{"id":8078,"date":"2025-11-28T10:02:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T10:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/apa-in-text-citation-examples\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T10:02:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T10:02:35","slug":"apa-in-text-citation-examples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/apa-in-text-citation-examples\/","title":{"rendered":"Apa in Text Citation Examples"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Let me tell you, APA citations almost broke me during my first year of community college. I was writing a psychology paper on sleep patterns (fueled entirely by Dunkin\u2019 Donuts cold brew) when my professor circled <em>eight<\/em> citation errors in red ink. &quot;You\u2019re either plagiarizing Starbucks baristas or need citation help,&quot; she joked. Turns out, mixing up author placements and publication dates makes your paper look like a Wikipedia rough draft.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what finally clicked after 3 years of trial\/error (and way too many all-nighters at the campus library):<\/p>\n<p><strong>Parenthetical vs. Narrative<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Parenthetical: Ends your sentence like a mic drop (Smith, 2020).<\/li>\n<li>Narrative: Weaves the author into your sentence like &quot;According to Smith (2020), caffeine&#8230;&quot;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Real-World Examples That Worked For Me:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<p><strong>One Author<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Parenthetical: Late-night scrolling impacts REM cycles (Johnson, 2021).<\/li>\n<li>Narrative: Johnson (2021) argues TikTok\u2019s algorithm acts like a &quot;digital espresso shot&quot; for your brain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Two Authors<\/strong><br \/>\nAlways use &quot;&amp;&quot; in parentheses: (Lee &amp; Patel, 2019)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Three+ Authors<\/strong><br \/>\nFirst mention: Thompson, Garcia, <em>and<\/em> Kim (2022) found&#8230;<br \/>\nAfter that: Thompson et al. (2022) noticed&#8230; (Pro tip: \u201cEt al.\u201d is Latin for \u201cI\u2019m tired of typing names\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>The Page Number Tango<\/strong><br \/>\nDirect quotes need p. numbers like coffee needs cream: (Smith, 2020, p. 15). Paraphrasing? APA 7th edition says it\u2019s optional, but my professor always wanted them. Better safe than sorry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weird Cases I Messed Up So You Don\u2019t Have To:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>No Author?<\/strong> Use the title: (\u201cSleep Deprivation in College,\u201d 2023)<\/li>\n<li><strong>No Date?<\/strong> Write n.d.: (Rivera, n.d.)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Quoting a Tweet?<\/strong> Yes, really: (@APA_Style, 2020, para. 2)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>My \u201cAha!\u201d Moment<\/strong><br \/>\nI started keeping a Cheat Sheet sticky note on my laptop with these formulas. Now I can cite sources faster than my roommate burns microwave popcorn.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tools That Saved My GPA<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Purdue OWL\u2019s APA guide (free and clearer than my sleep-deprived brain)<\/li>\n<li>Citation Machine (but double-check \u2013 it once gave me a citation in Wingdings font)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Honestly? APA citations are like parallel parking \u2013 intimidating until you\u2019ve done it 20 times. Once you nail the patterns, you\u2019ll spot errors in textbook examples (yes, even Pearson makes mistakes).<\/p>\n<p>Need to check your work? Read your citations aloud. If they sound like a robot wrote them, add a human touch. And when in doubt, ask a librarian \u2013 they\u2019re the unsung heroes of citation chaos.<\/p>\n<p>(Still stuck? Shoot me a DM \u2013 I\u2019ll send you my sticky note template. No Red Bull required.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let me tell you, APA citations almost broke me during my first year of community college. I was writing a psychology paper on sleep patterns (fueled entirely by Dunkin\u2019 Donuts cold brew) when my professor circled eight citation errors in red ink. &quot;You\u2019re either plagiarizing Starbucks baristas or need citation help,&quot; she joked. Turns out,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}