Answered By: Theresa Bell (she/her/hers)
Last Updated: Nov 02, 2021     Views: 143832

APA Style (7th ed.)

For a quotation of 39 words or fewer that ends a sentence, place the period after the closing bracket of the citation (American Psychological Association [APA], 2020, p. 271) e.g., "That terrible storm last night startled my cat and she hid under the bed for hours” (Liu, 2015, p. 12).

For a block quotation (40+ words), the closing punctuation appears at the end of the quotation and before the citation (APA, 2020, p. 272). For example:

If a quotation contains 40 words or more, treat it as a block quotation. Do not use quotation marks to enclose a block quotation. Start a block quotation on a new line and indent the whole block 0.5 in. from the left margin. If there are additional paragraphs within the quotation, indent the first line of each subsequent paragraph an additional 0.5 in. Double-space the entire block quotation; do not add extra space before or after it. Either (a) cite the source in parentheses after the quotation's final punctuation or (b) cite the author and year in the narrative before the quotation and place only the page number in parentheses after the quotation's final punctuation. Do not add a period after the closing parenthesis in either case. (APA, 2020, p. 272)

Reference

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000