- FSMHome
- Introduction
- 1. Research and Writing Responsibly
- 2. APA Documentation
- 3. APA Document Formatting
- 4. APA Conventions for Grammar and Mechanics
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2.2.4. When to streamline notes for readability
While the instructions heretofore have focused on the required formatting of in‐text notes, this section gives some guidelines for improving readability when frequent in‐text citations become cumbersome for readers trying to follow the main flow of the paper. You may be able to streamline your notes if you answer “yes” to any of the following questions:
- Do you repeatedly cite a source in a single paragraph?
- Do you repeatedly cite a source with three to five authors?
- Do you cite the same source many times in a row before citing another source?
Do you repeatedly cite a source in a single paragraph?
As long as there is only one source for the author (or group of authors) on the References page, you can generally omit the year of publication for subsequent citations in the same paragraph, assuming you have introduced the source in the main flow of the sentence, rather than in a parenthetical note. However, if your References page includes multiple entries from the same author(s), you’ll need to list a year in all in‐text citations for the source in order to tell readers clearly which of these entries is referenced.
Do you repeatedly cite a source with three to five authors?
For sources with more than two authors and less than six, you must list all the last names in the first in‐text citation. For in‐text citations appearing later in the paper, however, replace all but the first author’s name with the Latin abbreviation et al. (“and others”). If another source you use would also have the same abbreviated form, then provide enough authors’ names for each in‐text citation to distinguish the two sources. Example I. above illustrates the abbreviated form.
Do you cite the same source many times in a row before citing another source?
When providing multiple quotations or paraphrased passages from one source in the same paragraph, you do not need to repeat the author’s name and year with each reference, as long as you don’t introduce another source between separate citations. Of course, you still need to make sure readers understand which information and ideas come from the source and which represent your own analyses and observations. You have a couple of ways to make this clear without the cumbersome repetition of the author‐date information: (a) give new parenthetical page (or paragraph, etc.) references after each sentence paraphrasing or quoting a passage in the source; (b) use phrases of attribution to introduce information from the source (e.g., The authors go on to say . . . ; According to the study, . . .; etc.). Example I. above illustrates both techniques.