APA citation generator
Paste DOIs, PubMed IDs or the reference list you already have, up to 100 at a time, and get APA 7th edition references sorted by author. Each record comes from Crossref or PubMed, not typed in by hand. The examples below are the APA Style website’s own, produced by this tool.
Free · no signup · works instantly. References are looked up, then formatted in your browser; nothing you paste is stored.
The rules this generator applies
- Authors: surname and initials, with "&" before the last author and a comma before the "&", even with two authors. List up to 20 authors; with 21 or more, list the first 19, an ellipsis and the last author.
- The year goes in parentheses straight after the authors.
- Journal articles: article title, then the journal name and volume in italics, the issue in parentheses, the page range or article number, and the DOI as a https://doi.org/ link.
- Books: title in italics, edition in parentheses, then the publisher. APA 7 gives no place of publication.
- APA uses sentence case for article and book titles. The generator keeps the capitalisation of the source record, so names, genes and acronyms stay intact; lower-case a title-case record by hand.
- The list is sorted alphabetically by the first author’s surname.
Examples from the style guide
Each example is the guide's own reference, entered as data and produced by this generator.
- Journal article with a DOI (APA Style website example)
- 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
- Book with an edition (APA Style website example)
- 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
- Chapter in an edited book (APA Style website example)
- Aron, L., Botella, M., & Lubart, T. (2019). Culinary arts: Talent and their development. In R. F. Subotnik, P. Olszewski-Kubilius, & F. C. Worrell (Eds.), The psychology of high performance: Developing human potential into domain-specific talent (pp. 345–359). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000120-016
Journals that change the style
- eLife: Accepts any reference style and reformats in production; it names APA as the closest match for a reference manager.
Other styles: AMA citation generator, Vancouver reference generator, IEEE citation generator, Nature reference style generator, Harvard referencing generator, Chicago citation generator. All seven styles are on the Reference Formatter. Checking a list you have not verified? The free Reference Checker finds retracted papers and invented citations.
Paste references
DOIs, PubMed IDs, a plain-text list, BibTeX, RIS or CSL-JSON, up to 100 at a time.
Check the style
The style is already set; switch to any of the seven styles if your journal asks for another.
Copy or download
Copy with italics and bold kept, or download Word (.rtf), plain text, BibTeX or RIS.
What this tool does not do
- • It does not hold journal-specific variants of the style; the journal notes below list the ones we know, and your target journal’s instructions have the rest.
- • Article titles keep the source record’s capitalisation; it does not convert to sentence or title case.
- • A plain-text reference is matched to a Crossref record by title and author. A reference with no confident match is listed, not guessed.
- • It does not check whether a reference is retracted or supports your claim. The Reference Checker and Citation Claim Checker do that.
Frequently asked questions
Can I cite several sources in APA at once?
Yes. Paste up to 100 DOIs, PubMed IDs or references, one per line. The generator looks each one up and returns the whole list in APA 7, sorted by author.
How many authors does APA 7 list?
Up to 20. With 21 or more, list the first 19, then an ellipsis, then the final author. The generator applies the rule for you.
How do I cite a DOI in APA 7?
As a link, https://doi.org/ followed by the DOI, at the end of the reference with no full stop after it. Paste the DOI on its own and the generator builds the rest of the reference from the DOI record.
Does it convert titles to sentence case?
No. Automatic conversion breaks gene names, acronyms and proper nouns, so the generator keeps the source record’s capitals. Most journal records are already in sentence case; fix the ones that are not by hand.
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