Free APA 7 Citation Generator
Generate accurate APA 7th edition citations for journal articles, books, and websites. Enter a DOI to auto-fill the details, or use manual entry — then copy the formatted citation straight into your reference list.
Our team can handle complete reference management and formatting across your entire manuscript or thesis.
How APA 7 Referencing Works
APA (American Psychological Association) 7th edition is the standard citation style in psychology, education, and many social sciences. It uses an author-date system: in-text citations show the author's last name and year, while full source details appear in an alphabetized reference list at the end of the paper.
APA Journal Article Citation
Smith, J. A., & Lee, K. (2021). Understanding academic motivation in graduate students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 14(2), 112-128. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/example
Format: Author(s). (Year). Title of article. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), pages. DOI or URL.
APA Book Citation
Smith, J. A. (2020). Research methods in social science (3rd ed.). Academic Press.
Format: Author(s). (Year). Title of book (Edition if not first). Publisher.
APA Website Citation
Smith, J. A. (2022, March 4). How to write a literature review. Tezyar Research Blog. https://example.com/article
Format: Author. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL.
APA In-Text Citations
Parenthetical: research shows this pattern is common (Smith & Lee, 2021). Narrative: Smith and Lee (2021) found that this pattern was common. Direct quotes require a page number: (Smith, 2021, p. 45).
Common APA 7 Mistakes to Avoid
The most frequent errors: using "&" in narrative citations instead of "and" (APA reserves & for parenthetical citations only), forgetting the DOI or URL for online sources, and inconsistent capitalization in reference-list titles (APA uses sentence case for article/book titles, not title case).
Frequently asked questions
No — APA 7th edition (published 2019) changed several rules from the 6th edition, including up to 20 authors listed before using "et al." and simplified DOI formatting. This tool follows APA 7.
Include a DOI whenever one is available, even for print sources — most journal articles published after the early 2000s have one. If no DOI exists, a URL is acceptable for online sources.
Start the reference with the title instead of an author name, and use a shortened version of the title in the in-text citation.