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APA Citation Guide (7th edition) : Quoting

This guide shows you how to cite using APA 7th edition

Quoting

When you quote directly (i.e. use the exact words) from a source, enclose the words in quotation marks and add the page number to the in-text citation. There are two basic formats which can be used.:

One study found that volunteers who were given specific suggestions of how many hours to commit to each week, in order to fulfill their annual hours requirement, "volunteered 7 to 8 percent more than their peers who were simply asked to hit their big goal with a little work each week" (Rai et al., 2024, p. 79).

OR

Rai et al. (2024) found that volunteers who were given specific suggestions of how many hours to commit to each week, in order to fulfill their annual hours requirement, "volunteered 7 to 8 percent more than their peers who were simply asked to hit their big goal with a little work each week" (p. 79).

Option one is the standard APA in-text citation format for quoting. The second option is used when the author's name for the work being cited is written in the lead in sentence before the quote.

Long Quotations

What Is a Long Quotation?

If your quotation contains more than forty words, it is a considered a long quotation. This can also be referred to as a block quotation.

Rules for Long Quotations

There are 4 rules that apply to long quotations that are different from regular quotations:

  1. Place a colon at the end of the line that you write to introduce your long quotation.
  2. Indent the long quotation 0.5 inches from the rest of the text, so it looks like a block of text.
  3. Do not put quotation marks around the quotation.
  4. Place the period at the end of the quotation before your in-text citation instead of after, as with regular quotations.

Example of a Long Quotation

The logic used by conservationists to justify the protection of non-human life is often fallible:

Conservation has as its aim the independent flourishing of nonhuman life, but in reality, non-human abundance that is not engineered by human society invites responses of suppression. Ambivalence toward autonomous nonhuman flourishing can be seen in dominant conservationist responses to those animals that do manage to thrive in the human-dominated landscapes that characterize today’s Earth. Such organisms are more often than not reviled and suppressed as pests, invasive species, vectors of disease, or simply not 'valuable.' (Srinivasan & Collard, 2023, p. 293)

No Page Numbers

No Page Numbers

When you quote from electronic sources that do not provide page numbers (like Web pages), provide another way to locate the quoted passage. You can use any of the following approaches:

Option 1: Provide a heading or section name

Carpenters do physically demanding work, and may develop injuries or chronic conditions, such as "back pain, respiratory issues, hearing damage, injuries from falling, repetitive stress injuries (RSI)," as a result (Raemy, 2024, Physical Demands and Stress section).

Option 2: Provide an abbreviated heading or section name, in quotation marks (use this if the heading or section title is very long)
        note: full section title is: Strategies for Creating Business Relationships that Include Ethical Sustainability

Settlers working with Indigenous businesses need to take an approach that activty respects Indigenous culture, including "the practice of living off the land, as negotiations may be interrupted by the need to fish or pick berries" (Sorensen & van Dyk, 2022, Ch. 15, "Strategies for Creating" section).

Option 3: Provide a paragraph number (count manually if they are not numbered):

Nandipha Mntambo "disrupts gender stereotypes and probes the ways in which heteropatriarchal ideals pervade customary practices" through her cowhide sculptures (Makhubu, 2021, para. 2).

Option 4: Provide a heading or section name in combination with a paragraph number:

The words 'than' and 'then' can be easily differentiated, for "than is used when you're talking about comparisons; then is used when you're talking about something relating to time" (Merriam-Webster, n.d., Keeping 'Then' and 'Than' Separate section, para. 1).

If a source has no page numbers and there is only one paragraph, skip that part of the in-text citation. The in-text citation would have the author(s) last name(s) and the year, e.g. (Hogan & Sathy, 2022)

No Author and/or No Date

No Known Author:

Note that in most cases where a personal author is not named, a group author may be cited instead (eg. Statistics Canada). However, in certain cases, such as religious ancient texts, the author is unknown. Where you'd normally put the author's last name, instead use the first one, two, or three words from the title. Don't count initial articles like "A", "An" or "The". You should provide enough words to make it clear which work you're referring to from your References List.

If the title in the References list is in italics, italicize the words from the title in the in-text citation.

If you are citing an article, a chapter of a book or a page from a website, put the words in double quotation marks.

Capitalize the titles using title case (every major word is capitalized) even if the reference list entry uses sentence case (only first word is capitalized).

Examples:

(Human Health Effects, 2024, p. 7)

("For California couple," 2024, p. 9)

No Known Date of Publication:

Where you'd normally put the year of publication, instead use the letters "n.d.".

Example:

(Merriam-Webster, n.d., Keeping 'Then' and 'Than' Separate section, para. 1)

Note: The above source cites the paragraph number rather than the page number, because the source does not have page numbers. 

In-Text Citation For Two or More Authors/Editors

Number of Authors/Editors First Time Paraphrased Second and Subsequent Times Paraphrased First Time Quoting Second and Subsequent Times Quoting
Two

(Hogan & Sathy, 2022)

(Hogan & Sathy, 2022)

(Hogan & Sathy, 2022, p. 112) (Hogan & Sathy, 2022, p. 112)
Three or More (Woods et al., 2023) (Woods et al., 2023) (Woods et al., 2023, p. 3) (Woods et al., 2023, p. 3)

In-Text Citation for Group or Corporate Authors

Type of Group First Time Paraphrased Second and Subsequent Times Paraphrased First Time Quoting Second and Subsequent Times Quoting
Groups readily identified through abbreviations

(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2023)

(NIMH, 2023)

(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2023, p. 5) (NIMH, 2023, p. 5)
Groups with no abbreviations (The Squamish Nation, 2024) (The Squamish Nation, 2024) (The Squamish Nation, 2024, p. 26) (The Squamish Nation, 2024, p. 26)