Self-assessment: Basic In-text Citation Formatting

Do all of your in-text citations feature the author’s last name(s) and year of publication?

In sentences that contain a direct quote, do you also provide the page number or paragraph number where the quote can be located (using paragraph numbers for resources that do not have page numbers, such as web pages)?

If the answer is yes, click here to move on to the next section. If you're unsure, keep reading below for more details.

Understanding Basic In-text Citation Formatting

Take a look at the four sentences below. Each one uses a different in-text citation depending on the structure of the sentence and the way the material from the source is offered.

The first example paraphrases information from the Gurber source. Rather than using the author's exact wording, this sentence puts the ideas into the writer's own words. In this case, the author and year are provided at the end of the sentence before the punctuation.

The second example is also paraphrasing information from the source. In this sentence, however, the author is named at the beginning of the sentence. In these instances, it is best to include the year of publication in parentheses directly after the author's last name.

The third example is similar to the first one, but this sentence uses a direct quote from the author. The author's words are placed in quotation marks, and the citation at the end includes the page number where the quote can be found in the source.

Finally, the last sentence names the author at the beginning, provides the year of publication beside the author name in parentheses, provides a direct quote in quotation marks, and provides the paragraph number for the quoted material at the end of the sentence.

When you're ready to move on to the next section, click here to proceed.