After spending hours poring over journal articles and books, you’ve finally found the perfect quotation to include in your research paper. It’s eloquently written, grounded in evidence, and supports the central argument of your work. But there’s one small catch: there’s a citation sitting right in the middle of the quotation.

Don’t worry – this is more common than it seems. That embedded citation isn’t a mistake, and it shouldn’t scare you away from using the quote. In fact, APA style provides clear guidance for exactly this scenario.

If a citation appears anywhere other than the end of a quotation, there are only two steps to follow:

• Include the citation exactly as it appears within the quotation.
• Do not include that cited work on your reference page unless you also cite it independently elsewhere in your paper.

Let’s look at a few examples to make this clearer.

Here’s a (fictional) passage:

Archaeological studies “can sometimes draw inspiration from folklore (Copperpot, 1932), as even stories widely regarded as fairy tales are thousands of years old” (Walsh et al., 1989, p. 368).

In this case, Walsh et al. (1989) is the source you actually read, so it belongs on your reference page. The Copperpot (1932) citation, however, is simply part of the quoted material—it stays in the quotation but does not get its own reference entry.

Here’s another example from a different field:

Educational psychologists note that “student motivation is often influenced by perceived autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 1985), particularly in self-directed learning environments” (Harris, 2014, p. 92).

Again, Harris (2014) would appear in your references, but Deci and Ryan (1985) would not—unless you also consulted and cited their work directly elsewhere in your paper.

The same rule applies across disciplines. Consider a historical example:

“Economic shifts in early industrial societies were frequently uneven (Marx, 1867), with rural populations experiencing delayed benefits compared to urban centers” (Ellison, 2003, p. 211).

Here, Ellison (2003) is your source, not Marx (1867). The Marx citation remains embedded in the quotation but is not added to your reference list.

Or a scientific example:

“Recent findings suggest that neural plasticity can persist well into adulthood (Nguyen et al., 2012), challenging earlier assumptions about cognitive rigidity” (Lopez & Grant, 2020, p. 44).

As before, Lopez and Grant (2020) is the work you cite formally; Nguyen et al. (2012) stays within the quotation only.

Pro Tip: Footnote or endnote callouts (like superscript numbers) that appear in the original source can usually be omitted from your quotation, unless they are essential to understanding the content.

What if the citation appears at the end of the quotation?

Things get even simpler when the citation appears at the end of the quoted material rather than in the middle.

In these cases, APA recommends that you end the quotation before the embedded citation and then cite only the source you actually used.

For example, imagine the original text reads:

“Cultural traditions often persist long after their original context has faded (Johnson, 1978).”

If you found this sentence in a more recent source, you would format it like this:

“Cultural traditions often persist long after their original context has faded” (Miller, 2019, p. 133).

Notice that the (Johnson, 1978) citation has been omitted entirely because it appeared at the end of the sentence. You only cite Miller (2019), the source you actually consulted.

The APA 7 manual explains this approach clearly: when citations appear at the end of material you want to quote, it is standard practice to end the quotation before those citations and to cite only the work you read. This is especially appropriate when the quoted author is summarizing or synthesizing ideas from other works.

Here’s one more example:

Original text:
“Modern leadership theories emphasize adaptability and emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995).”

Your paper:
“Modern leadership theories emphasize adaptability and emotional intelligence” (Chen, 2021, p. 58).

By trimming off the trailing citation, you keep your references accurate and focused on sources you actually used.

Final Thoughts

Quotations with embedded citations might look intimidating at first, but they follow a simple logic: preserve what’s inside the quotation, but only formally cite what you read. Once you understand that distinction, handling these situations becomes straightforward.

With these examples in mind, you’re ready to confidently incorporate even the trickiest quotations into your writing – properly formatted, clearly attributed, and fully APA-compliant.

Until next time, good writing! And remember, PERRLA has all your formatting covered – even the obscure stuff.

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