Throughout your academic life, you must have worked on dozens of essays. Some of them may be easy to do, and some of them may be hard. But university essays are the hardest. You have to an in-text citation or reference to the source from where you have acquired a piece of information. Giving this reference is important because if you do not give the reference, your essay will be counted as plagiarised one, thus causing more problems for you. As much as it is important, citing the sources in your university essay is daunting too.
Why is an in-text citation daunting? It is not daunting itself, but the lack of knowledge of the rules to follow when incorporating them into the essay makes it challenging. So, keeping this in view, today I am here with a guide to explain to you how to cite an article right in your university essay. As there are numerous ways to cite an article, I will discuss the APA style in today’s guide. First of all, let’s define an in-text citation.
What Is An In-Text Citation? Explain With Importance
An in-text citation is a shortened acknowledgement you include in your essay whenever you quote someone or use a piece of information from someone else’s writing. It points the reader’s attention towards the source that you have used so that he can say where you have gotten this information from. Mostly, the in-text citations are in the form of small parenthetical statements indicating the author and publication year of the source. In some cases, it also tells about the page number of the information on which it is present in the source. For example, (Jackson, 2007, p. 16). Jackson is the author’s name,16 is the page number, and 2007 is the publication year. So, this is what an in-text citation looks like.
Citation is important because if you do not cite a source that you have used in your essay, you may be charged with plagiarism. In the most severe cases, the university can also cancel your registration. So, cite every source carefully.
Also Read: How to Write Authentic Citations for Dissertation?
Tips For In-Text Citation In The Case Of APA Style
Different styles are in practice when it comes to citation and citations and references. Those styles include APA, MLA, Harvard, and Chicago. However, the most used style in academic writing is the APA style. There are many formatting rules in this style, too, that change with the number of authors. So, let’s start with one author and give an example.
Tip No.1 – APA In-Text Citation For One Author
The APA style of citation is the most used. It recommends the author-date citation structure in the case of a single author. It means that any citation within the body of the essay should be in parenthesis, along with the last name of the author and the publication year. Please note that, when citing using this style for one author, there comes no suffixes and prefixes with the author name like “Jr.” An example of this type of citation is as follows:
“Another study revealed the same data for these findings (Jones, 2007).”
Tip No. 2 – APA In-Text Citation For Two Authors
Sometimes, the source article you want to cite in your university essay has two authors. If this is the case with you, then know that the citation rules change slightly. Now, instead of including the name of one author, you will be required to mention the last names of both authors and the publication year of the source article. Sometimes, the page number where the information is present in the source is also mentioned in the in-text citation. An example of this kind of citation which has two authors is as follows:
“The study has shown the existence of aliens in space (Zick & Jones, 2012, p. 14).”
Tip No. 3 – APA In-Text Citation For Three Or More Authors
The most used citation style comes from a source which has three or more authors. It means three or more researchers have worked on a problem. In the case of such articles, the in-text citation style differs a bit from the regular ones. The reason is that you do not need to give the names of all the authors. As an essay writer, you only need to give the last name of the first author followed by “et al.” If you do not do so, it will create ambiguity in your citations. An example of this kind of citation is as follows;
“China’s artificial Sun plan is a flop plan (Kersin et al., 2020).” This example shows that there are some authors of this publication, along with Kersin. The details of those come in the main references section. However, if more than two authors scare you, you can avail of a cheap essay writing service to help you with multiple authors’ citations.
What Information Needs To Be Recorded To Cite An Article?
In-text citations are important in any academic work. Without giving credit to the original authors, your essay is not original. However, many students remain confused about what information they need to collect to give credit properly. So, the information required generally to cite an article is as follows:
- Author/s: Firstly, you need to know how many authors are there for a publication. Is there only one researcher who has been involved in the research, or more than one? So, collect the number of authors involved in the information.
- Publication Year: The next thing that you have to note down is the publication year of the source. It means noting down the year in which the article was published online.
- Page Number: For an in-text citation, the next information that you need to record is the page number on which the original knowledge or quote is present. It is unnecessary, but giving the page number adds value to the citation.
Conclusion
In-text citations are a necessary part of a university essay because it demands extensive research and unassailable arguments. So, take the above-mentioned tips for APA style in-text citation serious and format your essay according to that. However, if your citation style differs from APA, you can search for its guidelines online or wait for the next post.
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