APA 7 In-Text Citations: Every Rule with Examples
APA 7 in-text citations - parenthetical and narrative citations, one, two and three or more authors, several sources at once, direct quotes and page numbers, secondary sources, group authors and no date - with examples, including citing English sources in a Hebrew paper.
Part of the series: APA 7 checklist before you submit
In APA every in-text citation has two parts: author and year. From them the reader finds the full source in the reference list. Everything else - when to use "&", when et al., when a page number - follows fixed rules, and they're all here.
Two forms of citation
- Parenthetical: the source at the end of the sentence. "Test anxiety is linked to lower performance (Cohen, 2020)."
- Narrative: the author is part of the sentence, with the year in brackets straight after. "Cohen (2020) found that..."
By number of authors
| Authors | Parenthetical | Narrative |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | (Cohen, 2020) | Cohen (2020) |
| 2 | (Cohen & Levi, 2020) | Cohen and Levi (2020) |
| 3 or more | (Cohen et al., 2021) | Cohen et al. (2021) |
- Two authors: always both, in every citation. & in brackets, and in running text.
- Three or more: from the first citation, the first author and et al. This is one of the main changes from APA 6.
Several sources in one parenthesis
- Alphabetical, separated by semicolons: (Cohen, 2019; Levi & Mizrahi, 2021).
- Same author, several years: by year, with commas: (Cohen, 2018, 2020).
- Same author, same year: add letters - (Cohen, 2020a, 2020b) - in the reference list too.
Direct quotes
- Always with a page number: (Cohen, 2020, p. 14). Several pages: pp. 14–15.
- Under 40 words: in the sentence, in quotation marks.
- 40 words or more: a block quote - a separate indented paragraph, without quotation marks, with the citation after the final full stop.
- No page numbers (a website)? Use a paragraph number: (Cohen, 2020, para. 3).
Still: in academic writing it's almost always better to paraphrase. Keep direct quotes for sentences whose wording itself matters - a classic definition, for example.
Special cases
Secondary source - you read Piaget only through Cohen's article: (Piaget, 1952, as cited in Cohen, 2020). In the reference list - only Cohen. Use sparingly; reading the original is better.
Group author - first time, the full name with the abbreviation: (Central Bureau of Statistics [CBS], 2024); after that (CBS, 2024).
No date: (Cohen, n.d.).
ChatGPT and AI tools have their own format (updated in 2025): how to cite ChatGPT in APA.
The same source repeatedly in a paragraph - in narrative citations you may omit the year after the first mention within the same paragraph: "Cohen (2020) found... Cohen also showed...". Parenthetical citations always include the year.
Citing English sources in a Hebrew paper
At Israeli institutions, English sources are cited in English inside the Hebrew text - (Cohen, 2020) - exactly as they appear in the reference list. Hebrew sources are cited in Hebrew, with "ו" for two authors and "ואחרים" for three or more.
Common mistakes
- et al. with two authors - two are always written in full.
- "&" in running text - use and.
- First names in the citation - surname only.
- A different year in the text and the reference list.
- A direct quote without a page.
- A source cited but missing from the list - or the reverse. See APA checklist before submission.
FAQ
How do I cite three authors in APA 7? First author and et al. from the first time: (Cohen et al., 2021).
When is a page number required? For direct quotes, always. For paraphrases it's optional, but recommended when pointing to a specific part of a long book.
How do I cite several sources saying the same thing? One parenthesis, alphabetical, separated by semicolons.
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