In-text citations are brief references that you include in the body of your work to acknowledge the source of information you have used. They give enough information to uniquely identify the source in your reference list and allow readers to verify your claims and do follow-up research. In-text citations can either be in parenthetical form or have part of the citation included in the narrative of your work. They usually consist of the authors last name(s), year of publication, and page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence. If you are referring to an idea from another work but not directly quoting the material, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication and not the page number in your in-text reference. In-text citations are important because they avoid plagiarism by acknowledging the original authors contribution and show that you are engaging with the literature of your field.