When citing an author from a book or journal article in the body of the paper, the author's last name and the year of publication are required.
You may mention the author's name within a sentence:
Anderson (2004) agrees that art education is essential at the middle school level.
Or, you may write a sentence as you normally would, and add the author's last name and publication date at the end of the sentence. Note that the period is placed after the parentheses:
Art education is essential at the middle school level (Anderson, 2004).
The in-text citation format for multiple authors is similar to that of single authors; however, there are some differences. When listing the authors' last names within a sentence, it should read like this:
Johnson and Brown (2008) discuss standardized testing in high schools in their most recent study.
If the authors' names are not mentioned within the sentence, then it is customary to use "&" instead of writing the word "and." For example:
Standardized testing in high school is controversial and the subject of studies across the nation (Johnson & Brown, 2008).
If there are more than two authors, all last names should be listed the first time they are mentioned within the body of a research paper. In all subsequent sentences, it is appropriate to write the first author's name then "et al." For instance: (Johnson et al., 2008).
Whenever possible, it is usually best to paraphrase information instead of directly quoting the material. If you copy a piece of information exactly as it appears in the original source, place quotation marks around the sentence and include the page number it was found on.
"Standardized testing in high school is controversial and the subject of studies across the nation" (Johnson & Brown, 2008, p. 45).
Cite online material in the same fashion you would cite authors from a printed source. Look for the date and author of any source acquired online. It is also wise to gather the URL of the website as well as the date you accessed the information. This will help you when writing your reference page.
For one author:
Johnson, D. C. (2008). Testing in schools. Los Angeles, CA: Pearson.
Please note that the name of the book should be in italics and if there were a second line of text, it would be indented five spaces. Also, only initials and not the author's full first name is used.
For multiple authors:
Johnson, D. C., Brown, B. W., & Alexander, R. S. (2008). Testing in schools. Los Angeles, CA: Pearson.
For online sources, the format varies greatly. Depending on whether it is an online journal, article from a database or electronic book, the formatting will not be the same.