apa citation in text same author same year

APA Citation Guide (7th edition) : Works by the same author with the same year

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Works by the Same Author with the Same Year

When you are citing two different sources that share the same author and year of publication, assign lowercase letters after the year of publication (a, b, c, etc.). Assign these letters according to which title comes first alphabetically. Use these letters in both in-text citations and the Reference list.

Example In-Text:

Paraphrasing content from first source by this author (Daristotle, 2015a). "Now I am quoting from the second source by the same author" (Daristotle, 2015b, p. 50).

Example Reference list entries:

Daristotle, J. (2015a). Name of first article. Made Up Journal , 26 (39), 18-19. 

Daristotle, J. (2015b). Title of second article. Another Made Up Journal , 35 (1), 48-55. 

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APA (7th ed.) Citation Style Guide: In-Text Citations

• Paper Format Guidelines
• Four Elements of a Reference
• Missing Reference Information
• In-Text Citations
• Secondary Sources
• Tables and Figures
• Book Sections (Chapters)
• Reference Works
• Business Sources
• Audiovisual Material
• Social Media & Software
• Government Documents
• Open Textbooks
• Course Related Material

Personal Communications

• Further Examples
• Legal Citation
• Nursing Resources

Basic In-Text Citation Styles

The following covers the most common in-text citation scenarios. For more specific information about in-text citations, refer to pp. 261-269 of the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association , 7th ed.

( Publication manual of the American Psychological  Association ,  7th ed., 2020,  p. 266)

https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles/author-date

• Douglas College Learning Centre In-text Citation Using APA Style More information on APA 7th in text citation from the Douglas College Learning Centre
• In-Text Citation Checklist from APA A helpful checklist provided by the folks at APA Style. Run through this quick list for all your citations.

Author - Date Citation System

• Each source used in a paper has two parts - the in text citation and a corresponding citation in the reference list . 
• The in text citation consists of the author and the date of publication .  It appears within the text of the paper.  
• The in text citation gives the surname(s) of the author(s) or the group author(s).  
• Use only the year in the in text citation, even if the citation in the reference list contains a more specific date.  
• For works with no date , use n.d. in the in text citation. 

( Publication manual of the American Psychological  Association ,  7th ed., 2020, pp.261-262)

Parenthetical and Narrative Citations

There are two formats for in-text citations - parenthetical and narrative.  In parenthetical citations, the author's name and the publication date appear in parentheses.  In narrative citations, the author's name and publication date is included in the text as part of the sentence.  

In a parenthetical citation both the author and the date appear in parenthesis and are separated by a comma.  A parenthetical citation can go at the end of the sentence or within it.  When it is at the end of a sentence, the period appears after the closing parenthesis.  

Humanity needs to rethink our agricultural practices to make them sustainable by becoming stewards of the land (Fitzgerald & Gershuny, 2019).

Narrative Citation

Usually the author's name appears in the text and the date appears in parentheses immediately after the author's name. If you include the author's name in the sentence, do not include it in the parentheses. Occasionally the author's name and the date both appear in the text.  When this happens do not use parentheses.  

Fitzgerald and Gershuny (2019) describe how humans have a stewardship obligation to both the land and to future generations. 

In their 2019 essay, Fitzgerald and Gershuny discuss challenges, tools, and opportunities for the future of agriculture. 

For further information, see Publication manual of the American Psychological  Association ,  7th ed., 2020, pp.262-263.

Omitting the Year in Repeated Narrative Citations

In general, provide the author and date in every in-text citation.  The year can be omitted from an in text citation "only when multiple narrative citations to a work appear within a single paragraph.  Once you have provided a narrative citation to a work in a paragraph, do not repeat the year in subsequent narrative citations in that same paragraph . Follow this guideline with each paragraph (i.e., include the year in the first narrative citation in a new paragraph).   Include the year in every parenthetical citation .

However, if you cite multiple works by the same author or authors, regardless of the publication years, include the date in every in-text citation to prevent ambiguity. ( Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed., 2020, pp.265-266) .

Organizations as Author

Works with a group author are usually spelled out each time they appear in a citation.

• The first time provide the full name of the group followed by the abbreviation.  
• Do not abbreviate the group author name in the reference list entry.    
• If the group name first appears in a narrative citation, include the abbreviation before the year in parentheses, separated with a comma, e.g.,  The American Psychological Association [APA], 2017 described....  
• If the group name first appears in a parenthetical citation, include the abbreviation in square brackets, followed by a comma and the year, e.g., (American Psychological Association [APA], 2017)

(Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed., 2020, p. 268)

Citing Multiple Works

Parenthetical citations of multiple works  are listed alphabetically and separated with semicolons.

(Carson, 2019; Lewis et al., 2020; Sanders & Turner, 2018)

For two or more works by the same author , arrange by the year of publication. Place the citations with no date first. Provide the author's surname once and then just the date for subsequent works.

Konepeleny (n.d., 2015, 2020)

For multiple references that have an identical author (or authors) and publication year , include a lowercase letter after the year. These letters are assigned when the references are placed in order in the reference list (alphabetically by title). The year-letter combination is used in both the in-text and the reference list entry. Use only the year with a letter in the in-text citation, even if the reference list entry contains a more specific date.

(Richards, 2018a, 2018b, 2020)

When multiple citations are cited narratively within a sentence, they can appear in any order.

Rogers (2019), Mason (2020), and Pompeo (2015) studied.....

( Publication manual of the American Psychological  Association ,  7th ed., 2020, pp.263-264)

Unknown or Anonymous Author

"When the author of a work is not named, the author may be unknown (i.e., no author is listed on the work, as with a religious work) or identified specifically as "Anonymous." For works with an unknown author , include the title and year of publication in the in-text citation (note that the title moves to the author position in the reference list entry as well).  If the title of the work is italicized in the reference, also italicize the title in the in-text citation.  If the title of the work is not italicized in the reference, use double quotation marks around the title in the in-text citation.  Capitalize these titles in the text using title case, even though sentence case is used in the reference list entry.  If the title is long, shorten it for the in-text citation."

Book with no author: ( Interpersonal Skills , 2019)

Magazine article with no author: ("Understanding Sensory Memory," 2018)

When the author of a work is overtly designated as "Anonymous,"  "Anonymous" takes the place of the author name in the in-text citation."

(Anonymous, 2017)

( Publication manual of the American Psychological  Association ,  7th ed., 2020, pp.264-265)

Works With the Same Author and Same Date

When more than one reference has the same author and publication year, include a lowercase letter after the year . This year-letter combination is used in both the reference list entry and the in-text citation. Use only the year-letter in the in-text citation even if the reference entry has a more specific date.

(Munroe, 2019a)

(Munroe, 2019b)

(Sawatzky, n.d.-a)

(Satwatzky, n.d.-b)

( Publication manual of the American Psychological  Association ,  7th ed., 2020, p.267)

Authors With the Same Surname

When multiple references have authors with the same surname, include the authors' first initials in all in-text citations . This helps to avoid confusion.

(S. Rogers, 2020)

(K. Rogers & Tonnelo, 2019)

Paraphrasing

When   paraphrasing   or referring to an idea contained in another work, APA encourages but does not require one to "provide an page number in the citation for a paraphrase, you may include one in addition to the author and year when it would help interested readers locate the relevant passage within a long or complex work."   ( Publication manual of the American Psychological  Association ,  7th ed., 2020, p.269)

Direct Quotations

When quoting directly, always provide the author, year and page number of the quotation in either the parenthetical or narrative format.  

When providing a direct quote,  a page number is included. For a single page, use p.; for multiple pages use pp.

Short Quotations  (Fewer than 40 Words)

Incorporate a short quotation (fewer than 40 words) into the text of your essay and enclose the quotation in double quotation marks.

Morey (2019) found that the "placebo effect, which had been verified in previous studies, disappeared when only the first group's behaviours were studied in this manner" (p. 225).

Block Quotations (40 Words or More)

When a quotation has 40 words or more, treat it as a block quotation and omit the quotation marks.  Start a block quotation on a new line and indent the whole quotation .5 inch from the left margin.

Morey (2019) found the following:

The placebo effect, which had been verified in previous studies, disappeared when behaviours were studied in the this manner. Furthermore, the behaviours were never exhibited again, even when real drugs were administered. Earlier studies were clearly premature in attributing the results to a placebo effect. (p. 255)

Citing a source multiple times in one paragraph

According to the APA Style , it is important to avoid both undercitation (plagiarism) and overcitation. The website states that "...it is considered overcitation to repeat the same citation in every sentence when the source and the topic have not changed. Instead, when paraphrasing a key point in more than one sentence within a paragraph, cite the source in the first sentence  in which it is relevant and do not repeat the citation in subsequent sentences as long as the source remains  clear and unchanged ." ( Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed., 2020, p.254) . 

To do this, you can make it clear in subsequent sentences that you are still referring to that initial citation. Some was you could do this include using language like "according to the authors" or "they also found" or "the article states."

Trigg (2022) found that owning a pet "may be leverageable in interventions for mental health an wellbeing improvement during cancer recovery" (p.834). In the study, the author found that cancer survivors who were also pet owners found benefits in the companionship and affection they received from their pets. The article was, however, limited by the COVID-19 pandemic which "reduced the overall sample size" (p.848).

Direct Quotations of Material Without Page Numbers

Textual works  may not provide page numbers. To directly quote a document that does not give page numbers, any of the following approaches are acceptable:

Provide a paragraph number . You can count the paragraphs if they are not numbered.

e.g. (Rogers, para. 4).

If the document includes headings or section names , cite the heading name in the in text citation. If the heading or section name is too long, provide an abbreviated heading or section name in quotation marks to indicate that is is an abbreviation.

e.g.  (Selig, Interaction Analysis section).

If the heading or section name is too long, provide an abbreviated heading or section name in quotation marks to indicate that it is an abbreviation.

e.g. ( Selig , "Nutrition" section). The original  section was titled Nutrition Analysis of Vegan and Vegetarian Diets.

Provide a heading/section name with a paragraph number .

e.g. (Golan, Kuchler, & Krissof, 2017, Body Trust section, para. 3).

Audiovisual Works. Give a time stamp for the beginning of the quotation in place of a page number.

(Gendlin, 2020, 4:42).

( Publication manual of the American Psychological  Association ,  7th ed., 2020, pp.272-278)

Entire Websites

When citing an entire website rather than a specific document on that website, an in-text citation is with the address of the website is all that is required. A reference list entry is not required.  

e.g. The Douglas College library has information on citing your sources (https://library.douglascollege.ca)

( Publication manual of the American Psychological  Association ,  7th ed., 2020, p.268)

"Works that cannot be recovered by readers (i.e., works without a source element) are cited as personal communications. Personal communications include emails, text messages, online chats or direct messages, personal interviews, telephone conversations, live speeches, unrecorded classroom lectures, memos, letters, messages from nonarchived discussion groups or online bulletin boards, and so on.

"Citing Personal Communications in the Text. Because readers cannot retrieve the information in personal communications, personal communications are not included in the reference list; they are cited in the text only.  Give the initial(s) and surname of the communicator, and provide as exact a date as possible."

(APA Publication Manual, 7th ed., p. 260)

Parenthetical citation:

(N. Smith, personal communication, April 8, 2020)

Narrative citation:

N. Smith said in her email ....(personal communication, April 8, 2020)

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APA 7th Edition Referencing: Multiple Works By the Same Author Published in the Same Year

• APA 7th Edition
• AUDIOVISUAL
• Generative Artificial Intelligence/ ChatGPT
• LEGAL & GOVERNMENT
• Multiple Works By the Same Author Published in the Same Year
• In-text Referencing
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Multiple works by the same author published in the same year

• Add a, b, c after the year to differentiate works by the same author(s) published in the same year • Order alphabetically by title of the work in the reference list

For references that have no date (shown by n.d.), use the following forms for the date in the in-text citation and reference list: (n.d.-a), (n.d.-b) etc.

Examples: In-text citation (Clarke & Fawcett, 2014b).

Clarke and Fawcett (2014a) suggest that...

References Clarke, P. N., & Fawcett, J. (2014a). Life as a mentor. Nursing Science Quarterly, 27 (3), 213-215. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894318414534492 Clarke, P. N., & Fawcett, J. (2014b). Life as a nurse researcher. Nursing Science Quarterly, 27 (1), 37-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894318413509708

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APA Citation Style 7th Edition

• APA Style Overview
• Sample Documents & Guides

Citing Multiple Sources With the Same Author and Year

• Websites & Web Documents
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You will need to differentiate between sources with the same author and publication date by adding a lowercase letter to the publication year. Including this lowercase letter ensures that the reader knows which source you are citing in-text and can find that source in your reference list.

Reference List

Add the lowercase le tter immediately after the publication year in reference entries:

Yob, I. M. (1995a). Religious emotion in the arts. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 29(4), 23–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/3333289

Yob, I. M. (1995b). Religious music and multicultural education. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 3(2), 69–82.

Yob, I. M. (1995c). Spiritual education: A public school dialogue with religious interpretations. Religious Education, 90(1), 103–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/0034408950900107

NOTE:  We have listed these entries alphabetically by title, with the lowercase letters assigned based on this order. Also note that when you cite these sources in the text, include the letter with the date so that readers can match that citation to the appropriate reference entry.

In-Text Citations

Parenthetical citation:

• Paraphrase: (Yob, 1995a); (Yob, 1995b); (Yob, 1995c)
• Quotation: (Yob, 1995b, p. 73)

Narrative citation:   Yob (1995a) indicates...

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Frequently asked questions

How do i cite multiple sources by the same author in apa style.

If you cite several sources by the same author or group of authors, you’ll distinguish between them in your APA in-text citations using the year of publication.

If you cite multiple sources by the same author(s) at the same point , you can just write the author name(s) once and separate the different years with commas, e.g., (Smith, 2020, 2021).

To distinguish between sources with the same author(s) and  the same publication year, add a different lowercase letter after the year for each source, e.g., (Smith, 2020, 2021a, 2021b). Add the same letters to the corresponding reference entries .

Frequently asked questions: APA Style

APA footnotes use superscript numbers and should appear in numerical order. You can place footnotes at the bottom of the relevant pages, or on a separate footnotes page at the end:

• For footnotes at the bottom of the page, you can use your word processor to automatically insert footnotes .
• For footnotes at the end of the text in APA, place them on a separate page entitled “Footnotes,” after the r eference page . Indent the first line of each footnote, and double-space them.

For both approaches, place a space between the superscript number and the footnote text.

APA Style requires you to use APA in-text citations , not footnotes, to cite sources .

However, you can use APA footnotes sparingly for two purposes:

• Giving additional information
• Providing copyright attribution

Yes, APA language guidelines state that you should always use the serial comma (aka Oxford comma ) in your writing.

This means including a comma before the word “and” at the end of a list of three or more items: “spelling, grammar, and punctuation.” Doing this consistently tends to make your lists less ambiguous.

Yes, it’s perfectly valid to write sentences in the passive voice . The APA language guidelines do caution against overusing the passive voice, because it can obscure your meaning or be needlessly long-winded. For this reason, default to the active voice in most cases.

The passive voice is most useful when the point of the sentence is just to state what was done, not to emphasize who did it. For example, “The projector was mounted on the wall” is better than “James and I mounted the projector on the wall” if it’s not particularly important who mounted the projector.

Yes, APA language guidelines encourage you to use the first-person pronouns “I” or “we” when referring to yourself or a group including yourself in your writing.

In APA Style, you should not refer to yourself in the third person. For example, do not refer to yourself as “the researcher” or “the author” but simply as “I” or “me.” Referring to yourself in the third person is still common practice in some academic fields, but APA Style rejects this convention.

According to the APA guidelines, you should report enough detail on inferential statistics so that your readers understand your analyses.

Report the following for each hypothesis test:

• the test statistic value
• the degrees of freedom
• the exact p value (unless it is less than 0.001)
• the magnitude and direction of the effect

You should also present confidence intervals and estimates of effect sizes where relevant.

The number of decimal places to report depends on what you’re reporting. Generally, you should aim to round numbers while retaining precision. It’s best to present fewer decimal digits to aid easy understanding.

Use one decimal place for:

• Standard deviations
• Descriptive statistics based on discrete data

Use two decimal places for:

• Correlation coefficients
• Proportions
• Inferential test statistics such as t values, F values, and chi-squares.

No, including a URL is optional in APA Style reference entries for legal sources (e.g. court cases , laws ). It can be useful to do so to aid the reader in retrieving the source, but it’s not required, since the other information included should be enough to locate it.

Generally, you should identify a law in an APA reference entry by its location in the United States Code (U.S.C.).

But if the law is either spread across various sections of the code or not featured in the code at all, include the public law number in addition to information on the source you accessed the law in, e.g.:

You should report methods using the past tense , even if you haven’t completed your study at the time of writing. That’s because the methods section is intended to describe completed actions or research.

In your APA methods section , you should report detailed information on the participants, materials, and procedures used.

• Describe all relevant participant or subject characteristics, the sampling procedures used and the sample size and power .
• Define all primary and secondary measures and discuss the quality of measurements.
• Specify the data collection methods, the research design and data analysis strategy, including any steps taken to transform the data and statistical analyses.

With APA legal citations, it’s recommended to cite all the reporters (publications reporting cases) in which a court case appears. To cite multiple reporters, just separate them with commas in your reference entry . This is called parallel citation .

Don’t repeat the name of the case, court, or year; just list the volume, reporter, and page number for each citation. For example:

In APA Style , when you’re citing a recent court case that has not yet been reported in print and thus doesn’t have a specific page number, include a series of three underscores (___) where the page number would usually appear:

In APA style, statistics can be presented in the main text or as tables or figures . To decide how to present numbers, you can follow APA guidelines:

• To present three or fewer numbers, try a sentence,
• To present between 4 and 20 numbers, try a table,
• To present more than 20 numbers, try a figure.

Since these are general guidelines, use your own judgment and feedback from others for effective presentation of numbers.

In an APA results section , you should generally report the following:

• Participant flow and recruitment period.
• Missing data and any adverse events.
• Descriptive statistics about your samples.
• Inferential statistics , including confidence intervals and effect sizes.
• Results of any subgroup or exploratory analyses, if applicable.

When citing a podcast episode in APA Style , the podcast’s host is listed as author , accompanied by a label identifying their role, e.g. Glass, I. (Host).

When citing a whole podcast series, if different episodes have different hosts, list the executive producer(s) instead. Again, include a label identifying their role, e.g. Lechtenberg, S. (Producer).

Like most style guides , APA recommends listing the book of the Bible you’re citing in your APA in-text citation , in combination with chapter and verse numbers. For example:

Books of the Bible may be abbreviated to save space; a list of standard abbreviations can be found here . Page numbers are not used in Bible citations.

Yes, in the 7th edition of APA Style , versions of the Bible are treated much like other books ; you should include the edition you used in your reference list .

Previously, in the 6th edition of the APA manual, it was recommended to just use APA 6 in-text citations to refer to the Bible, and omit it from the reference list.

To make it easy for the reader to find the YouTube video , list the person or organization who uploaded the video as the author in your reference entry and APA in-text citation .

If this isn’t the same person responsible for the content of the video, you might want to make this clear in the text. For example:

When you need to highlight a specific moment in a video or audio source, use a timestamp in your APA in-text citation . Just include the timestamp from the start of the part you’re citing. For example:

To include a direct quote in APA , follow these rules:

• Quotes under 40 words are placed in double quotation marks .
• Quotes of 40 words or more are formatted as block quote .
• The author, year, and page number are included in an APA in-text citation .

APA doesn’t require you to include a list of tables or a list of figures . However, it is advisable to do so if your text is long enough to feature a table of contents and it includes a lot of tables and/or figures .

A list of tables and list of figures appear (in that order) after your table of contents, and are presented in a similar way.

Copyright information can usually be found wherever the table or figure was published. For example, for a diagram in a journal article , look on the journal’s website or the database where you found the article. Images found on sites like Flickr are listed with clear copyright information.

If you find that permission is required to reproduce the material, be sure to contact the author or publisher and ask for it.

If you adapt or reproduce a table or figure from another source, you should include that source in your APA reference list . You should also include copyright information in the note for the table or figure, and include an APA in-text citation when you refer to it.

Tables and figures you created yourself, based on your own data, are not included in the reference list.

An APA in-text citation is placed before the final punctuation mark in a sentence.

• The company invested over 40,000 hours in optimizing its algorithm (Davis, 2011) .
• A recent poll suggests that EU membership “would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters” in a referendum (Levring, 2018) .

In an APA in-text citation , you use the phrase “ as cited in ” if you want to cite a source indirectly (i.e., if you cannot find the original source).

Parenthetical citation: (Brown, 1829, as cited in Mahone, 2018) Narrative citation: Brown (1829, as cited in Mahone, 2018) states that…

On the reference page , you only include the secondary source (Mahone, 2018).

Popular word processors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs can order lists in alphabetical order, but they don’t follow the APA Style alphabetization guidelines .

If you use Scribbr’s APA Citation Generator to create citations, references are ordered automatically based on the APA guidelines, taking into account all the exceptions.

Order numerals as though they were spelled out:

• “20 tips to relax” is ordered on the “T” of “Twenty”.
• “100 cities you should visit” is ordered on the “O” of “One hundred”.

Read more about alphabetizing the APA reference page .

If the author of a work is unknown, order the reference by its title. Disregard the words “A”, “An”, and “The” at the beginning of the title.

• The privacy concerns around social media
• Teens, social media, and privacy

Yes, if relevant you can and should include APA in-text citations in your appendices . Use author-date citations as you do in the main text.

Any sources cited in your appendices should appear in your reference list . Do not create a separate reference list for your appendices.

When you include more than one appendix in an APA Style paper , they should be labeled “Appendix A,” “Appendix B,” and so on.

When you only include a single appendix, it is simply called “Appendix” and referred to as such in the main text.

Appendices in an APA Style paper appear right at the end, after the reference list and after your tables and figures if you’ve also included these at the end.

An appendix contains information that supplements the reader’s understanding of your research but is not essential to it. For example:

• Interview transcripts
• Questionnaires
• Detailed descriptions of equipment

Something is only worth including as an appendix if you refer to information from it at some point in the text (e.g. quoting from an interview transcript). If you don’t, it should probably be removed.

If you adapt or reproduce a table or figure from another source, you should include that source in your APA reference list . You should also acknowledge the original source in the note or caption for the table or figure.

APA doesn’t require you to include a list of tables or a list of figures . However, it is advisable to do so if your text is long enough to feature a table of contents and it includes a lot of tables and/or figures.

A list of tables and list of figures appear (in that order) after your table of contents , and are presented in a similar way.

In an APA Style paper , use a table or figure when it’s a clearer way to present important data than describing it in your main text. This is often the case when you need to communicate a large amount of information.

Before including a table or figure in your text, always reflect on whether it’s useful to your readers’ understanding:

• Could this information be quickly summarized in the text instead?
• Is it important to your arguments?
• Does the table or figure require too much explanation to be efficient?

If the data you need to present only contains a few relevant numbers, try summarizing it in the text (potentially including full data in an appendix ). If describing the data makes your text overly long and difficult to read, a table or figure may be the best option.

In an APA Style paper , the abstract is placed on a separate page after the title page (page 2).

An APA abstract is around 150–250 words long. However, always check your target journal’s guidelines and don’t exceed the specified word count.

In APA Style , all sources that are not retrievable for the reader are cited as personal communications . In other words, if your source is private or inaccessible to the audience of your paper , it’s a personal communication.

Common examples include conversations, emails, messages, letters, and unrecorded interviews or performances.

Interviews you conducted yourself are not included in your reference list , but instead cited in the text as personal communications .

Published or recorded interviews are included in the reference list. Cite them in the usual format of the source type (for example, a newspaper article , website or YouTube video ).

To cite a public post from social media , use the first 20 words of the post as a title, include the date it was posted and a URL, and mention the author’s username if they have one:

Dorsey, J. [@jack]. (2018, March 1). We’re committing Twitter to help increase the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation, and to hold ourselves publicly [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/jack/status/969234275420655616

To cite content from social media that is not publicly accessible (e.g. direct messages, posts from private groups or user profiles), cite it as a personal communication in the text, but do not include it in the reference list :

When contacted online, the minister stated that the project was proceeding “according to plan” (R. James, Twitter direct message, March 25, 2017).

When you quote or paraphrase a specific passage from a source, you need to indicate the location of the passage in your APA in-text citation . If there are no page numbers (e.g. when citing a website ) but the text is long, you can instead use section headings, paragraph numbers, or a combination of the two:

(Caulfield, 2019, Linking section, para. 1).

Section headings can be shortened if necessary. Kindle location numbers should not be used in ebook citations , as they are unreliable.

If you are referring to the source as a whole, it’s not necessary to include a page number or other marker.

When no individual author name is listed, but the source can clearly be attributed to a specific organization—e.g., a press release by a charity, a report by an agency, or a page from a company’s website—use the organization’s name as the author in the reference entry and APA in-text citations .

When no author at all can be determined—e.g. a collaboratively edited wiki or an online article published anonymously—use the title in place of the author. In the in-text citation, put the title in quotation marks if it appears in plain text in the reference list, and in italics if it appears in italics in the reference list. Shorten it if necessary.

APA Style usually does not require an access date. You never need to include one when citing journal articles , e-books , or other stable online sources.

However, if you are citing a website or online article that’s designed to change over time, it’s a good idea to include an access date. In this case, write it in the following format at the end of the reference: Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.uva.nl/en/about-the-uva/about-the-university/about-the-university.html

The 7th edition APA Manual , published in October 2019, is the most current edition. However, the 6th edition, published in 2009, is still used by many universities and journals.

The APA Manual 7th edition can be purchased at Amazon as a hardcover, paperback or spiral-bound version. You can also buy an ebook version at RedShelf .

The American Psychological Association anticipates that most people will start using the 7th edition in the spring of 2020 or thereafter.

It’s best to ask your supervisor or check the website of the journal you want to publish in to see which APA guidelines you should follow.

If you’re citing from an edition other than the first (e.g. a 2nd edition or revised edition), the edition appears in the reference, abbreviated in parentheses after the book’s title (e.g. 2nd ed. or Rev. ed.).

In the 7th edition of the APA manual, no location information is required for publishers. The 6th edition previously required you to include the city and state where the publisher was located, but this is no longer the case.

In an APA reference list , journal article citations include only the year of publication, not the exact date, month, or season.

The inclusion of volume and issue numbers makes a more specific date unnecessary.

In an APA journal citation , if a DOI (digital object identifier) is available for an article, always include it.

If an article has no DOI, and you accessed it through a database or in print, just omit the DOI.

If an article has no DOI, and you accessed it through a website other than a database (for example, the journal’s own website), include a URL linking to the article.

You may include up to 20 authors in a reference list entry .

When an article has more than 20 authors, replace the names prior to the final listed author with an ellipsis, but do not omit the final author:

Davis, Y., Smith, J., Caulfield, F., Pullman, H., Carlisle, J., Donahue, S. D., James, F., O’Donnell, K., Singh, J., Johnson, L., Streefkerk, R., McCombes, S., Corrieri, L., Valck, X., Baldwin, F. M., Lorde, J., Wardell, K., Lao, W., Yang, P., . . . O’Brien, T. (2012).

Include the DOI at the very end of the APA reference entry . If you’re using the 6th edition APA guidelines, the DOI is preceded by the label “doi:”. In the 7th edition , the DOI is preceded by ‘https://doi.org/’.

• 6th edition: doi: 10.1177/0894439316660340
• 7th edition: https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0894439316660340

APA citation example (7th edition)

Hawi, N. S., & Samaha, M. (2016). The relations among social media addiction, self-esteem, and life satisfaction in university students. Social Science Computer Review , 35 (5), 576–586. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439316660340

When citing a webpage or online article , the APA in-text citation consists of the author’s last name and year of publication. For example: (Worland & Williams, 2015). Note that the author can also be an organization. For example: (American Psychological Association, 2019).

If you’re quoting you should also include a locator. Since web pages don’t have page numbers, you can use one of the following options:

• Paragraph number: (Smith, 2018, para. 15).
• Heading or section name: ( CDC, 2020, Flu Season section)
• Abbreviated heading:  ( CDC, 2020, “Key Facts” section)

Always include page numbers in the APA in-text citation when quoting a source . Don’t include page numbers when referring to a work as a whole – for example, an entire book or journal article.

If your source does not have page numbers, you can use an alternative locator such as a timestamp, chapter heading or paragraph number.

Instead of the author’s name, include the first few words of the work’s title in the in-text citation. Enclose the title in double quotation marks when citing an article, web page or book chapter. Italicize the title of periodicals, books, and reports.

No publication date

If the publication date is unknown , use “n.d.” (no date) instead. For example: (Johnson, n.d.).

The abbreviation “ et al. ” (meaning “and others”) is used to shorten APA in-text citations with three or more authors . Here’s how it works:

Only include the first author’s last name, followed by “et al.”, a comma and the year of publication, for example (Taylor et al., 2018).

APA Style papers should be written in a font that is legible and widely accessible. For example:

• Times New Roman (12pt.)
• Arial (11pt.)
• Calibri (11pt.)
• Georgia (11pt.)

The same font and font size is used throughout the document, including the running head , page numbers, headings , and the reference page . Text in footnotes and figure images may be smaller and use single line spacing.

The easiest way to set up APA format in Word is to download Scribbr’s free APA format template for student papers or professional papers.

Alternatively, you can watch Scribbr’s 5-minute step-by-step tutorial or check out our APA format guide with examples.

You need an APA in-text citation and reference entry . Each source type has its own format; for example, a webpage citation is different from a book citation .

Use Scribbr’s free APA Citation Generator to generate flawless citations in seconds or take a look at our APA citation examples .

APA format is widely used by professionals, researchers, and students in the social and behavioral sciences, including fields like education, psychology, and business.

Be sure to check the guidelines of your university or the journal you want to be published in to double-check which style you should be using.

Yes, page numbers are included on all pages, including the title page , table of contents , and reference page . Page numbers should be right-aligned in the page header.

To insert page numbers in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, click ‘Insert’ and then ‘Page number’.

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APA Style Citation

• General Information
• Citations in Main Body
• Reference List
• Journal Articles
• Newspaper Sources
• Magazine Sources
• One Work by One Author to Six+ Authors [In Text]
• One Work by Group or Organization as Author
• Two or More Authors
• Authors with the Same Surname
• No Identified Author
• Same Authors from the Same Year
• No Page Numbers (Internet Resources)
• Personal Communication

Same Authors from the Same Year [6.16]

In-Text from the Same Authors from the Same Year [6.16]

• Write out the authors’ surnames, the date of publication, page and/or paragraph numbers
• In order not to confuse the reader, add a letter suffix to the year
• When using a narrative, write out the authors’ surnames with the word and
• When not using a narrative, write out the authors’ surnames and use a comma [,] to separate the dates

Example of same author surnames narrative and paraphrase:

Diaz (1997a) and Diaz (1997b) noted…

Emerson (2009a) and Emerson (2009b) reported…

Example of same author surnames in paraphrase:

The field of social work covers many areas (Emerson, 2009a, 2009b).

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APA Style: Works With the Same Author(s) and Same Year of Publication

• Reference Examples
• Articles From Journals and Other Periodicals
• Chapter in a Book
• Encyclopedia Articles
• Brightspace
• Films and Videos
• Webpages and Websites
• Author Names
• When to Include a Database Name
• When to Include DOIs and URLs
• Format of DOIs and URLs
• DOI or URL Shorteners
• Works With the Same Author(s) and Same Year of Publication
• Publication Date of Webpages and Websites
• Retrieval Dates
• Court Decisions
• Reprinted or Adapted Figures, Tables, and Other Images
• General Guidelines
• Correspondence Between Reference List and Text
• Parenthetical and Narrative Citations
• Citing Specific Parts of a Source
• Number of Authors to Include in Citations
• First Authors With the Same Surname
• Unknown or Anonymous Author
• Abbreviating Corporate Authors
• Classroom or Brightspace Sources
• Personal Interviews
• Personal Communications
• Image With No Attribution Required
• Citing Traditional Knowledge or Oral Traditions of Indigenous Peoples
• Primary and Secondary Sources or Indirect Sources
• Legal Sources
• Citing AI Generated Text in APA

When the reference list is constructed a lowercase letter is appended to the year so sources can be distinguished in text citations.

(Jost et al., 2003a)

Jost et al. (2003a)

( Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 2020, p. 267)

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Reference List: Multiple Sources With the Same Author and Year

Multiple sources with the same author and year.

You will need to differentiate between sources with the same author and publication date by adding a lowercase letter to the publication year. Including this lowercase letter ensures that the reader knows which source you are citing in-text and can find that source in your reference list.

Reference Entries

Add the lowercase letter immediately after the publication year in reference entries:

Yob, I. M. (1995a). Religious emotion in the arts. Journal of Aesthetic Education , 29 (4), 23–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/3333289

Yob, I. M. (1995b). Religious music and multicultural education. Philosophy of Music Education Review , 3 (2), 69–82.

Yob, I. M. (1995c). Spiritual education: A public school dialogue with religious interpretations. Religious Education , 90 (1), 103–117.

* Note that we have listed these entries alphabetically by title, with the lowercase letters assigned based on this order. Also note that when you cite these sources in the text, include the letter with the date so that readers can match that citation to the appropriate reference entry.

Works With the Same Author and Year Video

• Nontraditional Sources: Works With the Same Author and Year (video transcript)

Related Resources

Knowledge Check: Multiple Sources With the Same Author

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• How to use this guide
• Paraphrases and quotations
• Types of in-text citations
• Multiple sources
• Unknown or anonymous authors
• A company, organisation, or government body as the author
• Legal cases or court decisions
• Audio-visual media
• Formatting guidelines
• DOIs and URLs
• Order of entries
• Secondary sources
• Single author
• Two authors
• Three to twenty authors
• Twenty-one or more authors
• Article published in a future online publication (in press)
• Article from Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews
• No pagination
• Three or more authors
• Different edition
• Chapter in an edited book
• Multiple works published in different years by the same author
• Multiple works published in the same year by the same author
• Authored book with editor credited on the front cover
• Encyclopaedia or dictionary
• Book with anonymous or no author
• Translated work
• Webpage or document from a website
• Social media
• Newspaper and periodical articles
• Government report
• Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report
• Parliamentary debates (Hansard)
• Parliamentary Act or Bill
• Parliamentary Act or bill
• Unpublished or raw dataset
• Industry or Non-Government Organisation (NGO) report
• Press Release
• Film or movie
• Television episode
• Online video
• Conference papers and presentations
• Podcast or vodcast
• Music scores
• Archival sources
• Course material or lecture notes
• Personal communication
• Software and Apps
• UOW APA7 Guide (PDF) This link opens in a new window
• Referencing & Citing Guide Main Page

In text citation

• DOIs can be identified using crossref.org. Not all books have a DOI.
• If you list separate citations for each work, follow the appropriate citation style.
• However, if you include two or more works by the same author within the same parentheses, you should arrange the citations by year of publication. Give the author’s surname once and give only the dates e.g. (Smith, 2002, 2004).

Paraphrase 

            (Author, Year)

            OR

            Author (Year)

For example:

A detailed study (Eysenck, 2006, 2009) has indicated that cognition is a poorly understood concept.

Direct quote (page number/s must be included)

            (Author, Year, p./pp. Page number/s)

            Author (Year, p./pp. Page number/s)

Eysenck (2009, p. 23) has argued that “cognition is woefully misunderstood”.

Reference list

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year).  Title of the book . Publisher Name. http://doi.org/xxxx OR http://xxxx

NOTE: Arrange two or more works by the same author (or the same group of authors listed in the same order) by year of publication (earliest first). If a work is undated (n.d.), place it before works with dates, and place any works in-press after those with dates.

Eysenck, M. (2006).  Fundamentals of cognition . Psychology Press.

Eysenck, M. (2009).  Fundamentals of Psychology . Psychology Press, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315736945

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APA Style: Multiple works by the same author

• Getting Started
• Reference List
• Book with a single author
• Book with two authors
• Book with three or more authors
• Edited book
• Chapter in an edited book
• Edition of a book other than the first
• Journal article with one author
• Journal article with two authors
• Journal article with three or more authors
• Journal article (print)
• Basic webpage
• Official publication online
• Video sharing websites (YouTube)
• Cochrane Review
• Conference papers and poster sessions
• Newspaper article
• Tests and measurement instruments
• Theses/Dissertations
• Multiple works by the same author
• Secondary sources
• Online Library Tutorials

Citing Multiple Works By Same Author

References by the same author (or by the same group of authors in the same order) are arranged by year of publication in the Reference list, with the earliest first.

For references with the same author and year, the references are arranged alphabetically by title (ignoring "A" or "The"). Lower case letters (a, b, c) are added immediately after the year within parentheses.

Multiple Works By The Same Author

In-text citation (paraphrase)

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

In-Text Citations: Author/Authors

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6 th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , (6 th ed., 2 nd printing).

Note:  This page reflects APA 6, which is now out of date. It will remain online until 2021, but will not be updated. The equivalent APA 7 page can be found here .

APA style has a series of important rules on using author names as part of the author-date system. There are additional rules for citing indirect sources, electronic sources, and sources without page numbers.

Citing an Author or Authors

A Work by Two Authors: Name both authors in the signal phrase or in parentheses each time you cite the work. Use the word "and" between the authors' names within the text and use the ampersand in parentheses.

A Work by Three to Five Authors: List all the authors in the signal phrase or in parentheses the first time you cite the source. Use the word "and" between the authors' names within the text and use the ampersand in parentheses.

In subsequent citations, only use the first author's last name followed by "et al." in the signal phrase or in parentheses.

Six or More Authors: Use the first author's name followed by et al. in the signal phrase or in parentheses.

Unknown Author: If the work does not have an author, cite the source by its title in the signal phrase or use the first word or two in the parentheses. Titles of books and reports are italicized; titles of articles, chapters, and web pages are in quotation marks. APA style calls for capitalizing important words in titles when they are written in the text (but not when they are written in reference lists).

Note : In the rare case the "Anonymous" is used for the author, treat it as the author's name (Anonymous, 2001). In the reference list, use the name Anonymous as the author.

Organization as an Author: If the author is an organization or a government agency, mention the organization in the signal phrase or in the parenthetical citation the first time you cite the source.

If the organization has a well-known abbreviation, include the abbreviation in brackets the first time the source is cited and then use only the abbreviation in later citations.

Two or More Works in the Same Parentheses: When your parenthetical citation includes two or more works, order them the same way they appear in the reference list (viz., alphabetically), separated by a semi-colon.

Two or More Works by the Same Author in the Same Parentheses: When your parenthetical citation includes two or more works from the same author, list the years of publication in sequence, with the earliest first. Provide in-press citations last. Only list authors' surnames once for each list of dates. 

Following this pattern, multiple works from multiple authors can be contained within a single parenthetical. Separate authors' sources with a semicolon. Note, however, that the authors' names should be provided in the order they appear in the reference list regardless of when their sources were published.

Authors With the Same Last Name: To prevent confusion, use first initials with the last names.

Two or More Works by the Same Author in the Same Year: If you have two sources by the same author in the same year, use lower-case letters (a, b, c) with the year to order the entries in the reference list. Use the lower-case letters with the year in the in-text citation.

Introductions, Prefaces, Forewords, and Afterwords: When citing an Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Afterword in-text, cite the appropriate author and year as usual.

(Funk & Kolln, 1992)

Personal Communication: For interviews, letters, e-mails, and other person-to-person communication, cite the communicator's name, the fact that it was personal communication, and the date of the communication. Do not include personal communication in the reference list.

Citing Indirect Sources

If you use a source that was cited in another source, name the original source in your signal phrase. List the secondary source in your reference list and include the secondary source in the parentheses.

Note: When citing material in parentheses, set off the citation with a comma, as above. Also, try to locate the original material and cite the original source.

Electronic Sources

If possible, cite an electronic document the same as any other document by using the author-date style.

Unknown Author and Unknown Date: If no author or date is given, use the title in your signal phrase or the first word or two of the title in the parentheses and use the abbreviation "n.d." (for "no date").

Sources Without Page Numbers

When an electronic source lacks page numbers, you should try to include information that will help readers find the passage being cited. When an electronic document has numbered paragraphs, use the abbreviation "para." followed by the paragraph number (Hall, 2001, para. 5). If the paragraphs are not numbered and the document includes headings, provide the appropriate heading and specify the paragraph under that heading. Note that in some electronic sources, like webpages, people can use the "find" function in their browser to locate any passages you cite.

Note: Never use the page numbers of webpages you print out; different computers print webpages with different pagination.

Other Sources

The APA Publication Manual describes how to cite many different kinds of authors and content creators. However, you may occasionally encounter a source or author category that the manual does not describe, making the best way to proceed can be unclear.

In these cases, it's typically acceptable to apply the general principles of APA citation to the new kind of source in a way that's consistent and sensible. A good way to do this is to simply use the standard APA directions for a type of source that resembles the source you want to cite. For example, a sensible way to cite a virtual reality program would be to mimic the APA's guidelines for ordinary computer software .

You may also want to investigate whether a third-party organization has provided directions for how to cite this kind of source. For example, Norquest College provides guidelines for citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers⁠ —an author category that does not appear in the APA Manual . In cases like this, it's a good idea to ask your instructor or supervisor whether using third-party citation guidelines might present problems.