The most common form of in-text citation is a reference to a work by one author. When citing a work of this type, the author's name and the date of the work are placed after the citation. For example, if citing a work by an author named Smith, written in 2001, a student might write "the APA style is simple and improves reading comprehension (Smith 2001)." The period is always placed outside the parentheses.
Alternatively, the writer might choose to cite the author directly in a sentence. Thus, another form of the above citation would be "Smith (2001) has argued that the APA style is simple and improves reading comprehension." When citing a work by more than one author, list the authors by name if there are up to five, using an ampersand. For instance, a writer might cite a work by Smith and three others by writing (Smith, Jones, Brown & Jackson 2001). Where there are more than five authors, use the name of the first listed author and follow it with "et al."
When citing more than one work, authors are required by APA style to separate the references with a semicolon. In the case of multiple works by the same author in the same year, the works are indicated with letters. Two works by Smith from 2001 would be cited as 2001a and 2001b. Where the author of a work is not known, it should be cited by the title in quotation marks, and where the date of a work is not known the date is indicated as "n.d." for "no date."
In-text citations contain only limited information, but allow the reader to find further information in the references section of a paper. The reference list is ordered by author, with works listed in date order under each author. Works by multiple authors are alphabetized under the first-listed author. The standard format for a reference is to list the author, then the date in parentheses, followed by the title in italics. The reference then lists the place of publication, followed by a colon and the publisher.