In-text citations are parenthetical references used to document sources of information in academic and scholarly writing. Include an in-text citation wherever directly quoting an author; paraphrasing, or putting another author’s ideas into your own words; or including dates, statistics, or other information found in a source.
- Place parenthetical citations at the end of the sentence, before the period.
- Include page numbers when available. Skip them if the source does not have page numbers, like an online journal or a website.
- When there is no author, use the title formatted as in the References list. After the first use, the title can be shortened to the first four (4) major keywords of the title.
- If there is no date, use n.d.
- The general format is (Author Last Name Year of Publication, Page #). For example: (Gonzalez 2013, 212) or (Curry n.d.).
- A newspaper or website citation can often be limited to a mention in the text (According to….). This method is called citing in running text.
