Reference and Citation Examples
Basic guidelines for formatting citations in the text
1. Place the complete citation within parentheses. 2. Use the words in the first part of the citation exactly as they appear in the References so that the source in the text can easily be located in the References. 3. Use the author‘s last name and year for the citation: (Smith, 2008). 4. Place the year in the citation, but do not include the month and day. 5. Use only the last name of the author, and never include the first name or initials except in a personal communication. 6. Use et al. for additional citations of a source with three to five authors: first citation – (Smith, Levy, & Jones, 2008), additional citations – (Smith et al., 2008). 7. Use et al. along with the first author in the citation when a source has more than six authors: (Smith et al., 2008). 8. Place the name of a group author (corporations, organizations, and government agencies) first when no individual author is listed in the source. 9. Use the first two or three words of the title of the work when no author is listed: (Writing Executive Summaries, 2007) or (―Evaluating a Case Study,‖ 2008). Capitalize all major words of the title. 10. Use italics for titles of books, periodicals, movies, television shows, and reports. Use quotation marks for titles of articles, chapters, or web pages. 11. Include the page or paragraph number for a direct quotation: p. or pp. for page numbers, para. for paragraph numbers. You can also use the section heading of the document if needed. It is recommended that you include page or paragraph numbers with your paraphrases. 12. Place any necessary punctuation after the final parenthesis of the citation unless it is a block quotation.