An in-text citation is a short citation in the text of your paper that directs the reader to the full reference at the end of your assignment.
When you quote from other sources in your paper, you can use a Direct Quote (take the author's words exactly) or Paraphrase (when you take the author's ideas and put them in your own words).
Direct quote example: "Canada is a multicultural country" (Author lastname, Year, p. #).
Paraphrase example: Canada is a multicultural country (Author lastname, Year).
Citations are part of your sentence structure, and closing punctuation follows the citation.
When a quote appears in the middle of a sentence, follow the quote with the in-text citation, then complete your sentence immediately following the citation.
When a quote appears at the end of your sentence, close the quote with double quotation marks and follow immediately with the in-text citation. Follow the citation with the closing punctuation for the sentence.
Quotations longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotations:
Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah:
This is a block quotation, longer than 40 words. Notice how there are no quotation marks and the entire quote is double-spaced and indented from the left margin. The citation comes after the closing punctuation. (Jones & Smith, 2010, p. 121)
APA Guide, 6th Edition by Centennial College Libraries is licensed under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license unless otherwise stated.
Credit: Humber Libraries.