🔖 APA & MLA citation generator
Choose a style and a source type, fill in what you know, and copy a correctly formatted citation — plus the in-text citation. Build your whole reference list as you research.
How to cite a source in APA and MLA
APA 7 (psychology, education, nursing, business, social sciences) uses author–date: in the text you write (Smith, 2021), and the reference list entry starts with the author’s last name and initials, then the year in parentheses. Titles of articles and books use sentence case — only the first word, proper nouns and the first word after a colon are capitalized.
MLA 9 (English and the humanities) uses author–page: in the text you write (Smith 45), and the Works Cited entry starts with the author’s full name, followed by the title, the container (journal or website), and publication details separated by commas.
Example: the same journal article
APA: Smith, J. A., & Lee, T. (2021). Sleep and memory in college students. Journal of Sleep Research, 30(4), 112–120. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.13300
MLA: Smith, Jane A., and Tom Lee. “Sleep and Memory in College Students.” Journal of Sleep Research, vol. 30, no. 4, 2021, pp. 112–20.
Questions & answers
- Which citation styles does it support?
- APA 7th edition and MLA 9th edition, the two styles most US colleges use, for books, journal articles, web pages and online videos.
- How do I type the authors?
- One author per line as Last, First Middle — for example “Smith, Jane A.”. For an organization (like the CDC), type its name without a comma.
- Are my citations saved?
- Your list is saved in this browser only. Nothing is sent to a server, and there is no sign-up.
- Will the italics paste into Word or Google Docs?
- Yes. “Copy citation” copies formatted text, so titles stay in italics when you paste. Set a 0.5-inch hanging indent in your document for the list.