In APA 7th edition, there are two ways to present in-text citations: narrative citations and parenthetical citations. The main difference between the two is how they are incorporated into the text. The choice between narrative and parenthetical citations depends on your preference, sentence structure, and how smoothly the citation can be integrated into the text.
A narrative citation weaves the author's name(s) into the sentence itself, with the publication year appearing in parentheses immediately after the author's last name. The author's name becomes part of the sentence, and the citation appears more like a natural part of the text. For example:
In this case, the author's last name, Smith, is integrated into the sentence, making it a narrative citation.
A parenthetical citation places both the author's last name and the publication year in parentheses at the end of the sentence just before the closing punctuation. For example:
Here, the author's last name and publication year are enclosed in parentheses followed by a period, making it a parenthetical citation. Notice that there is only a period after the citation, not after the last word of the sentence.
Want more information? Visit the Parenthetical Versus Narrative In-Text Citations webpage from APA.