Basic treatment for in-text citations

You need to insert a brief reference (the author’s given name) into your writing whenever you use a source. A page reference is added when you are referring to a specific part of the source.

Author 

Author and page

. . . which is confirmed by the most recent study (Jenkins 22).

Author in sentence

. . . the study by Jenkins (22) confirmed these results.

Author needing initial

If two or more authors have the same family name, add the given name initial to distinguish between them.

. . . seemingly different from Twain’s later work (M. Grech 45–54).

If the author's name is part of the sentence, add the entire given name.

. . . Twain's later work was explored by Matthew Grech (45-54).

  • Enclose author’s given name in round brackets.
  • Add page reference if quoting from or referring to a specific part of the source.
  • Insert before punctuation mark ending sentence (or part of sentence) where you used source.
  • If author is already in sentence, give page reference alone in round brackets.
  • Add given name or initial/s to family name if you have sources by authors with the same family name.

More than one author

Two authors

(Hendricks and Angwin 34)

. . . Hendricks and Angwin (34) . . .

  • Name both authors and join by ‘and’.

Three or more authors

(Donat et al. 68)

. . . Donat et al. (68) . . .

  • Name the first author followed by ‘et al.’ (a Latin abbreviation meaning ‘and others’).

Group author (government or organisation)

(World Health Org. 57)

. . . World Health Organization (57) . . .

  • Give the name of the group in all mentions.
  • Use common abbreviations (e.g., ‘Org.’, ‘Assn.’, ‘Dept.’, ‘Soc.’) if name is in parentheses.

Same author, different sources 

(Winton, Riders 34) . . . (Winton, Breath 56)

(Smith, "Fantasy" 65) . . . (Smith, "Science Fiction" 1)

  • Add the first words or the short form of the title to the author after a comma.
  • Italicise whole works; enclose parts of works in quotation marks.

No author 

Whole work

(Reading Rates 16)

. . . Reading Rates (16) . . .

Part of work

(“Last Gasp” 89) . . .

“Last Gasp” (89) . . .

  • If the source has no author, give the first two to three words of the title.
  • Use italics for whole works, and quotation marks around parts of works.
  • Use initial capital letters for all major words.

Multiple sources, same citation

. . . along with other studies (Keen 14; Lee 109; Wojk, 123–45).

  • List each source alphabetically by author and separate by semicolons.

Page numbers

Basic treatment

. . . (Johnson 6)

Kennett (55­–63) . . .

  • Add page or other location/ label references when referring to a specific part of source.
  • Enclose in round brackets (with or without author depending on if author is in sentence).
  • No comma between author and page reference.
  • Do not use ‘p.’ or ‘pp.’ in front of pages.

Quotations

It was described as “a stunning victory” (Harrison 15).

Harrison described it as “a stunning victory” (15).

  • Add the page reference after the closing quotation mark.
  • If author is already in the sentence, give page reference alone.
  • For block quotations, i.e., set apart from the text with no quotation marks, add page reference after closing punctuation mark.

No page numbers

(Duer par. 12)

. . .  Jansz (sec. 12) . . .

  • If no page numbers are shown on the source, give paragraph, location or section number/s.
  • Use the abbreviations ‘par.’, ‘sec.’, or ‘loc.’ before the numbers.