APA Citation Generator
Paste a URL, DOI, or ISBN below and get an accurate APA 7th edition citation instantly. Select APA 7 on the result to copy it with italics intact — ready for your references page.
APA is the required style for psychology, education, nursing, business, and most social sciences. The generator applies the current 7th edition rules automatically, including the changes from APA 6 that still trip people up (no more publisher location, DOIs as full links, up to 20 authors before truncation).
Paste any web page address
APA format examples — generated, not hand-typed
These examples are produced by this generator, so what you see is exactly what you'll get:
Alvarez, M. (2024, March 18). How memory consolidation works during sleep. Science Daily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/memory-consolidation-sleep
Martin, R. C. (2008). Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship. Prentice Hall.
Rasch, B., & Born, J. (2013). About sleep's role in memory. Physiological Reviews, 93(2), 681-766. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00032.2012
The anatomy of an APA reference
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the work in sentence case. Container in Title Case, Volume(Issue), pages. https://doi.org/xxxx
Four pieces, always in this order: who (authors, inverted with initials), when (year in parentheses), what (title in sentence case — only the first word, proper nouns, and the first word after a colon capitalized), and where (the journal, publisher, or site, plus a DOI or URL).
Italics follow a simple rule: italicize the container — the journal name and volume number, the book title, or the standalone web page title. Article titles within journals stay in plain text.
APA in-text citations
Every reference pairs with in-text citations in author–date form: (Rasch & Born, 2013) for a paraphrase, or (Rasch & Born, 2013, p. 685) when quoting directly. Three or more authors shorten to (Harris et al., 2020) from the first citation. If you name the authors in your sentence, only the year goes in parentheses: "Rasch and Born (2013) showed that…"
No author? Use the first words of the title in quotes: ("Sleep and memory," 2024). No date? Use n.d.: (World Health Organization, n.d.).
Edge cases the generator handles for you
- Organization as author — written in full, not inverted: National Sleep Foundation. (2024).
- No author — the title moves into the author position.
- No date — (n.d.) replaces the year.
- 21+ authors — first 19 listed, then an ellipsis, then the final author (APA 7's exact rule).
- Websites — the site name appears after the title; the access date is only added for content designed to change.
More source types in APA
Beyond the big three, the same author–date skeleton covers everything. The patterns:
- Videos — the channel or creator is the author, the platform follows the italicized title.
- Reports — the issuing organization is both author and publisher; skip the repeated site name.
- Chapters in edited books — chapter author first, then "In" the editors and the book: see How to Cite a Book in APA.
- Podcasts, social posts, datasets — Manual Entry with the website type; the bracketed format note ([Audio podcast episode], [Tweet]) goes after the title.
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell. (2023, September 12). Why you should put yourself first. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVTXPUF4Oz4
National Sleep Foundation. (2024). Sleep in America poll: Sleep and mental health. National Sleep Foundation. https://www.thensf.org/sleep-in-america-poll-2024
Building the APA references page
Individual citations are half the job — the references page has its own rules: titled References (bold, centered), alphabetized by surname, double-spaced, hanging indents, and a strict one-to-one match with your in-text citations. Add each result here to your bibliography and the Builder assembles and exports the page to Word with all of that pre-applied. Full page rules: APA Reference Page.
Keep every citation you make.
A free account saves your citation history and organizes sources into projects with notes and tags.
Create a free account →Find the sources you should be citing.
Premium searches 250 million scholarly works by topic, recommends citations for your claims, and flags statements in your writing that need support.
Go Premium — $5/monthFrequently asked questions
- Is this APA 6 or APA 7?
- APA 7th edition — the current standard since 2020. Key differences from APA 6 are applied automatically: no publisher city, DOIs formatted as https://doi.org/ links, and "et al." from the first in-text citation for 3+ authors.
- Does it create the reference page too?
- Yes. Add each citation to your bibliography as you go, then export an alphabetized References page as a Word document with hanging indents and double spacing — formatted to APA spec.
- How do I cite something with no author in APA?
- Move the title into the author position, then the date: Title of page. (2024, March 18). Site Name. URL. The generator does this automatically when no author is detected.
- Does the generator do APA in-text citations?
- The reference entry gives you everything the in-text citation needs: (FirstAuthor & SecondAuthor, Year). See the in-text section above for the exact patterns, including et al. and no-author forms.