APA help, please!
February 13, 2012 8:56 PM   Subscribe

APA citation filter: can I indicate the page number only once in a sentence that contains multiple quotes by the same author?

An example, pulled out of thin air to illustrate what I mean:
Jones (2001) recommends that eggs be cooked according to the "poaching method", that is, without a shell in boiling water, the "hard boiling method, which requires that the shell be left on the egg", or the fried method, which is described as needing a shallow pan (p. 55).
Given that the separate quotations all come from page 55 of Jones (2001), is it okay to make single reference to the page number, or do all of the quotations need separate page numbers? (The answer seems obvious to me, but I'm not the APA...)
posted by smilingtiger to Writing & Language (5 answers total)
 
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/03/
posted by MidSouthern Mouth at 9:00 PM on February 13, 2012


Response by poster: I'm familiar with Owl Purdue, thanks. That page doesn't answer my question.
posted by smilingtiger at 9:04 PM on February 13, 2012


Here's what I was told (I don't have my APA 6th ed. in front of me, so I'm not 100% sure).

If I had a sentence with multiple quotes from different pages, same authors, it would looks like this.
The author noted that "cheese is delicious" and "cheese is a part of a growing body" (Widget, 2012, pp. 19, 94).
So in your situation, I think you'd only need it once. I think you'd have to put it up with your original cite for the author, though. So, for example, if all of the quotes were on the same page:
Widget (2012, p. 19) noted that "cheese is delicious," yet also mentioned that "cheese was once feared by Texans."
Does that make sense? I may not be 100% clear, but I think you only need it once, but you'd have to put it up with the original cite.
posted by SNWidget at 9:24 PM on February 13, 2012


If I recall correctly, you are not supposed to cite specific page numbers in-text, with APA, just author and year. When you keep talking about the same source in the same paragraph, you just do the whole author, year in parenthesis once and then just keep using the author's last name, omitting the year.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 10:49 PM on February 13, 2012


Actually, if you are quoting the text directly, then you do indicate the page number. You have the option of including the page number in the parentheses, as SNWidget suggests, or breaking it up per your original example.

I would probably do it the same way you did, with the page number at the end, but I've used both formats in APA-style publications.
posted by Superplin at 11:39 PM on February 13, 2012 [2 favorites]


« Older Kiss My Grits   |   Gonna make me sweat Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.