What APA style is
APA style is the citation format of the American Psychological Association. It is the standard in psychology, education, nursing, business and most social sciences, and many schools use it for every subject. The current version is the 7th edition, published in 2019.
APA uses two connected parts. A short in-text citation, such as (Lopez, 2024), goes in your sentence. A full reference goes in the list at the end of your paper, so the reader can find the source.
How to use the generator
- Under What are you citing? choose Web page, Book, Journal article or YouTube video. The form changes to show the fields that type needs.
- Fill in the Authors. Type first and middle names in the first box and the last name in the second. Press Add author for more people, or Add organization when a company, agency or group is the author.
- Fill in the title, the source and the date. Leave the year empty if there is no date.
- Add the DOI for books and articles that have one, or the URL for online sources.
- Read the Reference on the right. It updates as you type.
- Press Copy citation to copy it with italics, or Copy plain text.
- Copy the In-text citation, either parenthetical or narrative, with the small copy buttons.
- Press Add to reference list to collect several references. The list is sorted alphabetically and Copy list copies all of them, with a hanging indent, ready to paste.
The reference list is saved in your browser only, so it is still there when you come back on the same device. Nothing is sent to a server.
Examples
These references were made with the generator. Italics are shown as they will appear in your document.
Web page with one author
Lopez, M. (2024, May 14). How to start a vegetable garden. Green Living Guide. https://example.com/garden
In text: (Lopez, 2024) or Lopez (2024).
Web page with an organization as author. When the author and the website have the same name, the website name is left out.
World Health Organization. (2023, December 4). Malaria. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria
Web page with no author and no date, which changes over time
Exchange rates. (n.d.). Example Bank. Retrieved October 4, 2026, from https://example.com/rates
In text: (Exchange rates, n.d.).
Book, second edition, two authors
Clark, A., & Diaz, B. J. (2019). Learning to code: A practical guide (2nd ed.). Northfield Press.
In text: (Clark & Diaz, 2019) or Clark and Diaz (2019).
Journal article, three authors, with an article number and a DOI
Kim, S., Reed, T., & Berg, O. (2022). Why do we dream? Mind Research, 8(2), Article e1042. https://doi.org/10.1234/mr.2022.1042
In text: (Kim et al., 2022).
YouTube video, by a person with a channel
Ruiz, A. [Science Explained]. (2023, September 2). Why the sky is blue [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123
If only the channel is known, the channel name becomes the author: Science Explained. (2023, September 2).
The APA rules the generator follows
| Part | Rule |
|---|---|
| Authors | Last name, then initials: Lopez, M. Two authors are joined with a comma and an ampersand. Up to 20 authors are all listed. With 21 or more, the first 19 are followed by three spaced dots and the last author. |
| Initials | Every given name becomes an initial with a full stop. “Ben James” becomes B. J., and “Jean-Paul” becomes J.-P. |
| Date | Year, month and day for web pages and videos. Year only for books and journal articles. n.d. when there is no date. |
| Title | Italic for web pages, books and videos. Plain for journal articles, where the journal name and volume are italic instead. |
| Edition | Shown after the book title, only from the second edition on: (2nd ed.). |
| Pages | Page ranges are joined with an en dash (U+2013), which the generator inserts for you. |
| DOI | Written as a full link: https://doi.org/ followed by the number. |
| Retrieval date | Only for pages designed to change, such as live data or a price list. |
Tips
- Use sentence case for titles. APA asks for sentence case in reference titles, but the generator keeps your title exactly as you type it. If you copied a title written in title case, run it through the sentence case converter first. Journal names stay in title case; the title case converter can fix those.
- Prefer the DOI. Most journal articles and many academic books have a DOI. When there is one, include it and leave the URL out.
- Check names. Some names do not follow the first name, last name pattern. For a single name, put it in the last name box. For a name like “van der Berg”, check your school’s guidance on where the particle goes.
- Check the source. A generator formats what you give it. If the date or author is wrong in the form, it will be wrong in the citation.
- Hanging indent. References in APA have the second and later lines indented. Copy list includes that formatting for Word and Google Docs.
Other ways to make APA citations
Microsoft Word. On the References tab, set Style to APA, then use Insert Citation and Bibliography. Check the edition: some versions of Word use an older APA format by default.
Google Docs. Open Tools, then Citations. Choose APA, add your sources and insert citations and a bibliography from the side panel.
Reference managers. Zotero, Mendeley and EndNote store your sources and produce APA references automatically. They are worth setting up for a long project such as a thesis.