Does the period go before or after the in-text citation?

After it. In APA 7, MLA 9, and Chicago author-date, the parenthetical citation is part of the sentence it documents, so the sentence's period follows the closing parenthesis: (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470). or (Baron 194). or (Yu 2020, 45). The only exception is a block quotation, where the citation follows the block's final punctuation and no period follows the citation.

Where does the citation go when the sentence ends with a quotation?

Closing quotation mark, then the citation, then the period. Official APA: "high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another" (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470). Official MLA: "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194). Do not put a period inside the quotation marks. In Chicago's notes system the period stays inside the quotation mark and the superscript note number follows it.

What if the quotation ends with a question mark or exclamation point?

Keep the mark inside the quotation marks when it belongs to the quoted words, add the citation, and end your sentence with a period. If the question is yours rather than the source's, the quotation carries no mark inside and your question mark comes after the citation. MLA's official pair: keep "Is this a dagger…hand?" with no citation; write "How important is punctuation" (5)? once a citation is present, so you never print two question marks.

Is there a comma between the author and the page number?

In APA, yes, with the year in between: (Niepel et al., 2025) or (Zeleke et al., 2020, pp. 11–26). In MLA, no: (Baron 194), though a comma separates the author from a shortened title when you cite two works by the same author. In Chicago author-date, a space separates the author and year and a comma introduces the page: (Yu 2020, 45).

Where does a Chicago footnote number go?

After the punctuation: after the period, the comma, the closing quotation mark, or the closing parenthesis. The only mark it precedes is a dash. Place it at the end of the sentence or clause the note supports rather than beside the author's name. CMOS 18 §13.29 — quoted on the live CMOS Q&A — is unchanged in substance from CMOS 17 §14.26.

How do I cite more than one source in the same parentheses?

Separate the sources with semicolons inside a single set of parentheses: (Levenson et al., 2025; Niepel et al., 2025) in APA, (Baron 194; Woolf 14) in MLA, and (Binder and Kidder 2022; Yu 2020) in Chicago author-date. APA orders them alphabetically to match the reference list. In a Chicago note, list the sources in one note separated by semicolons. CMOS 18 §13.116 forbids stacking (IMDb 2026) (Henry 1994).

When do I use p., pp., and para.?

Only in APA. Use p. for a single page, pp. for a range or several pages, and para. or paras. for numbered paragraphs in a source without pages. MLA and Chicago give page numbers bare and use par. or pars. only when a source numbers its paragraphs. Do not invent paragraph numbers.

APA uses an ampersand inside parentheses and in the reference list, and the word and in running text: (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015) but Alderson-Day and Fernyhough (2015). MLA and Chicago use and everywhere and never the ampersand: (Binder and Kidder 2022, 117–18).

Do British quotation marks move the citation?

No. UK Harvard and Oxford-style house guides often reverse the marks and place the period outside unless it belongs to the quoted words — the MLA Style Center's Hammerstein pair is the official demonstration. The citation still sits after the closing quotation mark and before the sentence's final period. Change the marks; do not change the citation's slot.

Is this the same as the block-quote guide?

No. That page decides when a quotation becomes a block and how to indent it. This page decides where the period, the comma, the question mark, and the Chicago note number sit around every citation, run-in or block. Use both if you are formatting a long quotation; use this one if the sentence already looks right and only the punctuation is wrong.

Where Does the Period Go? APA 7, MLA 9, and CMOS 18 [2026]

Quick Answer: the citation is inside the sentence, so the period follows it

Four placements cover almost every case. A parenthetical citation sits before the sentence's final period. A run-in quotation puts the citation after the closing quotation mark and before that period. A block quotation is the one exception: the citation follows the block's own final punctuation and nothing follows the citation. A Chicago note number follows the period or comma and precedes a dash. The examples below are official reprints or labelled templates; they replace the invented Ferreira / Adeyemi / Halcyon Academic Press citations that used to sit on this page.

The core patterns (official wording and official sources)

APA 7, official short quotation (Alamo 29 May 2026 reprint):

Effective teams can be difficult to describe because "high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another" (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470).

APA 7, paraphrase of an official source:

State academic self-concept varies within the same student as well as across students (Niepel et al., 2025).

MLA 9, official Style Center quotation:

Reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194).

MLA 9, official Woolf run-in (Style Center, 29 February 2016):

Virginia Woolf describes the scene vividly: "Everything had come to a standstill. The throb of the motor engines sounded like a pulse irregularly drumming through an entire body" (14).

Chicago 18, official note (Quick Guide):

1. Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (Pantheon Books, 2020), 45.

Chicago 18, the matching superscript:

Yu's narrator is hired as Generic Asian Extra.¹

Chicago 18, official author-date (Quick Guide):

(Yu 2020, 45)

Block quotation template (all three styles):

…final word of the extract. (Author, Year, p. Page) — no period after the citation

Why the period goes after the citation

The citation documents the sentence, so it is part of the sentence, and the period ends the whole thing. The MLA Style Center's post on run-in versus block quotation punctuation (29 February 2016; the post still carries an eighth-edition note, and ninth-edition placement is Handbook §6.43) states the logic in one sentence:

MLA Style Center, official wording

The citation refers to the quotation and thus belongs in the same sentence with it.

A period is needed after the citation to indicate where the writer's sentence ends.

In the source work by Virginia Woolf, there is a period after "body," but it's omitted here because the following period makes a period after "body" redundant.

APA 7 and Chicago author-date reason the same way. A period before the parenthesis — …writing. (Baron 194) — strands the citation outside any sentence. That is an error, not a house variant. The same logic tells you where a mid-sentence citation goes: immediately after the material it supports, before the comma or semicolon that continues the sentence. Do not hold every citation until the end of a sentence that draws on two sources; the reader cannot tell which claim belongs to which.

Citations inside a sentence (official sources, surrounding prose is ours)

APA 7:

Although self-concept varies from moment to moment (Niepel et al., 2025), couple therapists can still practise discrete skills (Levenson et al., 2025).

MLA 9:

Although reading is "just half of literacy" (Baron 194), Woolf's motor car has already stopped (14).

Chicago 18, notes:

Although Yu makes Generic Asian Extra the whole plot,¹ Binder and Kidder track how campus groups actually win.²

Chicago 18, author-date:

Although Yu makes Generic Asian Extra the whole plot (Yu 2020, 45), Binder and Kidder track how campus groups actually win (Binder and Kidder 2022, 117–18).

APA 7: quotation mark, citation, period

The Alamo Colleges reprint of APA's quotations page (last updated 29 May 2026) restates two placements. For a parenthetical citation, close the quotation, give the author, year, and locator in parentheses, and end with the period. For a narrative citation, the author and year appear in the sentence and only the page number goes in parentheses after the closing quotation mark, before the period. Either way the quoted words carry no extra period of their own inside the quotation marks when your sentence supplies the period.

APA 7 official wording (Alamo 29 May 2026 reprint)

If the citation appears at the end of a sentence, put the end punctuation after the closing parenthesis for the citation.

Place periods and commas within closing single or double quotation marks. Place other punctuation marks inside quotation marks only when they are part of the quoted material.

Official short quotation:

Effective teams can be difficult to describe because "high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another" (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470).

Narrative form of the same quotation:

Ervin et al. (2018) found that "high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another" (p. 470).

Quotation in the middle of a sentence:

The claim that "high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another" (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470) is a warning, not a compliment.

Wrong (period inside, citation stranded):

Effective teams can be difficult to describe because "high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another." (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470)

Block quotations: citation after the final punctuation

A quotation of 40 words or more becomes a freestanding block, indented 0.5 in with no quotation marks (Publication Manual §8.27). Because the block ends with its own punctuation, the citation follows that punctuation and takes no period after the closing parenthesis. This page is only the period rule. For the word-count trigger, the extra paragraph indent, and the official Alderson-Day and Flores extracts, use how to format a block quote.

APA 7 §8.27 official wording (Alamo 29 May 2026 reprint)

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.

Parenthetical form (abbreviated; full extract on the block-quote guide):

…cognitive and neural underpinnings. (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015, p. 957)

Question marks and exclamation points

APA keeps a question mark or exclamation point inside the quotation marks only when it belongs to the quoted material. When it does, keep it inside, add the citation, and still end your sentence with a period. When the question is yours, the quotation has no mark inside; the citation follows the closing quotation mark and your question mark follows the citation. Do not invent a quoted question to demonstrate the rule. The templates below are labelled as templates; the official MLA question examples appear in the MLA section.

APA 7 question-mark templates (not sample sources)

The quotation is a question:

Participants asked, "Quoted question?" (Author, Year, p. Page).

Your sentence is the question:

Is it plausible that one night "quoted phrase" (Author, Year, p. Page)?

Commas, the ampersand, and page abbreviations

APA separates every element inside the parentheses with commas: author, year, locator. Two authors are joined by an ampersand inside parentheses and in the reference list, and by the word and in running text. Three or more authors take et al. from the first citation (Publication Manual Table 8.1). Locators use p. for one page, pp. for a range or a set of pages, para. and paras. for numbered paragraphs, and plain labels for other parts (Chapter 3, Table 2, the "Discussion" section). Page ranges take an en dash. The author-date basics page carries the full list; the Common Reference Examples guide (last updated 3 March 2026) supplies the real names below.

APA 7, what goes between the commas

Two authors, parenthetical (official names):

(Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015, p. 957)

Two authors, narrative:

Alderson-Day and Fernyhough (2015) reviewed the evidence (p. 957).

Three or more authors, official journal article:

(Niepel et al., 2025)

Official book chapter with a page range:

(Zeleke et al., 2020, pp. 11–26)

Discontinuous pages (template):

(Author, Year, pp. 88, 102)

Numbered paragraphs, no pages (template):

(Group Author, Year, para. 4) or (Group Author, Year, paras. 4–5)

Section heading, no pages or paragraph numbers (template):

(Group Author, Year, "Methods" section)

Official APA reference (ampersand in the list):

Niepel, C., Hausen, J. E., Weber, A. M., & Möller, J. (2025). Understanding mean-level and intraindividual variability in state academic self-concept: The role of students’ trait expectancies and values. Journal of Educational Psychology, 117(5), 772–788. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000946

Do not count unnumbered paragraphs to invent a para. locator. If the source numbers its paragraphs, use those numbers. If it does not, APA prefers a section heading. If there is no heading either, cite the work as a whole.

MLA 9: the same placement, fewer commas

MLA's placement rules match APA's: the citation follows the closing quotation mark and precedes the period; a block quotation's citation follows the final punctuation with nothing after it; a narrative citation leaves only the locator in parentheses. The Style Center's in-text overview (1 April 2021) points to Handbook §§6.3–6.30 for the contents and §6.43 for placement. What differs is the inside of the parentheses: no comma between the author and the page, no year, and no p.

MLA 9, official Style Center short quotations

Parenthetical (overview, 1 April 2021):

Reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194).

Narrative (same page):

According to Naomi Baron, reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (194).

Wrong (author repeated):

According to Naomi Baron, reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194).

Official works-cited entry:

Baron, Naomi S. "Redefining Reading: The Impact of Digital Communication Media." PMLA, vol. 128, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 193–200.

Two works by the same author (template; comma before the title):

(Author, Shortened Title 88)

No author, shortened title (template):

The report calls the deficit "cumulative" ("Shortened Title" 3).

Block quotations in MLA

Prose that runs more than four lines in your paper, or verse of more than three lines, is set as a block, indented half an inch with no quotation marks. The citation follows the block's final period, and no period follows the citation. The Style Center explains why: a block is not inserted in the middle of your sentence, so there is no following period to make Woolf's own period redundant. The official Mrs. Dalloway extract — "Mrs. Dalloway, coming to the window with her arms full of sweet peas, looked out with her little pink face pursed in enquiry. (14)" — is worked in full on how to format a block quote.

MLA Style Center, official block-period wording

In the block-quotation format, however, no period after the citation is necessary: the reader knows that the writer's thought ends at the citation because a block quotation is not normally inserted in the middle of a sentence.

The period after "enquiry" is not the writer's final period. It is Virginia Woolf's period, found in the source work. It is retained in this format because there is no following period to make it redundant.

Question marks in MLA

The Style Center's post on punctuating a question that quotes a question (30 April 2019; eighth-edition note, still the current public wording) says not to use two question marks. Without a citation, keep only the mark inside the quotation. With a citation, drop the mark inside the quotation and put a single question mark after the citation.

MLA Style Center, official question examples

A question quoting a question, no citation:

Which Shakespeare character asked, "Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?"

A question quoting a question, with a citation:

How would you respond to the writer's question, "How important is punctuation" (5)?

The quotation is a question and your sentence is not (template):

The author ends with a question: "Quoted question?" (Author 11).

Locators without p.

MLA gives page numbers bare: (Baron 194), (Baron 193–200). When a source has no page numbers but does have numbered paragraphs, sections, or chapters, MLA uses par., pars., sec., and ch. after a comma. Verse takes line or lines spelled out on first use (Handbook §6.22). A source with no numbering of any kind takes the author alone; do not count paragraphs yourself. Time-based media take the time as it displays. The Style Center's overview is silent on inventing paragraph numbers; if your instructor demands them on an unnumbered page, that is a local override, not MLA.

MLA 9 locators

Official page:

(Baron 194)

Page range of the official article:

(Baron 193–200)

Numbered paragraph (template):

(Author, par. 4)

Timestamp (template):

(Author 00:02:15–00:02:40)

Chicago 18: note numbers after the punctuation

Chicago's notes-bibliography system replaces the parenthetical with a superscript number, and the number has its own placement rule. The live CMOS Q&A on footnote numbers now quotes CMOS 18 §13.29 (the page still carries a 17th-edition footer; the section number and the wording below are the current live text). Red Deer Polytechnic's CMOS 18 footnotes guide independently maps the same rule to §13.29, and Purdue OWL's Chicago 18 Notes-Bibliography sheet restates it as "after any and all punctuation except the dash."

CMOS 18 §13.29 official wording (live Q&A)

A note number should generally be placed at the end of a sentence or at the end of a clause. The number normally follows a quotation (whether it is run in to the text or set as an extract). Relative to other punctuation, the number follows any punctuation mark except for the dash, which it precedes.

Chicago 18, placing the note number

After the period:

Yu's narrator is hired as Generic Asian Extra.¹

After the closing quotation mark and its period:

Reading is "just half of literacy. The other half is writing."²

After a comma, mid-sentence:

Although Yu makes the extra the whole plot,³ Binder and Kidder track how campus groups win.⁴

Before a dash:

The narrator is a generic extra⁵—and the novel makes that role the plot.

After a closing parenthesis:

The effect is largest in the roles extras actually get (the ones with no name).⁶

Wrong (number before the punctuation):

Yu's narrator is hired as Generic Asian Extra¹.

Chicago, unlike APA and MLA, keeps the period inside the closing quotation mark when a note number follows, because the number is not the sentence's terminal punctuation — the period is. Chicago also follows the American convention for periods and commas inside quotation marks in ordinary prose, which is why a run-in quotation that ends a notes-system sentence looks like writing."² and not writing"².

Inside the note

The note itself is punctuated like a sentence: a number and a period, elements separated by commas, publication details in parentheses, the page number after a comma, and a final period. Shortened notes drop the publication details (CMOS 18 §§13.32–13.33). Two or more sources in one note are separated by semicolons. Page numbers appear bare, without p.; use chap., sec., or par. only when a source lacks pages. A place of publication is no longer required (CMOS 14.30).

Chicago 18, official Quick Guide notes

Full note:

1. Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (Pantheon Books, 2020), 45.

Two-author full note:

2. 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 notes:

3. Yu, Interior Chinatown, 48.

Two-author shortened note:

4. Binder and Kidder, Channels of Student Activism, 125.

Two official sources in one note (semicolon is the rule; the pairing is ours):

5. Binder and Kidder, Channels of Student Activism, 117–18; Yu, Interior Chinatown, 45.

Author-date: a space, then a comma

Chicago author-date citations sit where APA's do and end the sentence the same way. Inside the parentheses, there is no comma between the author and the year, and a comma introduces the page. Two authors are joined by and, never an ampersand. Multiple sources are separated by semicolons. The CMOS Q&A on two citations in one sentence (CMOS 18 §13.116) says to combine them in one parenthetical rather than stacking two parentheticals. The Author-Date guide has the reference-list side.

Chicago 18, official author-date citations

Official book:

(Yu 2020, 45)

Official two-author book:

(Binder and Kidder 2022, 117–18)

Official journal article:

(Kwon 2022, 1842–43)

Official two-author article:

(Dittmar and Schemske 2023, 480)

Three or more authors in the text:

(Snyder et al. 2025, 9–10)

Quotation, period after the parenthesis:

Yu's narrator is hired as "Generic Asian Extra" (Yu 2020, 45).

Block quotation (template):

…last word of the extract. (Yu 2020, 45)

CMOS Q&A, official two-source wording (CMOS 18 §13.116)

Finally, if you were to cite two sources at the end of a sentence, you’d usually do that when both sources supported the same idea, in which case you’d separate them with a semicolon: (IMDb 2026; Henry 1994). See also CMOS 13.116.

Semicolons between multiple sources

All three styles use a semicolon between sources inside one parenthetical or one note. They differ on order. APA arranges the sources alphabetically, in the same order they appear in the reference list, and separates two works by the same author with commas after a single name. MLA and Chicago allow any order that makes sense, usually alphabetical or chronological; keep it consistent. Do not write (Niepel et al., 2025) (Levenson et al., 2025) — that stacked pair is the error the CMOS Q&A rejects.

Multiple sources in one citation

APA 7, official names, alphabetical:

(Levenson et al., 2025; Niepel et al., 2025; Zeleke et al., 2020)

APA 7, same author, two years (template):

(Author, 2018, 2021)

MLA 9:

(Baron 194; Woolf 14)

Chicago 18, author-date:

(Binder and Kidder 2022, 117–18; Yu 2020, 45)

Chicago 18, one note:

5. Binder and Kidder, Channels of Student Activism, 117–18; Yu, Interior Chinatown, 45.

British and American quotation marks

APA, MLA, and Chicago all follow American convention: double quotation marks for a quotation, single marks for a quotation inside it, and periods and commas inside the closing mark when no citation intervenes. The MLA Style Center's punctuation-and-quotation-marks post (1 February 2018) quotes the ninth-edition Handbook and then shows the British reversal. The citation's position does not move: in both conventions the order is still closing quotation mark, citation, period. Only the marks and the comma placement in ordinary prose change. If you are writing in a UK Harvard variant, follow your institution's guide for the marks and use the Harvard hub for the parenthetical; if you are converting a draft between conventions, the quotation mark converter swaps single and double marks in one pass.

MLA Handbook, official wording (Style Center, 1 February 2018)

By convention, commas and periods that directly follow quotations go inside the closing quotation marks

American convention (APA, MLA, Chicago)

Official MLA example, no citation:

"You've got to be carefully taught," wrote Oscar Hammerstein II.

With an APA citation:

Effective teams are hard to describe because "high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another" (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470).

Official MLA title-within-title:

A new approach to Flannery O’Connor’s short story can be found in the essay "The Uncanny Theology of 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’"

British convention (UK Harvard and house styles)

Official MLA British example:

'You've got to be carefully taught', wrote Oscar Hammerstein II.

With a Harvard-style citation (marks from MLA; parenthetical is the UK form):

Baron calls writing 'the other half of literacy' (Baron 2013, p. 194).

Official MLA British title-within-title:

A new approach to Flannery O’Connor’s short story can be found in the essay 'The Uncanny Theology of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"'.

Quick comparison

Punctuation around and inside an in-text citation.
Rule	APA 7	MLA 9	Chicago 18
Period and citation	Citation, then period	Citation, then period	Note number after the period; author-date: citation, then period
Closing quotation mark	Mark, citation, period	Mark, citation, period	Period inside the mark, then the note number
Block quotation	Citation after final punctuation, no period after (§8.27)	Same (Style Center; Handbook §6.43)	Same for author-date; note number after final punctuation (§13.29)
Quoted question	"…?" (Author, Year, p. X).	Official: "How important is punctuation" (5)?	"…?"¹
Inside the parentheses	Author, Year, p. X — commas	Author X — no comma, no year	Author Year, X — space, then comma
Two authors	& in parentheses, and in prose	and	and
Multiple sources	Semicolons, alphabetical	Semicolons	Semicolons in a note or parenthetical (§13.116)
Page abbreviation	p. / pp.	None	None
Paragraph abbreviation	para. / paras.	par. / pars. after a comma	par. / pars.
Dash	Citation before the dash if it documents the first clause	Same	Note number before the dash

Common mistakes

Putting the period inside the closing quotation mark and then adding the citation. The citation is stranded outside the sentence.
Adding a period after a block-quotation citation. (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015, p. 957). is the error §8.27 forbids.
Writing (Yu 2020, p. 45) in APA or (Yu, 2020, p. 45) in Chicago author-date. APA wants the comma after the author and the p.; Chicago wants a space and a bare page.
Writing p. in an MLA or Chicago page reference. Both give the number bare: (Baron 194), (Yu 2020, 45).
Using & in a narrative APA citation or anywhere in MLA and Chicago. Alderson-Day & Fernyhough (2015) is wrong in prose.
Placing a Chicago note number before a comma or period, or after a dash.
Stacking two parentheticals at the end of one sentence. Combine them with a semicolon, or move one to the clause it supports.
Doubling the question mark when your question quotes a question. Keep one. MLA drops the inner mark once a citation is present.
Counting unnumbered paragraphs to invent a para. locator. Use a section heading in APA, or the author alone in MLA.
Mixing British and American conventions in one paper. Choose the one your style or institution prescribes and apply it throughout.
Inventing a book so one fake sentence can be shown in three styles. Use an official extract, or label the line as a template.

Frequently asked questions

Does the period go before or after the in-text citation?: After it. In APA 7, MLA 9, and Chicago author-date, the parenthetical citation is part of the sentence it documents, so the sentence's period follows the closing parenthesis: (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470). or (Baron 194). or (Yu 2020, 45). The only exception is a block quotation, where the citation follows the block's final punctuation and no period follows the citation.
Where does the citation go when the sentence ends with a quotation?: Closing quotation mark, then the citation, then the period. Official APA: "high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another" (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470). Official MLA: "just half of literacy. The other half is writing" (Baron 194). Do not put a period inside the quotation marks. In Chicago's notes system the period stays inside the quotation mark and the superscript note number follows it.
What if the quotation ends with a question mark or exclamation point?: Keep the mark inside the quotation marks when it belongs to the quoted words, add the citation, and end your sentence with a period. If the question is yours rather than the source's, the quotation carries no mark inside and your question mark comes after the citation. MLA's official pair: keep "Is this a dagger…hand?" with no citation; write "How important is punctuation" (5)? once a citation is present, so you never print two question marks.
Is there a comma between the author and the page number?: In APA, yes, with the year in between: (Niepel et al., 2025) or (Zeleke et al., 2020, pp. 11–26). In MLA, no: (Baron 194), though a comma separates the author from a shortened title when you cite two works by the same author. In Chicago author-date, a space separates the author and year and a comma introduces the page: (Yu 2020, 45).
Where does a Chicago footnote number go?: After the punctuation: after the period, the comma, the closing quotation mark, or the closing parenthesis. The only mark it precedes is a dash. Place it at the end of the sentence or clause the note supports rather than beside the author's name. CMOS 18 §13.29 — quoted on the live CMOS Q&A — is unchanged in substance from CMOS 17 §14.26.
How do I cite more than one source in the same parentheses?: Separate the sources with semicolons inside a single set of parentheses: (Levenson et al., 2025; Niepel et al., 2025) in APA, (Baron 194; Woolf 14) in MLA, and (Binder and Kidder 2022; Yu 2020) in Chicago author-date. APA orders them alphabetically to match the reference list. In a Chicago note, list the sources in one note separated by semicolons. CMOS 18 §13.116 forbids stacking (IMDb 2026) (Henry 1994).
When do I use p., pp., and para.?: Only in APA. Use p. for a single page, pp. for a range or several pages, and para. or paras. for numbered paragraphs in a source without pages. MLA and Chicago give page numbers bare and use par. or pars. only when a source numbers its paragraphs. Do not invent paragraph numbers.
Ampersand or and?: APA uses an ampersand inside parentheses and in the reference list, and the word and in running text: (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015) but Alderson-Day and Fernyhough (2015). MLA and Chicago use and everywhere and never the ampersand: (Binder and Kidder 2022, 117–18).
Do British quotation marks move the citation?: No. UK Harvard and Oxford-style house guides often reverse the marks and place the period outside unless it belongs to the quoted words — the MLA Style Center's Hammerstein pair is the official demonstration. The citation still sits after the closing quotation mark and before the sentence's final period. Change the marks; do not change the citation's slot.
Is this the same as the block-quote guide?: No. That page decides when a quotation becomes a block and how to indent it. This page decides where the period, the comma, the question mark, and the Chicago note number sit around every citation, run-in or block. Use both if you are formatting a long quotation; use this one if the sentence already looks right and only the punctuation is wrong.

Check the punctuation before you submit

The in-text generator writes the parenthetical with the right commas, ampersand, and page abbreviation for your style. The block-quote formatter sets a long quotation off with the citation after the final punctuation. The Chicago footnote generator writes the note, not just the superscript. The citation checker flags stranded periods and missing commas across a draft. None of them invent a source; you still owe a real reference.

In-text citation generator →Block quote formatter →Chicago footnote generator →Citation checker →