The Art of Writing References in APA Style: From Single to Multiple Authors

If you’ve ever stared at a reference list wondering whether to use “and” or “&,” where to put the page number for a quote, or how to handle two books by the same author published in the same year – you’re not alone. Writing references in APA style is one of those skills that feels deceptively simple until the details trip you up. The good news is that once you understand the logic behind the system, it becomes far more intuitive. This post walks you through the core rules of APA 7th edition referencing: from citing a single-authored source to managing multiple publications by the same author, and from in-text citations to compiling a clean, correctly ordered reference list.

Why APA style exists 🔗

The American Psychological Association developed its citation system to standardize how researchers in the social and behavioral sciences document their sources. The goal is clarity and consistency – giving readers a reliable way to trace every claim back to its original source. At its core, APA style follows an author-date method: every in-text citation includes the author’s last name and the year of publication, which corresponds to a full entry in the reference list at the end of the paper. These two parts – the in-text citation and the reference list entry – are always connected. Every source cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and every item in the reference list must be cited somewhere in the text.

In-text citations: the two formats 🔗

Before diving into author-specific rules, it helps to understand the two ways APA allows you to cite a source within your writing.

A parenthetical citation places the author’s name and year in brackets at the end of the relevant sentence: (Smith, 2021). A narrative citation weaves the author’s name directly into the sentence, with only the year in parentheses: Smith (2021) argued that… Both formats are acceptable, and varying between them improves the readability and flow of academic writing. The choice usually depends on whether you want to foreground the author or the idea.

Citing a single author 🔗

This is the most straightforward case. When only one author is responsible for the work, list the last name first, followed by a comma and the first and middle initials in the reference list. In the text, you simply use the last name and year.

In-text (parenthetical): (Ahmed, 2020)
In-text (narrative): Ahmed (2020) found that…
Reference list: Ahmed, S. (2020). Title of the work. Publisher.

Notice that in the reference list, the title of a standalone work like a book is italicized, and only the first word of the title (and any proper nouns) is capitalized – a common formatting error students make when they capitalize every major word.

Citing two authors 🔗

When a source has two authors, both surnames should appear in the in-text citation every time you reference that work, listed in the same order as they appear in the source. There is a small but important difference depending on where the names appear: use “and” when the names are part of a running sentence (narrative citation), and use “&” when they are inside parentheses.

Narrative: Loveless and Griffith (2014) argued that…
Parenthetical: (Loveless & Griffith, 2014)
Reference list: Loveless, D., & Griffith, B. (2014). Title. Publisher.

This “&” versus “and” distinction is one of the most frequently confused aspects of APA style, so it is worth committing to memory early.

Citing three or more authors 🔗

Here is where APA gets more economical. When a source has three or more authors, you only use the first author’s surname in the text and abbreviate the rest with “et al.” – from the Latin et alia, meaning “and others” – from the very first citation. Note that there is always a full stop after “al.” because it is an abbreviation.

In-text: (Boers et al., 2017) or Boers et al. (2017) found that…
Reference list: List all authors up to 20 in full.

One important caution: if two different works share the same first author and the same publication year, shortening both to “et al.” can create ambiguity. In such cases, include as many author names as needed to distinguish the two sources before adding “et al.” For example: (Smith, Jones, & Brown, 2018) and (Smith, Jones, Brown, & Anderson, 2018) – the latter can be written as (Smith, Jones, Brown, & Anderson et al., 2018) to prevent confusion.

Sources with many authors: the 20-author rule 🔗

In the reference list, for sources with three to twenty authors, include all of the authors’ names. Only when a work has twenty-one or more authors do you abbreviate: list the first nineteen names, insert an ellipsis (…), and then add the final author’s name. There should be no more than twenty names in any single reference list entry.

Reference list (21+ authors):
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., Author, C. C., … [first 19 names] … Author, Z. Z. (Year). Title. Publisher.

Direct quotes: adding page numbers 🔗

Paraphrasing is the preferred approach in APA writing – it allows you to fit source material into your own argument and voice. However, when you do quote a source word-for-word, the citation format changes. For direct quotations, you must include the page number in the citation, using “p.” for a single page or “pp.” for a range.

Parenthetical: “Students often had difficulty using APA style” (Jones, 1998, p. 199).
Narrative: Jones (1998) noted that “students often had difficulty using APA style” (p. 199).

If the source has no page numbers – such as a webpage or e-book – use the paragraph number instead, abbreviated as “para.” followed by the number. You can also cite a section heading combined with a paragraph count if the document uses headers.

Block quotes: for longer passages 🔗

Direct quotations of 40 words or more should be formatted as a block quote: start on a new line, indented half an inch from the left margin, with no quotation marks. The parenthetical citation comes after the final punctuation mark – the opposite of a short quote, where the citation precedes the period.

Multiple publications by the same author 🔗

This is a scenario that trips up many students. When you cite two or more works by the same author, APA has clear rules for both in-text citations and the reference list.

Different years 🔗

If the works were published in different years, simply list both years in the in-text citation if referencing both at once, separated by a semicolon, or cite each separately where relevant. In the reference list, arrange works by the same author in order of publication year, with the earliest first.

Reference list:
Morrison, T. (1994). The bluest eye. Knopf.
Morrison, T. (1998). Beloved: A novel. Knopf.

Same year – the “a, b, c” rule 🔗

If the same author published two or more works in the same year, arrange them alphabetically by title and assign lowercase letter suffixes to the year – 2008a, 2008b, and so on – both in the in-text citation and in the reference list. This ensures readers can tell exactly which source is being referenced.

In-text: Koriat (2008a) found… and Koriat (2008b) suggested…
Reference list:
Koriat, A. (2008a). Easy comes, easy goes? Memory & Cognition, 36, 416-428.
Koriat, A. (2008b). Subjective confidence in one’s answers. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 34, 945-959.

Compiling and ordering the reference list 🔗

The reference list is not just a collection of citations thrown together – it follows a specific organizational logic. Entries are alphabetized by the last name of the first author, and for multiple articles by the same author listed in the same order, entries are arranged chronologically from earliest to most recent.

A few additional ordering rules worth knowing:

• Single-author works before multi-author works: works with one author precede works with the same first author who also has co-authors, regardless of publication date.
• Same first author, different second author: arrange alphabetically by the second author’s last name.
• No author: move the title to the author position and alphabetize by the first significant word, ignoring “A,” “An,” and “The.”
• Group or organizational authors: treat the organization’s full name as the author and alphabetize by its first significant word.

Citing multiple sources in one parenthesis 🔗

When a single statement is supported by more than one source, you can list all relevant citations within a single set of parentheses. Multiple sources within the same parenthetical citation should be listed alphabetically by author and separated by semicolons.

Example: (D’Esposito & Gardner, 1999; Griffiths & Brophy, 2005; Kim & Sin, 2007)

A note on group and organizational authors 🔗

Government bodies, professional associations, and institutions often publish research without an individual named as author. Companies or organizations are usually the authors of their own web pages; write out the full name the first time it appears in-text, after which an abbreviation can be used, but always write the name in full in the reference list.

First citation: (American Psychological Association [APA], 2020)
Subsequent citations: (APA, 2020)
Reference list: American Psychological Association. (2020). Title. Publisher.

Putting it all together: a quick reference 🔗

Here is a summary of the most common in-text citation formats under APA 7th edition, based on guidance from the Penn State University Libraries APA Quick Citation Guide and Purdue OWL:

Getting comfortable with APA referencing takes practice, but the rules are consistent once you internalize them. The key is always remembering that in-text citations and reference list entries are two halves of the same system – every citation in your text must link to a complete entry in your reference list, and the formatting of each depends on how many authors are involved, whether you are quoting directly, and how many works by the same author you are drawing on.

What do you think? When you look at your own academic writing, do you find yourself paraphrasing more often than quoting directly – and if so, does knowing APA’s preference for paraphrasing change how you approach source integration? How might getting your reference list right (or wrong) affect the credibility of your work in a reader’s eyes?

References

1. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_text_citations_the_basics.html
2. https://www.scribbr.com/apa-style/in-text-citation/
3. https://researchguides.flc.losrios.edu/apa7/authors
4. https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/APA/7th-multiple-authors
5. https://libguides.jcu.edu.au/apa/authors
6. https://libguides.wintec.ac.nz/APA7/multiauthors
7. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_author_authors.html
8. https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/apaquickguide/intext
9. https://library.sunywcc.edu/c.php?g=1010104&p=8898702
10. https://johncabot.libguides.com/APAstyle/references
11. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_basic_rules.html
12. https://libguides.uvt.nl/apa-manual/order-references
13. https://libguides.css.edu/APA7thEd/Citations