Final In-Text Citation Practice
Occasionally, you will encounter less common situations. Completing this practice will help you become more familiar with them so that you are more confident completing your research and writing.
Citing two sources for the same claim
In some situations, you might want to cite multiple sources for one claim. This will make the claim appear stronger or more reliable by showing that many sources found the same idea. The basic format for this would be:
(Jones, 2020; Smith, 2021).
You will place them in alphabetical order. If the sources are from the same author, you can list them separated by a comma.
- (Jones 2020, 2022).
For more specific situations, see this resource on citing multiple sources for a more complete guide.
Citing a secondary source
When you find an interesting or helpful source to help support your claim, you should always try to go to the primary source – this will help you verify the information and learn more about it. Sometimes, though, you can’t find the primary source. You will need to cite it indirectly as a secondary source.
(primary source, as cited in secondary source).
- (Jones 2020, as cited in Smith, 2022).
- In this example, Smith was discussing the paper by Jones.
- The primary source is the one you couldn’t find – the secondary source is the paper that was citing it.
- In other words, we couldn’t find Jones’s paper, but we could find the paper by Smith citing it.
Citing sources from the same author AND year
If you are discussing a very specific topic without much research available, you might find yourself citing sources from the same author AND the same year. In that case, your in-text citations would look something like this:
(Smith, 2020a)
(Smith, 2020b)
And your end references might look like this, sorted in alphabetical order:
Smith, J. (2020a). Title of article. Other details.
Smith, J. (2020b). Title of article. Other details.
See this page with a more detailed explanation on citing sources from the same author and year (Section: Two or more works by the same author in the same year)
Citing pageless documents that have many sections
For direct quotes, remember that you should cite page numbers, or paragraph numbers if no pages are available. Rather than citing paragraph numbers, you could cite from the sections. You would use the heading or section name (abbreviated if it’s very long). The paragraph number is optional to include, but can help make it easier for the reader.
(Smith, 2000, About Us section)
(Smith, 2000, About Us section, para. 3)
Working with abbreviations
Sometimes you will work with authors with names that can be abbreviated. The first time you refer to them, you will use the full name and then the abbreviation in brackets [ ]. This could be inside or outside the citation.