3/11/20 DS; U:\Library\APA\APA 7th edition\Other handouts
Referencing a Source Multiple Times in a Paragraph 7
th
Edition APA
http://www.alverno.edu/media/alvernocollege/library/pdfs/multiple7.pdf
When incorporating in-text citations into a document, it is common to reference the same source
multiple times in a single paragraph. Use the following tips to reference the source, avoid plagiarism,
and improve the quality of your writing.
From the Berkeley College Library
Q. If I'm citing something multiple times in a paragraph, how many in-texts do I need?
https://chat.library.berkeleycollege.edu/faq/268679
If you just put one in-text cite at the end of the paragraph, it might not be clear where the ideas at the
beginning of the paragraph came from. Therefore, you should include credit to the authors whenever
you are quoting, summarizing or paraphrasing facts and ideas from their work. This also helps
differentiate your own ideas from those in your references.
The best way to solve this problem and still make your paper easy to read is to use a lead-in
referring to your source at the beginning of a sentence or at the start of the paragraph (signal phrase).
You can alternate this with putting the in-text cite in parentheses at the end of other sentences or the
paragraph. Try to make it clear in each following sentence if it is still coming from the same source, using
phrases like "According to", "They also state...", "That article concludes...". If it is clear, you don't need
to repeat the in-text citation for those sentences.
Here is an example using APA style:
McLean and Morris (2014) studied the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and adolescent
PTSD. They found that almost 61% of the teenagers they studied were abused by a relative, and
23.8% were chronically abused.
[Using They found in the 2nd sentence shows you are talking about the same source (McLean &
Morris), so you don’t have to add another in-text cite for these statistics]
AND….
From the APA Style Guide
Appropriate level of citation
https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/appropriate-citation
It is considered overcitation to repeat the same citation in every sentence when the source and topic
have not changed. Instead, when paraphrasing a key point in more than one sentence within a
paragraph, cite the source in the first sentence in which it is relevant and do not repeat the citation in
subsequent sentences as long as the source remains clear and unchanged.
According to the APA manual: When the author’s name appears in the narrative, the year can be
omitted in repeated citations when multiple narrative citations to a work appear within a single
paragraph (pp. 254, 265).