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Lund University

Reference guide for APA 7th edition

Reference guide for APA 7th edition intended for students at the department of Biology and CEC, Lund University. NB! If you access the guide using a smartphone, the text will open below the menu.

In-text references

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The general rule for how to write in-text references according to APA (7th edition) is that you should include the surname(s) of the author(s) and the year of publication, either in brackets at the end or the sentence before the full stop (parenthetical citation) or by incorporating the reference in to the sentence (narrative citation). 

Examples of in-text references

Parenthetical citation Narrative citation
The zebra is a striped animal (Persson, 1985). Persson (1985) remarked that the zebra is a striped animal.
Bromus tectorum has been found to alter natural selection in arid systems (Leger & Goergen, 2017). Leger and Goergen (2017) found that Bromus tectorum altered natural selection in arid systems. 
Social intolerance is a consequence, not a cause, of dispersal in spiders (Chiara et al., 2019). Chiara et al. (2019) found that social intolerance is a consequence, not a cause, of dispersal in spiders.