General Guidance

Direct quotations or paraphrased ideas must be fully identified with author and date of publication. Direct quotations must also provide a page reference (when available). In the absence of page numbers, a paragraph reference may also be used. However, there is no need to repeat information in the parentheses that has been clearly identified in the text.

Authors in In-Text Citations

Works by 1 author

Name the author in a single phrase in the text or in parentheses each time you cite the same work.

Schulte (2012) argues that "remaining relevant to customers is vital to the survival of librarianship" (p. 135).

Evidence based practice research can be used as an effective teaching tool (Zach, 2016).

Works by 2 authors

Name both authors in a single phrase in the text or in parentheses each time you cite the same work. For in-text references, use the word and between authors’ names in the narrative citations and use the ampersand (&) between authors’ names in parentheses.

Crumley and Koufogiannakis (2002) have identified "the traditional hierarchy of evidence as a potential barrier to librarians finding the research that will answer their questions" (p. 65).

Textbook studies on implementing new library services tell us about the value of thoughtful data collection for information needs analysis, planning, testing, and evaluation of services (Bopp & Smith, 2001).

Works by 3 or more authors

For an in-text reference to a work with 3 or more authors, use the first author’s last name followed by et al. (Use a period after al. and do not italicize.)

The 2009 qualitative study by Robinson et al. studied the NIH’s informationist program and showed how informationists saved time for researchers.

The research reported by provided an important review of the value provided by informationists (Robinson et al., 2009).

The year maybe omitted if the same source has already been presented in a narrative citation previously in the same paragraph and no confusion will exist about what reference is being cited. Parenthetical citations should always include the year.  

Group (corporations or associations) authors

Spell out group authors in in-text citations when no well-known abbreviation exists for the group. If a group author has a well-known abbreviation (e.g., APA for the American Psychological Association), spell out the first occurrence in an in-text citation and present the abbreviation in that occurrence. If the first occurrence happens in a narrative citation, the abbreviation and the date can be included in parentheses for the parenthetical citation. If the first occurrence occurs in a parenthetical citation, spell out the group name and place the abbreviation in square brackets before the year. After the abbreviation has been provided once in a narrative or parenthetical citation, subsequent reference may then only the abbreviation. 

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL, 2016) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education is comprised of six frames.

Based on their code of ethics, health sciences librarians should respect patrons' privacy and help meet without prejudice patrons' information needs (Medical Library Association [MLA], 2010).

Unknown author

For a reference to a work with an unknown author, cite the article by its title in the text, or use the first 1 to 3 title words in parentheses. If the title is italicized in the reference list, italicize it in the in-text citation. If the title is not italicized in the reference list, do not italicize it in the in-text citation but do place it in quotation marks. For any title used in an in-text citation, use headline capitalization (even if sentence case is used for the title in the reference list).

In-Text Reference to Multiple Works

For a single in-text reference to several works, list the authors of each work, separating the authors of individual works with semicolons. List the authors in the same (generally alphabetical) order as they appear in the final References list. If the list includes multiple works by the same authors, use letters (a, b, c, etc.) to designate publications from the same author and same year in the list of references and again in the in-text citations to multiple works:

Several collection development studies used survey data (Baker, 2004; Smith, 2001, 2003; Thomas 2005a, 2005b).

When an article has two authors, use an ampersand (&) to connect them in parenthetical references:

Provision of library services during the emergency and recovery period are rarely mentioned, except in the context of restoration of normal service, and not as a service response to community information needs created by the disaster (Baggett, 2001; Benefiel & Mosley, 2005; Knisley, 2000; Rogers, 2003).

Use the word and to connect co-authors’ names in a narrative reference:

Smith and Jones (2007) used a statistical analysis of reference questions asked in academic libraries.

Evidence Summaries, In-Text References

NEW AS OF ISS 3 VOL 17 (2022)--The original article being appraised should be included in the reference list as well as at the opening of the article. Thus, when the author of an Evidence Summary cites the original article being appraised, treat the in-text citation the same as any other source from the reference list. 

Interviews, Email, and Other Personal Communication 

No personal communication is included in your reference list; instead, parenthetically cite the communicator's name, the phrase "personal communication," and the date of the communication in your main text only.

One of the owners stated that 31 flavors are no longer enough for an ice cream shop (E. Robbins, personal communication, Jan. 4, 2001).

A. P. Smith also claimed that many of her students had difficulties with APA style (personal communication, Nov. 3, 2002).

 2019 Stephenson, Pretty, Hayman, and Healy. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the same or similar license to this one.