The main types of citations in essays are parenthetical and narrative in-text citations, footnotes or endnotes, and numbered citations, each paired with a full entry in a reference list or bibliography. Which you use depends on your citation system.
Knowing the types makes any style guide easier to follow, because every style is a variation on these few forms. This guide explains each one with examples, then covers special cases such as group authors and secondary sources.
The Four Forms a Citation Can Take
| Type | What it looks like | Used in |
|---|---|---|
| Parenthetical | (Lee, 2022) | APA, Harvard, MLA, Chicago author-date |
| Narrative | Lee (2022) argues... | APA, Harvard, MLA, Chicago author-date |
| Footnote or endnote | A superscript number linked to a note | Chicago notes-bibliography, OSCOLA |
| Numbered | [1] or a superscript number | IEEE, Vancouver, AMA |
Behind every one of these sits a full entry in the reference list or bibliography, which gives readers what they need to find the source.
Author-date and author-page forms keep names visible in your prose. Notes and numbers keep the text uncluttered but send the reader elsewhere for details. Neither is better; each suits the conventions of its subject.
Every Citation Has Two Parts
A citation works as a pair. The short marker in the text points the reader to a full entry at the end, or in a footnote, that identifies the source exactly.
- In-text citation: brief, placed where you use the source.
- Full reference: complete details, listed under References, Works Cited or Bibliography.
If either half is missing, the citation is incomplete. Markers often check a few in-text citations against the list, so mismatched names or years are quickly noticed.
Parenthetical and Narrative Citations
A parenthetical citation puts the author and year, or author and page, in brackets, usually at the end of the sentence. It keeps the focus on the idea rather than the author.
APA 7th. Spaced revision improves long-term recall (Okafor, 2020).
MLA 9th. Spaced revision improves long-term recall (Okafor 12).
Harvard. Spaced revision improves long-term recall (Okafor 2020).
Harvard punctuation varies between universities. Some put a comma between author and year, so follow your own institution's guide.
Narrative Citations
A narrative citation names the author in your sentence, with the year or page in brackets. It works well when the author's identity matters, or when you want to compare authors directly.
APA 7th. Okafor (2020) found that spaced revision improves long-term recall.
MLA 9th. Okafor found that spaced revision improves long-term recall (12).
Vary between narrative and parenthetical forms. A paragraph that opens every sentence with an author's name reads like a list of summaries.
Footnotes and Endnotes
In note systems, a superscript number in the text links to a note at the foot of the page or the end of the document. The note gives the source details, often with a page number.
Chicago notes-bibliography, first note. 1. Amara Okafor, Learning That Lasts (Leeds: Northgate Press, 2020), 12.
Shortened note for later citations. 2. Okafor, Learning That Lasts, 15.
History, theology, art history and some humanities subjects favor Chicago notes. Law in the UK uses OSCOLA, which is also footnote based. Note systems keep the main text clean and allow short comments alongside the source.
Numbered Citations
In numeric systems, each source gets a number in the order it is first cited. The reference list is then ordered by number, not alphabetically.
IEEE. Spaced revision improves long-term recall [1].
Vancouver. Spaced revision improves long-term recall (1). Some institutions use a superscript number instead.
Engineering and computing commonly use IEEE. Medicine and some health sciences use Vancouver or AMA. If you cite the same source again, reuse its original number.
Reference Entries, Works Cited and Bibliographies
| List name | Style | What it includes | Order |
|---|---|---|---|
| References | APA 7th | Only sources cited in the text | Alphabetical |
| Works Cited | MLA 9th | Only sources cited in the text | Alphabetical |
| Bibliography | Chicago notes | Sources cited, sometimes with extra reading | Alphabetical |
| Reference list | Harvard | Sources cited | Alphabetical |
| References | IEEE, Vancouver | Sources cited | Numerical, by first citation |
Special Cases in APA 7th and MLA 9th
A few situations come up in almost every essay. Here is how APA 7th handles them in the text.
| Situation | In-text format |
|---|---|
| Two authors | (Lee & Patel, 2022) or Lee and Patel (2022) |
| Three or more authors | (Lee et al., 2022) from the first citation |
| Group author with abbreviation | (World Health Organization [WHO], 2023), then (WHO, 2023) |
| Several sources at once | (Lee, 2020; Patel, 2022), in alphabetical order |
| No date | (Lee, n.d.) |
| Direct quotation | (Lee, 2022, p. 14) |
| Personal communication | (J. Lee, personal communication, March 3, 2024), with no reference entry |
Special Cases in MLA 9th
MLA 9th uses author and page rather than author and year, so its special cases look a little different.
| Situation | In-text format |
|---|---|
| Two authors | (Lee and Patel 22) |
| Three or more authors | (Lee et al. 22) |
| No page numbers | (Lee), or a paragraph or section number if the source numbers them |
| No author | A shortened title, such as ("Rising Seas" 4) |
| Two works by the same author | Add a short title, such as (Lee, Coastal Futures 10) |
A Paragraph That Uses Several Forms Well
Good academic writing moves between forms naturally. The example below uses APA 7th and shows narrative, parenthetical and multiple-source citations working together.
Spaced revision consistently outperforms cramming in studies of long-term recall (Lee, 2020; Okafor, 2020). Okafor (2020) found the effect across three university modules, while Lee et al. (2022) reported similar results in online courses. However, as Patel (2021) notes, most of this research measures recall rather than deeper understanding, so the benefit for essay-based assessment remains less certain.
Notice how the writer uses a parenthetical citation for an agreed finding, narrative citations to compare authors, and their own sentence at the end to evaluate the evidence.
Secondary Citations and Source Use
A secondary citation is used when you read about a source in another work but did not read the original. Cite it in a way that makes this clear, and list only the source you actually read.
APA 7th. (Mensah, 2015, as cited in Okafor, 2020)
MLA 9th. (qtd. in Okafor 30)
Use secondary citations sparingly. Tutors prefer you to find and read the original whenever you can. Your library can often supply older or hard-to-find originals through interlibrary loan.
How Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing Change the Citation
- Quotation: always add a page number or other locator.
- Paraphrase: cite the source; APA encourages a page number, and MLA includes one when the source has pages.
- Summary of a whole work: cite the author and year, usually without a page number.
Which Citation Type Each Subject Tends to Use
Your brief always decides, but knowing the usual pattern helps you recognize what a tutor expects before you open the style guide.
| Subject area | Common style | Citation type |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology, education, nursing, social sciences | APA 7th | Author-date |
| English, modern languages, cultural studies | MLA 9th | Author-page |
| History, theology, art history | Chicago notes-bibliography | Footnotes |
| Many UK humanities and business modules | Harvard | Author-date |
| UK law | OSCOLA | Footnotes |
| Engineering and computing | IEEE | Numbered |
| Medicine and some health sciences | Vancouver or AMA | Numbered |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Parenthetical, narrative, footnote or endnote, and numbered citations, each paired with a full reference entry.
A narrative citation names the author in your sentence. A parenthetical citation puts the author and year or page in brackets.
Chicago notes-bibliography and OSCOLA are the most common footnote-based styles.
IEEE, Vancouver and AMA use numbered citations, ordered by first appearance.
Not always. A reference list includes only cited sources, while a bibliography may also include background reading.
Use a secondary citation, such as "as cited in" in APA or "qtd. in" in MLA, and list only the source you read.
No. Use one citation system consistently, although author-date styles let you switch between narrative and parenthetical forms.
In APA 7th, no. Interviews, emails and conversations are cited in the text only.
Use the first author's surname followed by "et al." from the very first citation, such as (Lee et al., 2022).
The one your citation style requires. In author-date styles, mix narrative and parenthetical citations so the writing flows and the focus shifts between ideas and authors as your argument needs.