APA 7th edition

APA citation generator

Enter a DOI, an ISBN or the details of your source and get the APA 7 reference plus its in-text citation. No account, and nothing to install.

  • Free, no account needed
  • Auto-fill from a DOI or ISBN
  • Copies with italics
Authors (in the order the source lists them; leave empty if there is none)

APA 7 expects sentence case here. We never change your capitalisation on our own. The convert buttons cannot recognise names, so re-capitalise proper nouns afterwards.

The site the page belongs to, for example Mayo Clinic.

Date published or updated (leave empty if none is shown)
Date you accessed it

Reference list entry

Fill in the details above and your citation appears here as you type.

In-text citation

Fill in the details above and your citation appears here as you type.

APA uses sentence case for article, book, page and video titles, and title case for the journal name. Titles are used exactly as you type them. APA wants a retrieval date only for pages that are meant to change and are not archived; the tool adds one when a web page has no date, so delete it if the page is fixed.

References (0)

Sources you add appear here in APA 7 format, in alphabetical order. The list is kept in this browser only.

Check every citation against your source and your instructor’s guidelines before you submit.

The rules

How APA 7 citations work

APA is an author-date style. A short citation in your sentence points to one full entry in the reference list at the end of the paper.

In-text: parenthetical and narrative

  • A parenthetical citation puts the surname and year in parentheses with a comma between them: (Jackson, 2019).
  • A narrative citation makes the author part of your sentence and leaves only the year in parentheses: Jackson (2019) reviews the research on prejudice.
  • Two authors are both named every time. Write “&” inside the parentheses, (Wegener & Petty, 1994), and “and” in a narrative citation: Wegener and Petty (1994).
  • With three or more authors, give the first surname and “et al.” from the very first citation: (Grady et al., 2019), or Grady et al. (2019) in a sentence.
  • A direct quotation needs a page: (Jackson, 2019, p. 25), or pp. 12–13 for a range. For a paraphrase the page is optional. For a quoted video, give the time stamp where the quote starts.
  • If there is no date, write n.d. where the year would go. A group can be the author: (World Health Organization, 2018).

Reference entries: author, date, title, source

  • Every entry has the same four parts in the same order: who wrote it, when, what it is called, and where to find it.
  • Invert every author: surname, then initials. List up to 20 authors, with “&” before the last. From 21 authors, list the first 19, an ellipsis, then the final author.
  • Write article, book, web page and video titles in sentence case: capitals only for the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Journal names keep their capitals.
  • Italicize a book, web page or video title. For an article, italicize the journal name and volume instead: Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3). The article title is plain, with no quotation marks.
  • Give a DOI as a link, https://doi.org/…, with no period after it. If there is no DOI and you read the work online, give the URL. APA 7 no longer writes “Retrieved from” in front of it.
  • Leave out the publisher’s city. When the author is also the website or publisher, name it once, as the author.

Formatting the References page

  • Start the list on a new page after the text, under the heading References, centered and bold.
  • Double-space the whole list, with no extra blank line between entries.
  • Give every entry a hanging indent of 0.5 in (1.27 cm): the first line sits at the margin and the rest are indented.
  • Order entries alphabetically by the first author’s surname. Several works by one author go oldest first.
  • Each in-text citation needs a matching entry, and each entry a citation. Emails and other private messages are cited in the text only.

What this generator does and does not do

  • It fills in a journal article from its DOI and a book from its ISBN. It does not read a web address, so the details of a website or video are typed in by hand.
  • It uses your title exactly as you type it. A button converts a title to sentence case, but it cannot recognize proper nouns, so re-capitalize names and places afterward.
  • It prints the reference entry and the parenthetical citation. For a narrative citation, move the author out of the parentheses yourself.
  • It covers four source types: website, book, journal article and online video. For a chapter, report or newspaper article, adapt the patterns on this page.
  • It adds “Retrieved …, from” only when a web page has no date and you enter an access date. Delete that part if the page is not one that changes.
  • Your list is saved in this browser only. Copy it into your paper before you clear your browsing data.

These rules are from the 7th edition of the Publication Manual (2019), which replaced the 6th edition. If an instructor or journal still asks for APA 6, the main differences are listed under “Mistakes to check for” below.

Examples

APA 7 citation examples

Six real sources, each formatted by the generator on this page. They are the same sources APA Style uses as its own samples, so you can compare.

  • Journal article

    Five authors, with a DOI

    Reference
    Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelinek, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185
    In-text
    (Grady et al., 2019)

  • Book

    Second edition, one author

    Reference
    Jackson, L. M. (2019). The psychology of prejudice: From attitudes to social action (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000168-000
    In-text
    (Jackson, 2019)
    Quoting page 25
    (Jackson, 2019, p. 25)

  • Web page with a named author

    News site article

    Reference
    Bologna, C. (2019, October 31). Why some people with anxiety love watching horror movies. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anxiety-love-watching-horror-movies_l_5d277587e4b02a5a5d57b59e
    In-text
    (Bologna, 2019)

  • Web page by an organization

    The author is also the site, so the site name is not repeated

    Reference
    World Health Organization. (2018, May 24). The top 10 causes of death. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
    In-text
    (World Health Organization, 2018)

  • Web page with no date

    A page that keeps changing, so it gets a retrieval date

    Reference
    U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). U.S. and world population clock. U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved July 3, 2019, from https://census.gov/popclock/
    In-text
    (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.)

  • YouTube video

    The channel is the author

    Reference
    Harvard University. (2019, August 28). Soft robotic gripper for jellyfish [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guRoWTYfxMs
    In-text
    (Harvard University, 2019)

To reproduce any of these, choose the source type, type the details shown and compare. For a group such as the World Health Organization, set the author to “An organisation” so the name is not split into surname and initials.

Before you submit

Common APA citation mistakes

Mistakes to check for

  • Writing “and” inside the parentheses, or “&” in a narrative citation.
  • Naming every author in the text when there are three or more. That was APA 6; APA 7 uses “et al.” from the first citation.
  • Capitalizing every word of an article or book title in the reference list.
  • Adding the publisher’s city, or “Retrieved from” before a plain URL. Both went out with APA 6.
  • Writing a DOI as doi:10.1037/… instead of https://doi.org/10.1037/…, or ending it with a period.
  • Italicizing the article title. In a journal reference the italics belong to the journal name and volume.
  • Leaving the page number off a direct quotation.
  • Citing a source in the text that is missing from the reference list.

When to use APA style

APA style is set by the American Psychological Association. It is the standard in psychology and across the social and behavioral sciences, and many nursing, education and business programs require it. Use the 7th edition unless your instructor names another.

  • Psychology and behavioral science
  • Nursing and health sciences
  • Education and social work
  • Business, sociology and criminology
How it works

Create APA citations in three steps

The generator at the top of this page opens in APA 7 and works in your browser. There is no sign-up.

  1. Pick what you are citing

    Choose website, book, journal article or online video. The style is already APA 7th edition.

  2. Look it up or type it in

    Paste a DOI for an article or an ISBN for a book and the fields fill in. For a website or video, type the author, date, title and URL. Write titles in sentence case.

  3. Check, copy, repeat

    Read the reference against your source, copy it with its italics, and copy the in-text citation. Add each source to your list to get an alphabetical reference list.

A DOI or ISBN look-up saves typing, but the records behind it are not always in APA capitalization. Always read the title and author names before you copy. Websites cannot be filled in from a link here.

FAQ

APA citation questions

It has two parts. In the text you write the author and year, for example (Jackson, 2019). In the reference list you give the full entry: Jackson, L. M. (2019). The psychology of prejudice: From attitudes to social action (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000168-000

Build your APA reference list

APA 7 references and in-text citations, free and without an account.