Frequently Asked Questions about Citing Sources in APA Format

For the in-text citation, cite the author of the social media post as the author and then include the date of publication.

Regulating this type of study is complicated (Lipsitch, 2022).

For the full citation, you should include the author, date, title (content of the post up to the first 20 words or description of audiovisual), type of post (e.g., X/Instagram/TikTok) in square brackets, social media site, and URL.

For X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, you should include both the author’s name and the username. For other social media sites, you should include the author’s name.

X (formerly Twitter) example

Lipsitch, M. [@mlipsitch]. (2022, 19 October). The current study has greater scientific and public health value, did not directly get USG funding, etc. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1582583552754929665

TikTok (or other streaming video) example

Harvard Writing Center. (2020, November 2). What makes a thesis good? [Video]. https://www.tiktok.com/@harvardwritingcenter/video/6890615490939571461

For the in-text citation, you should include the host (or producer if there is no host listed) and the date of the episode.

Listeners learn that Rachel’s father and brother died of Covid (Updike, 2022).

For the reference list citation, the host or producers of the podcast should be listed in the author position, and you should indicate their role in parentheses. The title should be followed by the episode number and then by the series name and URL. You should include whether the podcast is audio or video in square brackets.

Updike, N. (Host). (2022, October 13). Black Box (No. 1). [Audio podcast episode]. In We Were Three. Serial. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-were-three/id1648534112

APA suggests that if you want to use a quotation that is quoted by another source, you first try to find and read the original source. If you can’t read the original source, you should cite that quotation in your in-text citation by including the original author and date (if you know it) along with the words “as cited in” with the name of the source where you found the quotation. If you mention the original author in the sentence, you do not need to repeat it in the parenthetical citation.

In an address in Columbus, Ohio, Roosevelt called for the government to “act as a check or counterbalance to this oligarchy so as to secure the chance to work and the safety of savings to men and women” (1932, as cited in Rahman, 2016).

In your reference list, you would include only the source that you consulted, which in this case would be Sabeel Rahman’s 2016 book. If you did not look at the original speech in the source that Rahman cites, you would not include that other source in your reference list.