Apa 7th edition in text citation 3 authors

Groups as authors

First narrative citation: National Association of Social Workers (NASW, 1987)

Subsequent narrative citation: NASW (1987)

First text citation: (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 1987)

Subsequent text citation: (NASW, 1987)

Works with no authors

Cite the work in your text using the first few words of the reference list entry (usually the title). Put double quotation marks around the title of an article or chapter, and italicize the title of a periodical, book, brochure or report:

The policy stated in the article (“Services for Disabled Children,” 1992)

The policy stated in the book Access to Services for Children (1995)

Specific parts of a source

Indicate the page, chapter, figure, table, or equation at the appropriate point in your text. Give page numbers for quotations, and use the abbreviations for the words page and chapter:

(Aranda & Knight, 1997, p. 344)

(Ell & Castaneda, 1998, chap. 5)

Personal communications

This format applies to emails, messages from nonarchived discussion groups, electronic bulletin boards, personal interviews, telephone conversations, etc. Do not list personal communications in your reference list as they are not recoverable by your reader. In your text, provide initials and surname of communicator and as exact a date as possible.

(M. Flynn, personal communication, September 20, 1999)

Sometimes multiple works with three or more authors and the same publication year shorten to the same in-text citation form, which creates ambiguity.

To avoid ambiguity, when the in-text citations of multiple works with three or more authors shorten to the same form, write out as many names as needed to distinguish the references, and abbreviate the rest of the names to “et al.” in every citation.

For example, if these two sources were cited in the same paper, three author surnames would be shown in each case before the rest of the surnames are abbreviated to “et al.”:

Kapoor, Bloom, Montez, et al. (2017)

Kapoor, Bloom, Zucker, et al. (2017)

Apa 7th edition in text citation 3 authors

This guidance is the same as in the 6th edition.

Because “et al.” is plural (meaning “and others”), it cannot stand for only one name. In cases where only the final author is different, spell out all names in every citation:

Hasan, Liang, Kahn, and Jones-Miller (2015)

Hasan, Liang, Kahn, and Weintraub (2015)

Date created: February 2020

Use the author–date citation system to cite references in the text in APA Style. In this system, each work used in a paper has two parts: an in-text citation and a corresponding reference list entry.

Apa 7th edition in text citation 3 authors

In-text citations may be parenthetical or narrative.

  • In parenthetical citations, use an ampersand (&) between names for a work with two authors or before the last author when all names must be included to avoid ambiguity.
  • In narrative citations, always spell out the word “and.”

Apa 7th edition in text citation 3 authors

This guidance has been revised from the 6th edition.

Number of authors to include in in-text citations

The format of the author element of the in-text citation changes depending on the number of authors and is abbreviated in some cases.

  • For a work with one or two authors, include the author name(s) in every citation.
  • For a work with three or more authors, include the name of only the first author plus “et al.” in every citation (even the first citation).

The following table shows the basic in-text citation styles:

Author typeParenthetical citationNarrative citation

One author

(Luna, 2020)

Luna (2020)

Two authors

(Salas & D’Agostino, 2020)

Salas and D’Agostino (2020)

Three or more authors

(Martin et al., 2020)

Martin et al. (2020)

Group author with abbreviation

First citation a

Subsequent citations

(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2020)

(NIMH, 2020)

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2020)

NIMH (2020)

Group author without abbreviation

(Stanford University, 2020)

Stanford University (2020)

a Define the abbreviation for a group author only once in the text, choosing either the parenthetical or the narrative format. Thereafter, use the abbreviation for all mentions of the group in the text.

Dates in a citation

  • The year in the in-text citation should match the year in the reference list entry.
  • Use only the year in the in-text citation, even if the reference list entry contains a more specific date (e.g., year, month, and day).
  • For works with no date, use “n.d.” in the in-text citation.
  • For works that have been accepted for publication but have not yet been published, use “in press.”

Repeating a citation

When repeating a citation, show the entire citation; do not, for example, include only a page number (the abbreviation “ibid.” is not used in APA Style). Instead, use the following guidelines:

  • Include the author(s) and year for every parenthetical in-text citation.
  • Do not repeat the year for narrative in-text citations the second and subsequent times they appear in a single paragraph. Follow this guideline with each new paragraph (i.e., include the year in the first narrative citation in a new paragraph).
  • However, if you cite multiple works by the same author or authors, regardless of the publication years, include the date in every in-text citation to prevent ambiguity. For example, if you cite Mohammed and Mahfouz (2017) and Mohammed and Mahfouz (2019), include the year with every citation, even when one of the references is cited multiple times in a single paragraph.

Further guidelines for in-text citations

  • Each in-text citation must correspond to only one reference list entry.
  • Do not include suffixes such as “Jr.” in the in-text citation.
  • For works with an unknown author (see Section 9.12), include the title and year of publication in the in-text citation.
  • Chapter 10 of the Publication Manual (7th ed.) includes more than 100 reference examples, each of which includes examples of the parenthetical and narrative citations.
  • For more guidance and examples, see the Publication Manual.

Date created: September 2019

How do you cite 3 authors in APA 7th edition?

The abbreviation “et al.” (meaning “and others”) is used to shorten APA in-text citations with three or more authors. Here's how it works: Only include the first author's last name, followed by “et al.”, a comma and the year of publication, for example (Taylor et al., 2018).

Do you use et al for 3 authors APA 7?

The rest of the format would remain the same. NOTE: The in-text citation for works with three or more authors is shortened to the first author's name followed by et al. and the year.

How do you cite 3 authors examples?

3-5 Authors: Provide all the authors' last names when you first refer to a document with 3-5 authors. Only list the first author with the Latin abbreviation "et al." for any subsequent references. Example: Jones, Chavez, Jackson, and Chen (2010) duplicated...

How do you cite multiple authors in APA 7th edition reference page?

List by last names and initials; commas separate author names. After the first 19 authors' names, use an ellipsis in place of the remaining author names. Then, end with the final author's name (do not place an ampersand before it). There should be no more than twenty names in the citation in total.