The author's last name and the year of publication are included in an APA in-text citation. If you're citing or paraphrasing a specific piece, include a page number as well. The author's last name and a page number are included in an MLA in-text citation. In general, follow the style of your institution or department. Each school has its own requirements for in-text citations; therefore, be sure to check with your library's publishing guide or writing center for more information.
APA In-Text Citation: The author's last name and the year of publication are used in the APA in-text citation style, for example: (Field, 2005). Include the page number for direct quotations, for example: (Field, 2005, p. 14). Use a paragraph number for sources that do not contain page numbers, such as websites and e-books. These also include documents such as magazines or journals that do not have a specific page number.
Every in-text citation in your article must be accompanied by a reference list item. The APA in-text citation style, for example, employs the author's last name and the year of publication, as in: (Field, 2005). Do not include page numbers for indirect quotations or when citing multiple sources from the same book or article.
To reference sources in the text, both MLA and APA employ parenthetical citations. They do, however, include significantly different information. For example, if I were referencing the cell phone study that appeared in Journal of Cell Phone Studies in 2005, my APA in-text citation would look like this: interviews conducted by Phone Pulse with 20 college students in 2005. If I were to reference the same study but in my essay, I would use an MLA citation style entry for a journal article. It would look like this: Interviews conducted by Phone Pulse with 20 college students in 2005. An APA citation includes only the title of the study while an MLA citation also includes the date published.
There are two types of APA citations: primary and secondary. A primary source is one that first provides information about the subject being studied; for example, an interview or testimony from someone who participated in or witnessed something related to your paper's topic. Secondary sources can be found through Google searches or other research methods and provide information about the subject obtained from other people or documents such as books, journals, or websites. Do not rely exclusively on secondary sources for your work, as these too may be plagiarized.
Indirect quotations are cited with the source's title and first word only, for example: (Field, "Pet Animals", 2007, p. 94). References should be referenced in text using numbers based on the order they appear in the bibliography.
When you allude to, summarize, paraphrase, or reference another source, include an in-text citation. The APA in-text citation style, for example, employs the author's last name and the year of publication, as in: (Field, 2005)...
Citing a paraphrase or summary is similar to citing another essay or section within a book. For example, if there is a chapter on leadership within a book on management techniques, then you would refer to this chapter as either "The leadership chapter" or "That chapter on leadership." When writing your paper, be sure to identify any sources that you use extensively with full citations, and then provide only short notes about those sources in your text. Your readers will know which sources you are referring to when reading your work!
In addition to requiring a parenthetical citation when you quote or paraphrase from another writer's work, the APA requires that you provide a bibliography or works cited page at the end of your article. This page lists every source you have used during the course of your research or writing project, including books, articles, websites, and even transcripts from interviews. You should include only relevant sources in your works cited page. That means only sources that deal directly with your topic or some aspect of it. If you cite a newspaper article about leadership, for example, you would also want to include any books that discuss leadership theories or methods.
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