What are In-Text Citations? In-text citation is when a writer puts into the text a note about where they got the information. This lets your reader know what source the fact or idea is from.
When do You Use In-Text Citations? You must include an in-text citation when quote directly from a source, paraphrase information in your own words, or refer to a source. For every in-text citation in your paper, there must be a corresponding entry in your Works Cited list.
If you do not have a page number just include the author or title.
It was but a month into her work as a nurse at Union Hotel Hospital in Washington, D.C., that future author Louisa May Alcott fell ill with typhoid fever. Writing that her “head felt like a cannon ball; my feet had a tendency to cleave to the floor; [and] the walls at times undulated in a most disagreeable manner,” Louisa had succumbed to a very dangerous illness (Alcott 96).
Historian Jane E. Shultz asserts that disease was the likeliest cause of death for nurses, doctors, and other relief workers in the American Civil War (85-86). Hannah Ropes, the supervisor of nurses at Union Hotel Hospital, died from typhoid in January 1863, at the same time Louisa suffered from the disease ("Hannah A. Ropes").
Works Cited
Alcott, Louisa May. Hospital Sketches, 1863. In Louisa May Alcott's Civil War, 41 - 110. Roseville, Minnesota: Edinborough Press, 2007.
"Hannah A. Ropes, 1809 - 1863." American Association for the History of Nursing, 2018, www.aahn.org/ropes. Accessed 5 Jan. 2021.
Schultz, Jane E. Women at the Front: Hospital Workers in Civil War America. University of Chapel Hill: North Carolina: North Carolina Press, 2004.
If you are using the ideas from another source follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication should appear in your text, for example, (Smith, 2014).
if page numbers are provided and you are you are directly quoting or borrowing from another work, you should include the page number at the end of the parenthetical citation. For example, you might write (Smith, 2014, p. 199) or (Jones, 2014, pp. 199–201).
Learn more at APA Citations: The Basics, OWL Online Writing Guide, Purdue University.
Imagine Easy Solutions. "What Are In-Text Citations?" YouTube, Sept. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5igNRmKLug. Accessed 5 Jan. 2021.
The examples used in this video are in MLA style. Note the slight difference in styles:
MLA: (Last name page)
APA: (Last name, date, p#).
Note: This example is in MLA style, but you could do the same with your References page. See box on "What typically goes into an APA style in-text citation."