few instances, if you have an in-text citation in APA style in the narrative of your paper, you will have a corresponding reference or complete citation in the References list at the end of your paper.
See below an example** (also from the Sample Paper above) of an in-text citation in the narrative of the paper (notice how the in-text citation, circled in yellow in the example, corresponds to the first full citation in the References list illustrated above). Again, we'll discuss specific formatting of the in-text citation in Step 7:
**(American Psychological Association, n.d., p. 3)
Let's look at some more examples of reference citations and their corresponding in-text counterparts:
- A citation for a book (using APA Style, 7th ed.):
- Reference/Complete Citation (contains all the info necessary to find this book):
Livermore, J. B., & Quigley, E. (2002). Field assessment in crisis counseling (2nd ed.).
Sage.
- In-Text/Parenthetical Corresponding Citation (contains only the authors' last names and date of publication):
(Livermore & Quigley, 2002)
- A citation for a journal article in print form (using APA style, 7th ed.):
- Reference/Complete Citation (contains all the info necessary to find this book): :
Piper, A. (2006). Rethinking the print object: Goethe and the book of everything. PMLA,
121(1), 124-38.
- In-Text/Parenthetical Corresponding Citation (contains only the author's last name and date of publication):
(Piper, 2006)
But why do we need citations (in other words, why do we need to document our sources)? Go to Step 3 (below right or in the left sidebar) to learn more.
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Reference:
American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Student sample paper. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper- format/sample-papers
