Time for a Breakdown - In-text Citations

Ok, so I am getting more and more questions and confused looks about how to do in-text citations, so I am going to do my best to go to the very basics here and breakdown what an in-text citation is and how to do it.

I am writing and paper and my teacher says I have to use direct quotes and in-text citations. According to Ms. Roberts "the quoted information goes inside quote marks" (2013). But how will she know where the quote came from? The information in the parentheses after the quote is the actual in-text citation. The in-text citation is citing where the quote came from. The information in the in-text citation gives the reader just enough information to find the full citation on the reference page. The full citation on the reference page will tell readers where I got the original information so they can go look it up on their own if they want more information.

What information goes in the in-text citation? For APA formatting, the in-text citation will usually have the author's last name and the year the information was published (Roberts 2013). You must include an in-text citation any time your paper uses information that didn't originate with you. That means you must include an in-text citation for direct quotes, summaries, and paraphrases.

There are a few exceptions to this rule. 1) If you don't know the author's name, you would put the name of the article instead (Ms. Roberts' Writing Blog 2013). 2) If you name the author in the signal phrase then you don't need to also include it in the in-text citation.

What is a signal phrase? Well, you never want to just drop a quote into a paper without explaining what it is doing there. "This dropped quote has no context so it makes no sense" (Roberts 2013). You always want some kind of signal phrase before or after the quote to explain why it is in your paper. According to Ms. Roberts "the signal phrase usually explains why you are including the quote. Without a signal phrase, there is no reason to have the quote in the paper at all" (2013). In that last sentence, see how I put the author's name in the signal phrase so I didn't put it in the in-text citation at the end?

I hope this explains more to you about how to do in-text citations and what they are. For more information about how to do in-text citations and your reference page, please see this helpful post How to APA Format Your In-text Citations and Reference Page Using Microsoft Word.

Does this make sense now? What other questions about in-text citations do you have?