How to Do an In-Text Citation in APA Format From a Web Page

Most research papers require citations.

APA stands for American Psychological Association, which publishes a manual on how resources are supposed to be cited for papers. Most college professors require citations, both in-text and as a reference list at the end of the paper. In-text citations appear throughout the paper whenever you use ideas from your sources and direct the reader to where they can verify your information.

Instructions

1. Look up the author's name, year of publication and paragraph number (instead of the page number) you are citing from the Web page. If there is no date, write "n.d." in your in-text citation. If there is no author, use the first word or two from the title and put it in quotations when you cite it.

2. Use the standard "(Author last name, year, para. number)." for in-text citations following a paraphrase. Though the paragraph number is optional, APA style recommends you use it. Also, note the the period for the sentence follows the citation. If you mention the author's name or year in the sentence, you can omit them from the citation. For example, if you wrote, "The tax burden in the United States shifted unfairly," your in-text citation might be "(Smith, 2005, para. 4)." But if you wrote "Smith (1998) claims that the tax burden in the United States shifted unfairly" you could just write "(para. 4)" at the end of the sentence or not have to write a citation at all because the paragraph number is optional.

3. Place the citation after the period if you have a long quotation--more than 40 words--that forces you to indent the quotation. The citation will likely only contain the paragraph number, which is not an option for long quotes because you will cite the source of the quotation in the sentence. For example, if you said, "According to Smith (2005): (indent) The tax burden ... and unjustly punished the poor." you would insert your citation after the period: "... and unjustly punished the poor. (para. 4)" Note that there is no period after this citation.

4. Place the citation at the conclusion of the sentence but before the period if you are using a short quote in the sentence. Like the long quote, you will likely state the author's name and year in the sentence. Unlike the long quote, however, you will place the citation before the period. For example, your paper might read: "According to Smith's (2005) study, the new taxes "unjustly punished the poor" (para. 4).

References

• Purdue Online Writing Lab: In-Text Citations: The Basics
• Diana Hacker: Research and Documentation Online