Writing
APA 7 citation generator
Type the source details once — get both in-text citation forms and a properly formatted reference entry, in real APA 7th edition rules (et al., organisational authors, no author, n.d., 21+ authors). Save entries into a list, copy it with italics intact, then send it to the citation checker to match against your paper.
In-text citation
Parenthetical
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Narrative
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Reference entry
Your reference list
Formatted — APA order
The list lives in this browser only (localStorage); clearing site data removes it — export .json to keep a backup.
How to fill each source type
Website. Page title in italics, site name after it. When the author and the site name are the same organisation (very common), the site name is left out automatically — e.g. World Health Organization. (2018, March). Questions and answers on immunization and vaccine safety. https://www.who.int/…. Undated pages get (n.d.) and, for content that changes, a retrieval date.
Journal article. Article title in sentence case; journal name keeps its own capitalisation and is italicised with the volume number — the issue number follows in plain brackets: Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(3), 234–256. With a DOI, the entry ends in https://doi.org/… — paste any DOI form (doi:, https://doi.org/ or bare) and it normalises itself.
Book. Title in italics and sentence case; subtitle after a colon is capitalised. Publisher follows the title, edition goes in brackets — Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. Penguin Books. A DOI or URL on an e-book is appended at the end.
Author rules built in. One author cites the surname; two use “&” in brackets and “and” in narrative text; three or more shorten to first-author “et al.” from the first citation. In the list, up to 20 authors are spelled out; 21+ list the first 19, an ellipsis (…), then the last author. Organisation authors, no-author works (title takes the author slot, in-text uses quotes or italics) and undated works (n.d.) are all handled.
Questions people ask
Which source types are supported?
This first version covers the three most common types: webpages, journal articles and books (including edited books). Each shows only the fields APA 7 needs — volume/issue/pages and DOI for articles, publisher and edition for books, site name and retrieval date for webpages.
Does it look up metadata from the DOI or URL I paste?
No. This tool formats exactly what you type — everything runs locally in your browser, no external API is called and nothing is uploaded. DOIs and URLs are only normalised (e.g. https:// is added, doi.org prefixes stripped), never fetched.
What if a source has many authors?
Add them one by one — there is no limit. In-text citations follow APA automatically: 1–2 authors are named in full (with & in brackets, and in narrative), 3+ shorten to first-author et al. from the first citation. The reference list spells out up to 20 authors; 21+ shows the first 19, an ellipsis, then the last.
How are works with no author or no date cited?
Leave the author list empty for no-author works: the title leads the reference entry, and in-text citations use the title in quotes (articles) or italics (books, webpages) plus the year. Tick “no date” to cite as (n.d.); webpages can also add a retrieval date set to today.
How does this work with the citation consistency checker?
Once your list is ready, press “Send to citation checker” — the entries are filled into the checker’s reference box automatically. Paste your manuscript body into the other box and it cross-matches every in-text citation against the list.
Formatting rendered locally by citeproc-js with the official CSL APA 7th-edition style.