APA citation guide

Build APA 7 citations and references for journal articles, books and web pages, including DOI links and missing author or date information.

How APA citations work

APA connects a brief author and year citation in your writing to a full entry in the reference list. Cite the source beside the idea it supports, including paraphrases. For a quotation, also give a page or another suitable locator. The examples below use the seventh edition.

A parenthetical citation puts the names and year in parentheses. A narrative citation makes the authors part of the sentence: Watson and Crick (1953). For two authors, use and in the sentence and an ampersand inside parentheses. For three or more authors, the usual short form is the first surname followed by et al. and the year; expand it if needed to distinguish otherwise identical citations.

Cite a journal article

Collect the authors, publication year, article title, journal, volume, issue, full page range or article number, and DOI. Use sentence case for the article title, while keeping proper names. The journal title and volume are italicized; the issue in parentheses is not. A locator in the citation points to your passage, while the reference describes the complete article.

Journal article with a DOI and a page locator

In your text: (Watson & Crick, 1953, p. 737)
Reference list: Watson, J. D., & Crick, F. H. C. (1953). Molecular structure of nucleic acids: A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature, 171(4356), 737–738. https://doi.org/10.1038/171737a0

Cite a book

Use the edition you actually read. A whole book reference needs its author, year, title and publisher, with an edition statement when applicable. Italicize the book title and use sentence case. A first edition does not need an edition number. APA 7 does not include the publisher’s city. The example identifies the 1925 print edition, rather than a later ebook.

A whole book

In your text: (Fitzgerald, 1925)
Reference list: Fitzgerald, F. S. (1925). The great Gatsby. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

When quoting from a paginated copy, add the page you consulted, for example (Fitzgerald, 1925, p. 3). Do not invent a page number for an ebook that has none.

Cite a web page

Use the named person or organization responsible for the page, its publication or relevant update date, title, site name and direct URL. When the author and site name are identical, omit the repeated site name. Do not substitute a sitewide copyright year for the page’s date. A normal stable page does not need a retrieval date; content designed to change may need one.

A dated page with an organizational author

In your text: (Modern Language Association, 2021)
Reference list: Modern Language Association. (2021, April 1). In-text citations: An overview. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/in-text-citations-overview/

Choose the DOI or URL

If the source has a DOI, present it as an https://doi.org/ link. Use the DOI instead of a second link to the same article, and do not add a closing period after it. For a journal article from a typical academic database without a DOI, the reference usually ends after the publication details. A publicly accessible article or web page may instead need its direct URL.

Look up a DOI with Crossref

Handle missing authors and dates

No personal author: check whether an organization is responsible before treating the author as missing.
No author at all: move the title into the author position. Use that title, shortened when needed, in the citation. Keep the appropriate italics or quotation marks for the source type.
No date: use n.d. in both the reference and citation, for example (DOI Foundation, n.d.).
No author and no date: begin with the title and use n.d. Do not invent a person or a publication year.
Anonymous: use this name only when the source actually credits Anonymous.

Check your reference list

Use the heading References, alphabetize entries by their first element, and apply the required double spacing and hanging indentation in the finished paper. Confirm that every citation points to the correct entry. Check author order, accents, dates and DOI links against the original source; formatting cannot repair incorrect metadata.

Use APA in Citation

Open a document and choose the required style in the document toolbar.
In Cite, look up a source by DOI, ISBN, URL or title, or add its details manually.
Review the source type, authors, date, title and publication details before saving. Keep proper names and acronyms when correcting title capitalization.
Place your cursor beside the relevant claim and insert the saved source. Review any page locator against the passage you used.
Review the References area, then copy the bibliography or export the document. Check the final layout against your assignment instructions.