APA Citation Generator

How it works

1. Choose the source type: website, book, or journal article.
2. Fill in the author, year, and title; these fields are common to all three types.
3. Fill in the fields specific to the chosen type (site name and URL for websites; publisher and edition for books; journal, volume, issue, and pages for articles).
4. The APA-formatted citation is generated and updates automatically as you fill in the fields.
5. Copy the result with one click; remember to apply italics to the title manually, since plain text can't represent that formatting.

Use cases

• Quickly generate a source citation for an academic paper or thesis.
• Correctly format a website reference cited in an essay.
• Put together a book or article citation without memorizing APA's exact element order.
• Verify that a citation already written by hand has the correct format and order.

Common mistakes

• Writing the author's name as 'First Last' instead of 'Last, Initial'.
  APA requires the 'Surname, A. A.' format (surname, comma, initials with periods). Adjust the author field to that format for a correct citation.
• Forgetting the title should be italicized and copying it as-is without applying that formatting.
  This tool generates plain text, which can't include italics. Apply italics to the title manually after pasting the citation into your document, as noted below the result.
• Leaving the year empty for a source that does have a publication date.
  If the year field is left empty, the citation uses '(n.d.)' (no date), which in APA only applies to sources that genuinely have no identifiable publication date. Fill in the year whenever you know it.

Frequently asked questions

Alternatives

Reference managers like Zotero or Mendeley generate APA citations automatically from metadata, and Word has a built-in citation generator. This tool is convenient for a quick, one-off citation without installing a full reference manager.