Do You Put a Comma Before an In-Text Citation?

Short answer: inside the parentheses, yes. In APA 7th and in Harvard, a parenthetical citation puts a comma between the author and the year, and another comma before a page number: (Author, year) and (Author, year, p. 20). What you do not add is a comma between your own sentence and the opening parenthesis, unless the sentence itself needs one. In a narrative citation there is no comma at all: Author (year).

The format: where the commas go

Three separate punctuation questions get mixed up under this query. Keep them apart and the rule becomes simple.

• Comma inside the parentheses. APA’s own In-Text Citation Checklist (7th edition) asks: “For parenthetical citations, is there a comma between the author and year?” The pattern is (Author, year). With a quotation it adds a second comma: “are there commas between the author and year and between the year and page number?” The checklist’s pattern is (Author, year, p. 20).
• Comma before the parenthesis. This is ordinary sentence punctuation, not part of the citation. The checklist’s quotation pattern, Sentence “quotation” (Author, year, p. 20), shows the closing quotation mark followed directly by the opening parenthesis, with no comma between them.
• Comma that introduces a quotation. The checklist asks separately whether you “used appropriate punctuation (comma, colon, no punctuation) to introduce the quotation”. That choice belongs to your sentence and is independent of the citation comma.

Parenthetical versus narrative

Form	Pattern (APA 7th)	Comma?
Parenthetical	(Author, year)	Yes, between author and year
Parenthetical with quotation	(Author, year, p. 20)	Yes, after author and after year
Narrative	Author (year)	No; the date sits in parentheses after the author
Narrative with quotation	Author (year) “quotation” (p. 20)	No comma inside either parenthesis
Three or more authors	(Author et al., year)	Yes, after “et al.”

All rows come from the APA checklist and the APA Guide to What’s New in the 7th Edition. For three or more authors, APA 7th uses the first author plus “et al.” from the first citation onward.

Examples

The sources below are invented for illustration. Every author, year and page number is fictitious and labelled as an example.

• Parenthetical, one author: Reviewer responses work best when they are itemised (Example, 2021).
• Parenthetical with a page number: The report describes the change as “gradual” (Example, 2021, p. 20).
• Narrative: Example (2021) describes the change as “gradual” (p. 20).
• Three or more authors: The effect was small (Example et al., 2019).
• Narrative, three or more authors: Example et al. (2019) found the effect was small.

In-text citation version: Harvard

Harvard is a family of author-date variants and has no single authoritative manual, so check which variant your department or publisher uses. In the Cite Them Right variant shown by the Open University and Newcastle University guides, the comma also sits between author and year: (Harris, 2015), with a page as (Harris, 2015, p. 5). Differences from APA that matter for commas and names:

• Two authors are joined by “and”, with the comma still falling before the year: (Shah and Papadopoulos, 2015).
• Three authors are all named: (Wong, Smith and Adebole, 2015). Four or more use “et al.”: (Wong et al., 2015).
• Same author, same year: add letters, 2015a and 2015b, in text and in the reference list.
• Secondary source: (West et al., 2007, quoted in Birch, 2017, p. 17).

Thresholds for “et al.” and punctuation after the year vary by variant. UCL’s own Harvard guide, for instance, also uses “et al.” from four authors in text but lists up to seven authors in the reference list. For the full Harvard walk-through, see Harvard in-text citation.

Common errors

• Missing comma between author and year in a parenthetical citation: (Example 2021) should be (Example, 2021) in APA and Harvard.
• Adding a comma in a narrative citation: Example, (2021) is wrong; the pattern is Example (2021).
• Dropping the comma before the page number: (Example, 2021 p. 20) should be (Example, 2021, p. 20).
• Naming every author from the first citation: in APA 7th a source with three or more authors is shortened to the first author plus “et al.” from the first citation, with the comma after “et al.”.
• Mixing Harvard variants inside one document: variants differ on “et al.” thresholds and on punctuation after the year, so pick one variant and apply it throughout.
• Treating the quotation lead-in as part of the citation: whether a comma, a colon or nothing introduces a quotation is a sentence decision; the citation comma rule does not change.

When the citation carries a quotation, APA treats short quotations of under 40 words as running text in double quotation marks and quotations of 40 words or more as an indented block with no quotation marks. For paraphrased material see APA paraphrase citation, and for several authors see multiple authors in APA in-text citations.

Style-guide edition

APA rules above are from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition (2020), as set out in APA’s official In-Text Citation Checklist (checked 2026-10-29) and its Guide to What’s New in the 7th Edition. Harvard has no edition: the Harvard patterns follow the Cite Them Right variant used by the Open University and Newcastle University guides. For MLA, see MLA in-text citation examples.

FAQ

Do you put a comma before an in-text citation?

Not as part of the citation. In APA and Harvard the citation comma goes inside the parentheses, between author and year. Whether your sentence needs a comma before the opening parenthesis depends on the sentence, and the checklist’s quotation pattern places the parenthesis directly after the closing quotation mark.

Do you put a comma before an in text citation without the hyphen?

The spelling does not change the rule. “In text” and “in-text” refer to the same citation form, and the comma goes between author and year in APA and Harvard parenthetical citations.

Is there a comma in a narrative citation?

No. In APA the narrative form is Author (year), with the date in parentheses directly after the author’s name. A page number for a quotation follows the quotation in its own parentheses: Author (year) “quotation” (p. 20).

Where does the comma go with “et al.”?

After “et al.” in a parenthetical citation: (Author et al., year). In a narrative citation there is no comma: Author et al. (year).

Does the same rule apply in a thesis or manuscript?

The comma pattern is the same, but Harvard variants differ by institution, so choose one author-date style, and for Harvard one named variant, and apply it throughout the document. For the underlying concept see parenthetical citation.

Sources

• American Psychological Association, In-Text Citation Checklist, 7th edition: apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/in-text-citation-checklist.pdf (checked 2026-10-29).
• American Psychological Association, Guide to What’s New in the 7th Edition: apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/whats-new-7e-guide.pdf (checked 2026-10-28).
• The Open University Library, Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right): university.open.ac.uk (checked 2026-10-28).
• Newcastle University, Cite Them Right Harvard Style Sheet (August 2025): ncl.ac.uk style sheet PDF (checked 2026-10-28).
• UCL Library Services, Harvard referencing guide, authors page: library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/harvard/authors (checked 2026-10-28).