How to Cite a Paraphrase: APA, MLA, and When In-Text Citations Are Required

Yes: every paraphrase needs a citation, because putting a source's idea into your own words changes the language, not who the idea belongs to. Purdue OWL's paraphrasing guidance puts it plainly: anytime you take information from a source that is not your own, you need to say where you got it. That holds for a paraphrase as much as for a quote. Leave the citation off and you present someone else's idea as if you thought of it yourself. That is a problem of credit, not of formatting. If you're not sure that what you're writing counts as a paraphrase, start with our guide to what paraphrasing actually is.

APA uses an author-date system. For a paraphrase you need the author's last name and the year of publication, as Purdue OWL's APA in-text citation guide confirms. Adding a page number is your choice. The FAQ below explains when it helps.

The citation can take two forms: narrative, with the author's name in the sentence itself, or parenthetical, with the whole citation in parentheses at the end.

Author variations

The author part of the citation depends on how many authors a work has and what kind they are. The formats below follow APA's author–date system and its rules for missing information. Lee, Park, and the article title are invented.

With three or more authors, use "et al." from the first citation on. Define a group abbreviation once, then use it alone.

Long paraphrases

APA's paraphrasing guidance says to cite the work the first time you draw on it. You don't repeat the citation in later sentences as long as the context shows you are still paraphrasing the same work. Two things call for a new citation: the paraphrase continues into a new paragraph, or you switch to another source.

Paraphrasing several sources in one sentence

Put all the sources in one set of parentheses, in alphabetical order, separated by semicolons: (Lee, 2022; Park, 2020). That follows APA's rule for multiple works.

Paraphrasing an idea you found in another source

Sometimes you know an idea only from another author's work. APA's guidance on secondary sources says to find and cite the original if you can. If you can't, write (Park, 2015, as cited in Lee, 2022). Only Lee, the work you actually read, goes in your reference list. Our guide on citing a secondary source also covers MLA, Chicago, and Harvard.

The source below is invented for this guide. Walid and the journal do not exist.

Source passage (page 45): "In our sample, students who slept at least seven hours before an exam recalled more of the material than those who slept less. The gap was largest for material reviewed that evening. Daytime naps did not reduce it."

Paraphrase, narrative citation: Walid (2023) found the widest recall gap for content reviewed on the evening before an exam. Students who slept under seven hours that night remembered less of what they had studied than those who slept longer, and a nap during the day did not narrow the gap.

Same first sentence, parenthetical citation: The widest recall gap appeared for content reviewed on the evening before an exam (Walid, 2023).

The paraphrase opens with the source's second point and turns the comparison around, but the facts stay the same. One citation covers both sentences because the second still reports the same study. You may add p. 45, but you don't have to.

Reference list entry: Walid, R. (2023). Sleep before exams and recall of recently studied material. Journal of Study Habits, 12(3), 40–52.

For a real article, end the entry with its DOI as a link, as in APA's journal article examples. For the paraphrasing method itself, see what paraphrasing is and how to do it.

MLA uses author and page instead of author and date. According to the University of Central Arkansas's MLA in-text citation guide, a paraphrase needs the author's last name and a page number. If you've already named the author in your sentence, the parentheses hold only the page number. When the source has no page numbers, leave the locator out. The exception is a source that numbers its own paragraphs. Then cite the paragraph with MLA's abbreviation "par.", as in (Walid, par. 10).

For a paraphrase that runs over several sentences, open with a lead-in phrase that names the author. It shows where the paraphrase starts, and one citation can then cover the passage as long as the source stays the same. Add a new page number whenever the page changes.

A parenthetical citation sits inside the sentence: after the last paraphrased word, before the period.

• Correct: Sleep strengthens memory consolidation (Walid, 2023).
• Incorrect: Sleep strengthens memory consolidation. (Walid, 2023)

Block quotations work differently. There, the citation follows the final period. A paraphrase is never set as a block quotation, so that rule doesn't apply to it.

Mistakes that cost credit

• Citing the first sentence of a multi-paragraph paraphrase, then dropping the citation in the next paragraph even though you're still restating the same source.
• Naming the author in your sentence, then repeating the name inside the parentheses.
• Treating a synonym swap as a finished paraphrase. If the sentence still follows the source's original structure, UNC-Chapel Hill's Writing Center calls that "plagiarizing, not paraphrasing." The problem is the wording itself, and a citation doesn't fix it. Our guide to paraphrasing plagiarism shows where the line falls.

A citation can also get lost during editing. A paragraph moves or a sentence gets split, and the citation ends up in the wrong place or gets deleted. Before you submit, run the draft through the Certentis plagiarism checker. It compares your text with sources it can find and links each match to its source, so you can confirm that every borrowed passage still carries its citation.

If you rework the wording of your own draft with the Certentis Humanizer, it is built to keep citations, URLs, and footnotes in place while it rewords the sentences around them. Compare the result with your draft anyway. New wording does not change what you have to credit.