How to Cite the Same Source Multiple Times
Citing the same source again is a recoverability problem, not a second bibliography line. APA 7 repeats the author–date citation and forbids ibid. (Publication Manual §§8.1, 8.16). MLA 9 can drop the author once the source is already clear (Handbook §§6.3–6.30, 6.45). Chicago 18 replaces the first full note with a shortened note (§§13.32–13.39). This page is the subsequent-citation workflow — not a second copy of how to cite multiple authors or how to cite multiple sources in one citation.
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Quick answer: how to cite the same source multiple times
Each style already has a second-mention form. Use that form. Do not borrow ibid. from a footnote tradition, drop the year from an APA parenthetical, or leave a bare page number in MLA after another source has entered the paragraph.
Official second-mention patterns
APA 7 parenthetical (always author + year):
(Koehler, 2016)
APA 7 later narrative in the same paragraph (year omitted):
Koehler
APA 7 three or more authors, every mention:
(Martin et al., 2020)
MLA 9 after the author is already in the prose:
(194)
Chicago 18 shortened note:
2. Yu, Interior Chinatown, 48.
Chicago 18 two-author shortened note:
4. Binder and Kidder, Channels of Student Activism, 125.
Those six strings are the whole job. Koehler is the real 2016 article APA uses to teach author–date citations. Martin is the three-or-more-authors teaching name in Publication Manual Table 8.1 — and the first mention already uses et al. Page 194 is the locator on Naomi Baron's PMLA essay in the MLA Style Center overview. Yu and Binder and Kidder are the official one-author and two-author books in the Chicago Notes and Bibliography citation guide. If a generator formatted the first mention correctly, reuse that record; do not create a new source for the second mention.
What this page is not
Count the names first on how to cite multiple authors. Put several works in one parenthesis on how to cite multiple sources in one citation. Decide whether to quote or paraphrase on paraphrasing vs. quoting. If the assignment is choosing a style, start with APA vs MLA or APA vs Chicago. This URL answers one search: you already have the source, and you need to cite it again without looking sloppy or mixing systems.
APA 7: repeat the citation, never ibid.
The APA Style author–date page is the public statement of Publication Manual §8.16. The reference list still holds one entry no matter how many times the work appears in the paper.
APA Style, repeating a citation
When repeating a citation, show the entire citation; do not, for example, include only a page number (the abbreviation "ibid." is not used in APA Style).
The same page then gives the only legal shortcut: omit the year from a later narrative citation in the same paragraph. Parenthetical citations keep the year every time. Start the next paragraph with the year again.
APA Style, omitting the year
Include the author(s) and year for every parenthetical in-text citation.
Do not repeat the year for narrative in-text citations the second and subsequent times they appear in a single paragraph. Follow this guideline with each new paragraph (i.e., include the year in the first narrative citation in a new paragraph).
Overcitation is also a rule, not a taste
Appropriate level of citation (§8.1) is the other half of the same problem. Repeating (Koehler, 2016) at the end of every sentence in a one-source paraphrase is not safer. It is overcitation.
Publication Manual §8.1 / APA Style
For example, it is considered overcitation to repeat the same citation in every sentence when the source and topic have not changed. Instead, when paraphrasing a key point in more than one sentence within a paragraph, cite the source in the first sentence in which it is relevant and do not repeat the citation in subsequent sentences as long as the source remains clear and unchanged.
The practical sequence in one APA paragraph is therefore: cite on the first sentence that uses the source; keep the source obvious with the author's name or a clear pronoun; put the year back the moment you write a parenthetical, start a new paragraph, or bring in a second work. Long paraphrases are §8.24; quotations always take a locator (§8.25).
Official APA example: Koehler (2016)
Figure 8.3 in the Publication Manual is the worked paragraph for omitted years. The source is Derek J. Koehler's 2016 article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied (volume 22, issue 1, pages 24–38, DOI 10.1037/xap0000073). The closing parenthetical keeps the year because parenthetical citations always do.
Publication Manual Figure 8.3
Koehler (2016) experimentally examined how journalistic coverage influences public perception of the level of agreement among experts. Koehler provided participants with quotations from real reviews for movies that critics either loved or loathed. He found that participants better appreciated the level of expert consensus for highly rated movies when only positive reviews were provided rather than when both positive and negative reviews were provided, even when the proportion of positive to negative reviews was indicated. These findings, in combination with similar research, demonstrate that providing evidence for both sides when most experts agree may lead to a false sense of balance (Koehler, 2016; Reginald, 2015).
Parenthetical citation (§8.11):
Falsely balanced news coverage can distort the public’s perception of expert consensus on an issue (Koehler, 2016).
Narrative citation (§8.11):
Koehler (2016) noted the dangers of falsely balanced news coverage.
Reference list (once):
Koehler, D. J. (2016). Can journalistic “false balance” distort public perception of consensus in expert opinion? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22(1), 24–38. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000073
Two works by the same author keep every year
The year-omission shortcut dies as soon as two works share an author line. APA Style's own warning uses teaching names, not a fabricated article:
APA Style, same authors, two dates
However, if you cite multiple works by the same author or authors, regardless of the publication years, include the date in every in-text citation to prevent ambiguity. For example, if you cite Mohammed and Mahfouz (2017) and Mohammed and Mahfouz (2019), include the year with every citation, even when one of the references is cited multiple times in a single paragraph.
Works that share both author and year take the lowercase letters assigned in the reference list (§8.19). Those letters are part of the date. They travel with every in-text citation, including later narrative mentions in the same paragraph.
Group authors shorten after the first mention
Table 8.1 is the other official "cite it again" pattern. Spell the group once, then use the abbreviation. The reference list keeps the full name.
Publication Manual Table 8.1
First parenthetical:
(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2020)
Later parenthetical:
(NIMH, 2020)
First narrative:
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2020)
Later narrative:
NIMH (2020)
Three or more authors stay et al. from the first mention
APA 6 listed every name the first time a work had three, four, or five authors, then switched to et al. APA 7 ended that. Table 8.1 now uses et al. on the first mention and on every later mention. The second citation is not the moment you finally shorten the name list.
Publication Manual Table 8.1, author counts
One author, every mention:
(Luna, 2020)
Two authors, every mention:
(Salas & D’Agostino, 2020)
Three or more, first and later mentions:
(Martin et al., 2020)
Narrative, three or more:
Martin et al. (2020)
The only time you write more names is ambiguity: two different Martin et al. (2020) papers that would collapse into one citation (§8.18). Then you add authors until the two citations split. That is a disambiguation rule, not a first-mention rule.
Quotations, missing pages, and personal communications
A quotation is not a paraphrase. Each quoted sentence needs its own locator: p. or pp. when the source is paginated (§8.25–8.26). If there are no page numbers, §8.28 lets you use a paragraph number, a section heading, or a timestamp — not a guess. Personal communications never enter the reference list; cite them in the text every time they support a claim. The forms below are the official APA Style examples, not invented names.
Locators and personal communications
Quoted page (template on the Koehler article):
(Koehler, 2016, p. 24)
No page numbers (template):
(Koehler, 2016, Discussion section, para. 2)
Official personal communication:
(T. Nguyen, personal communication, February 24, 2020)
Unrecorded lectures, emails, and other nonrecoverable classroom talk stay in that personal-communication lane. If the slides are recoverable, cite the recoverable file instead — see how to cite a lecture in APA and personal communications. A source with no pages at all is how to cite a source with no page numbers.
MLA 9: keep the citation short once the source is clear
MLA 9th edition, §§6.3–6.30, treats the in-text citation as a pointer to one works-cited entry, not as a miniature bibliography. The MLA Style Center overview states the principle and then shows the official Naomi Baron examples.
MLA Style Center
In-text citations are brief, unobtrusive references that direct readers to the works-cited-list entries for the sources you consulted and, where relevant, to the location in the source being cited.
All in-text references should be concise. Avoid, for instance, providing the author’s name or title of a work in both your prose and parentheses.
Official MLA example: Baron
Naomi S. Baron's 2013 PMLA essay is the Style Center's own demonstration. The first mention can live in the prose. Later sentences from the same page keep only the locator. Repeating Baron inside the parentheses after you have already named her is the mistake the Style Center marks incorrect.
MLA Style Center, in-text citations overview
Citation in prose:
Naomi Baron broke new ground on the subject.
Parenthetical citation:
At least one researcher has broken new ground on the subject (Baron).
Quoted sentence, author in prose:
According to Naomi Baron, reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (194).
Quoted sentence, author in parentheses:
Reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194).
Incorrect (name twice):
According to Naomi Baron, reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194).
Works cited (once):
Baron, Naomi S. “Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication Media.” PMLA, vol. 128, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193–200.
Successive sentences, new paragraphs, and a second source
If the next sentence still comes from Baron and no other source has appeared, (196) is enough. Restore Baron the moment another work enters the paragraph, or as soon as a new paragraph would make a bare page number ambiguous. The Style Center's same-source, multiple-paragraphs note is written against the 8th edition. The 9th-edition handbook still tells you to define the source in the prose and to give the citation in full whenever a shortcut would create ambiguity; staff point consecutive multi-sentence paraphrases at §6.45.
MLA Style Center, same source in later paragraphs (8th edition wording; 9th edition still requires clarity)
If you continue to cite the same source in subsequent paragraphs and no other source intervenes, you do not need to identify the source again unless ambiguity would result.
A later mention of a quotation you have already cited does not always need a second parenthesis. The Style Center's repeated-passage page uses Juliet's "What's in a name?" as the official case: cite it the first time (2.2.43 in Romeo and Juliet), then refer back in prose if the earlier citation is still obvious.
MLA Style Center, citing a passage again
In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet asks, “What’s in a name?” (2.2.43). By “name” she means Romeo’s last name–Montague.
That is not permission to skip the first citation. It is permission to stop reprinting it once the line is already on the page. If you are quoting a new page, give the new locator.
Two works by the same author need a short title every time
The page-only shortcut dies the moment your works-cited list holds two items by the same person. The MLA Style Center note on works with the same title is an 8th-edition post; the 9th-edition rule is the same principle at §6.8. A bare (194) no longer tells the reader which Baron essay you mean.
MLA Style Center, two works by one author
If you cite two works by the same author, you must provide a short title in your in-text citation, and if two or more works by an author have the same title, additional information is needed so that the reference, if not quite as brief, will be clear.
Style Center teaching example, edition in brackets:
The documentation gave him a “dull but persistent headache” (Curse [3rd ed.] 45).
Italicize a shortened book title; put a shortened article title in quotation marks. Put the short title in every citation that would otherwise be ambiguous, including later sentences in the same paragraph. If the two works also share a title, the Style Center adds the first unique detail in square brackets — edition, publisher, translator, or editor — rather than inventing a year the way APA would.
Chicago 18: shortened notes, not ibid.
Chicago 18th edition (2024) moved shortened citations to §§13.32–13.39. Guides that still open with ibid. as the default, or that still print a city of publication on a 2020 novel, are describing the 17th edition. The Notes and Bibliography citation guide shows the current pair: a full first note, then a shortened note. What's new in the 18th edition restates that a short note used instead of ibid. may be author–title, author-only, or title-only.
CMOS 18 §13.32
To reduce the bulk of documentation in works that use footnotes or endnotes, citations of sources already given in full—either in a previous note or in a bibliography that provides complete bibliographic data—should be shortened whenever possible.
CMOS 18 §13.33
The most common short form consists of the last name of the author and the main title of the work cited, usually shortened if more than four words.
Official Chicago example: Yu, Interior Chinatown
Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown is the Quick Guide's one-author book. CMOS 18 §14.30 dropped the city. The shortened title stays Interior Chinatown because the title is already short. The bibliography still appears once.
Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide
First note:
1. Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (Pantheon Books, 2020), 45.
Shortened note:
2. Yu, Interior Chinatown, 48.
Bibliography (once):
Yu, Charles. Interior Chinatown. Pantheon Books, 2020.
Two authors, a long title, a chapter, and a journal
The same Quick Guide is where the second mention starts to look different from Yu. Two authors stay two authors. A title longer than four words shortens. A chapter keeps the chapter title, not the book title. A journal article keeps a shortened article title in quotation marks, not the journal name.
Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide, later notes
First note, two authors:
1. Amy J. Binder and Jeffrey L. Kidder, The Channels of Student Activism: How the Left and Right Are Winning (and Losing) in Campus Politics Today (University of Chicago Press, 2022), 117–18.
Shortened note:
4. Binder and Kidder, Channels of Student Activism, 125.
First note, chapter:
1. Kathleen Doyle, “The Queen Mary Psalter,” in The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, ed. P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin (University of Chicago Press, 2023), 64.
Shortened note:
2. Doyle, “Queen Mary Psalter,” 65.
First note, journal:
1. Hyeyoung Kwon, “Inclusion Work: Children of Immigrants Claiming Membership in Everyday Life,” American Journal of Sociology 127, no. 6 (2022): 1842–43, https://doi.org/10.1086/720277.
Shortened note:
5. Kwon, “Inclusion Work,” 1851.
Why Chicago now prefers the short note to ibid.
§13.37 still defines ibid. (from ibidem, "in the same place"). It no longer recommends it as the house style for consecutive notes. A short note is already one line. In a PDF or website that opens one footnote at a time, ibid. points at a note the reader cannot see. Douglas College's Chicago 18 shortened-citation page reprints the same §13.37 wording and the manual's Carson demonstration.
CMOS 18 §13.37
The abbreviation ibid. (from ibidem, "in the same place") usually refers to a single work cited in the note immediately preceding. However, because ibid. can obscure the identity of a source, Chicago recommends instead using shortened citations.
Shortened citations generally take up less than a line, meaning that ibid. saves no space, and in electronic formats that link to one note at a time, ibid. risks confusing the reader.
To avoid repetition, an author or title alone may be used in successive citations, though the fuller form is usually preferred.
The same section lets a later consecutive note drop the title (Carson, 18) or drop the author (Silent Spring, 18). The fuller short form — author, short title, page — is still the one to default to. The name below is the manual's own demonstration, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, not an invented title. Never use ibid. when the preceding note cites more than one work.
CMOS 18 §13.37 consecutive notes
Preferred short notes:
1. Carson, Silent Spring, 3.
2. Carson, Silent Spring, 18.
Permitted but no longer preferred:
2. Ibid., 18.
Author only, still consecutive:
2. Carson, 18.
No page numbers: keep the chapter, not a Kindle location
The Quick Guide's ebook pair is the official second-mention form when the file has no stable pages. Cite the chapter (or section) you used. Do not invent a pagination scheme, and do not paste a Kindle location into the note. The later note shortens the title the same way a print book would.
Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide, Kindle without pages
First note:
1. Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (Random House, 2008), chap. 6, Kindle.
Shortened note:
5. Roy, God of Small Things, chap. 7.
Chicago author-date repeats the parenthesis
If the assignment asked for Chicago's author-date system, there is no shortened title in the parenthesis and no omitted year. The second mention looks like the first, with a new locator. The reference list still holds one entry. Do not drop in an APA comma after the name (Yu, 2020) or an MLA page-only (48) inside a Chicago author-date paper.
Chicago 18 author-date, same book twice
First mention:
(Yu 2020, 45)
Later mention:
(Yu 2020, 48)
Two authors, official Quick Guide:
(Binder and Kidder 2022, 117–18)
Ebook without pages:
(Roy 2008, chap. 6)
Reference list (once):
Yu, Charles. 2020. Interior Chinatown. Pantheon Books.
The three styles side by side
| Need | APA 7 | MLA 9 | Chicago 18 notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| First mention | (Koehler, 2016) or Koehler (2016) | (Baron 194) or Baron … (194) | Full note |
| Immediate repeat, same paragraph | Keep year in every parenthesis; omit year only in later narrative citations | Page alone if the source is still obvious | Short note: author, short title, page |
| New paragraph, same source | Put the year back on the first narrative citation | Restore the author if a bare page would be ambiguous | Short note again |
| Second work by the same author | Keep every year; add a or b when the year matches | Add a short title if two works share an author | Short title is what distinguishes the notes |
| Three or more authors | et al. from the first mention | Name the first author and add et al. | First author plus et al. in the note |
| Ibid. | Not used | Not used | Defined, but shortened notes are recommended |
| End list | One References entry | One Works Cited entry | One bibliography entry |
Use the style's own shortcut
- APA: omit the year in a later narrative citation in the same paragraph
- MLA: omit the author once the prose has named the source
- Chicago notes: shorten the note after the first full citation
- Chicago author-date: repeat (Yu 2020, 48)
Do not import another style's shortcut
- No ibid. in APA or MLA
- No year-less APA parenthetical
- No MLA page-only citation after a second source appears
- No city of publication on a CMOS 18 book published in 2020
Failure modes students actually hit
- APA parenthetical without a year.
(Koehler, p. 24)is not APA. The year-omission rule is narrative only. - *APA ibid. or page-only.* The manual says the abbreviation is not used. Repeat author and year.
- APA 6 first-mention names on an APA 7 paper. Three or more authors are
Martin et al.from the first citation. - MLA name twice.
According to Baron … (Baron 194)is the Style Center's own incorrect example. - MLA page-only after a second source. Once a second author enters the paragraph, a bare
(67)no longer points at Baron. - MLA two works, one surname. A bare page number cannot split two Baron essays. Add a short title (§6.8).
- Chicago 17 habits on a Chicago 18 paper. A city on Interior Chinatown, or ibid. as the default consecutive form, is last edition.
- *Chicago ibid. after a two-source note. Ibid.* may refer only to a single work in the note immediately preceding.
- A second reference-list row. The source is listed once. Repeated citations change the in-text form, not the end list.
- A fabricated second source. Do not invent a 2024 Smith article to demonstrate the rule. Use Koehler, Baron, Yu, Binder and Kidder, Doyle, Kwon, or Roy — or a clearly labelled template.
- Personal communications in the References. Emails and unrecorded talks stay in the text. See personal communications.
Signal the source; then stop repeating yourself
A signal phrase is how you keep a one-source paraphrase legal. "Koehler found," "Baron argues," and "Yu's narrator" tell the reader the source has not changed, which is what APA §8.1 and MLA §§6.3–6.30 both require before you drop information. When the next sentence is your own claim, or a second source, put a full citation back.
Format the first mention once
Build the recoverable record in the generator, then reuse it. The second mention is a shorter in-text form of the same source — not a new entry.
Related guides
- How to cite multiple authors
- How to cite multiple sources in one citation
- Paraphrasing vs. quoting
- APA vs MLA
- APA vs Chicago
- How to cite a source with no page numbers
- How to cite personal communications
Citing the same source more than once
- Can I use ibid. in APA 7?
- No. APA Style says the abbreviation is not used. Repeat the author and year. You may omit the year only from a later narrative citation in the same paragraph.
- Do I include the year every time I cite a source in APA?
- In every parenthetical citation, yes. In narrative citations, include the year the first time in a paragraph and omit it from later narrative mentions of the same work in that paragraph, unless you are citing more than one work by that author.
- Does APA 7 still list every author the first time?
- No. That was APA 6. Table 8.1 now uses Martin et al. (2020) on the first mention and on every later mention for three or more authors. Spell a group author once, then use the abbreviation.
- Can MLA citations be just a page number?
- Yes, when the author is already clear from your prose or from the immediately preceding citation and no other source has intervened. Restore the name as soon as a bare page would be ambiguous.
- How do I cite two works by the same author in MLA?
- Add a shortened title to every in-text citation (MLA 9 §6.8). A bare page number cannot tell the reader which works-cited entry you mean. Italicize a book title; quote an article title.
- Does Chicago 18 still use ibid.?
- It still defines ibid., but CMOS 18 §13.37 recommends shortened notes instead because ibid. hides the source in electronic notes. Default to author, short title, and page. Never use ibid. when the preceding note cites more than one work.
- How do I shorten a Chicago note for two authors or a long title?
- Keep both surnames and shorten a title longer than four words. The Quick Guide pair is Binder and Kidder, Channels of Student Activism, 125 after the full first note for The Channels of Student Activism.
- Do I list a repeated source more than once in the bibliography?
- No. APA, MLA, and Chicago each list the source once. Repeated citations change the in-text citation or note, not the end-list entry.
- How do I cite two works by the same author in one APA paragraph?
- Keep the year in every citation so the two works cannot collapse into each other. If they share a year, use the a and b letters from the reference list (Publication Manual §8.19).
- Do I need a page number every time I paraphrase the same source?
- APA encourages a locator on a long or complex paraphrase but does not require one. MLA and Chicago notes expect a locator when you are pointing at a specific passage. A quotation always needs a locator in all three styles. See do paraphrases need page numbers.
- How do I cite the same source again if it has no page numbers?
- Use the locator the current style allows: APA paragraph or section labels, MLA numbered paragraphs or timestamps, Chicago chapter or section IDs (Roy, God of Small Things, chap. 7). Do not invent page numbers or paste Kindle locations.
- If I cite an email twice, does it go in the reference list the second time?
- No. A personal communication stays in the text on every mention. APA's official form is (T. Nguyen, personal communication, February 24, 2020).