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Citation Help: APA In-Text Citations

What to Cite?

Ideas, facts, or passages of text that you found in a source all need to be cited.

You can either

Paraphrase an idea or fact by putting it in your own words,

or

Quote a source by using the author's exact words in your paper.

Either way you must give credit to the source you found the idea in!

Paraphrase or Summarize

If you want to use an idea but not quote it, you can restate it in your own words.

Make sure what you write is not too similar to the author's wording.

For example:

Jowers (1992) asserts that guard llamas are an effective way for a shepherd to protect sheep…

Some argue that guard llamas are an effective tool in protecting a flock of sheep. (Jowers 1991).

When citing a paraphrase, you have the option of including the page number. This is recommended but not required.

Quoting a Source

If you use the author's exact words, you need to put them in quotation marks, and place your citation after the quotes.

For example:

He stated, "Shepherds the world over are gradually accepting the value of a well trained guard llama." (Jowers, 1992)

If you want to quote an entire paragraph or many sentences word for word, do a block quote. You do not need to use quotation marks in a block quote, but you do need to indent the entire quote.

Here is an example.

Jowers (1992) found that:

Guard llama use was gradually becoming more common among shepherds across the world. The changes could be attributed to the relative ease of maintaining llama along with a herd of sheep, and the dedication with which a properly trained llama will defend its charges. (p. 81)

Interviews and Email

If you need to use an interview, email, or phone conversation in a paper, cite it like this.

"Sometimes there is no way around closing a road for work." (J. Reylan, personal communication, April 19, 2011)

No matter what kind of personal communication it was (email, phone conversation, interview, etc) you call it a personal communication.

You do not need to put it on your reference list, since there is no source your reader can find.

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