What are in-text citations?
In-text citations are short references that show when you have used information or ideas from a source. They also guide readers to the matching citations in your Works Cited List.
When do you use in-text citations?
Quoting Directly
- When using the author’s exact words in your work.
- The general format is: (Author’s Last Name Page Number)
- For example: “This is a quote” (Turner & Li 18).
Paraphrasing
- When using your words to describe or summarize information from the source.
- The general format is: (Author’s Last Name Page Number)
- For example: This is a paraphrase (Turner & Li 18).
Types of in-text citations
Parenthetical in-text citations
The authors are mentioned in the citation. For example: This is my sentence (Turner & Li 18).
Narrative in-text citations
The authors are mentioned in the sentence. For example: In their study, Turner and Li found... (18).
What if there's missing information?
No date? Look for the copyright date. If not available, omit the date from the citation.
No page numbers? Include another way to locate the information such as a chapter number. For example: (Martinez ch. 4).
For more examples, check out the library’s citation guides.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.