Citation generators

Free APA Citation Generator

Turn a URL, DOI, title, author list, or BibTeX entry into an APA-formatted reference-list entry and a matching in-text citation. Free runs are available without an account.

Free runs · no accountPublished September 10, 2026Reviewed September 10, 2026Huggle editorial

Generate and copy results without an account, subject to the tool’s run allowance. More work in Huggle uses your account allowance. Usage and plans

Source

⌘↵ to generate

apa-references.docxAPA citation

Your APA reference, parenthetical citation, narrative citation, and BibTeX will appear here

Opens as an editable file in Huggle.

01How to use

How to use the APA citation generator

01Paste a URL, DOI, title with authors, existing citation, BibTeX entry, or the source details you have.
02Generate the APA reference-list entry and matching in-text form, then compare every field with the original source.
03Copy the result, or continue in Huggle to organize more sources and build the editable document around them.

02Examples

Example input and output

APA 7 journal article

Illustrative example. Your result depends on the source material you provide.

Input: Vaswani et al., "Attention Is All You Need," Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 30, 2017.
Output: Vaswani, A., et al. (2017). Attention is all you need. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 30. Parenthetical: (Vaswani et al., 2017).

03By source type

How to cite each source type in APA

Titles the style italicizes are shown as plain text here.

Book
Journal article
Web page
PDF report
Online video

Book

Collect: Author names, publication year, full title and subtitle, edition if not the first, and publisher.

Reference entry: Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
In text: (Kahneman, 2011) or Kahneman (2011)

APA 7 no longer lists the publisher location. Add a page number for quotations: (Kahneman, 2011, p. 24).

Journal article

Collect: Author names, year, article title, journal name, volume, issue, page range, and DOI.

Reference entry: 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
In text: (Watson & Crick, 1953)

Use sentence case for the article title, italicize the journal name and volume, and give the DOI as a link.

Web page

Collect: Page author or owning organization, publication or last-updated date, page title, site name, and URL. Note the date you accessed it.

Reference entry: Mozilla. (n.d.). HTML: HyperText Markup Language. MDN Web Docs. Retrieved September 16, 2026, from https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML
In text: (Mozilla, n.d.)

Use n.d. when no date is published and a retrieval date only when the page is designed to change over time.

PDF report

Collect: Issuing organization or authors, year, report title, report number if any, publisher when different from the author, and the URL or DOI.

Reference entry: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2023). Climate change 2023: Synthesis report. Summary for policymakers. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/
In text: (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2023) on first use, then (IPCC, 2023)

When the group author is also the publisher, omit the publisher element. Cite the report, not the PDF file name.

Online video

Collect: Speaker or uploading account, date posted, video title, hosting platform, URL, and the timestamp of any passage you quote.

Reference entry: Robinson, K. (2006, February). Do schools kill creativity? [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity
In text: (Robinson, 2006) or, for a quotation, (Robinson, 2006, 4:12)

For YouTube, the uploading account is the author and the platform is YouTube, with the same [Video] bracketed description.

Writing the whole paper? The AI research paper generator drafts the LaTeX paper and formats every citation in the style you choose.

04Format reference

APA format reference

Element	Rule	Example
Authors	Surname, then initials. Use an ampersand before the last of up to 20 authors.	Watson, J. D., & Crick, F. H. C.
Date	Year in parentheses directly after the authors; add month and day for dated web content and videos.	(2006, February)
Title	Sentence case. Italicize stand-alone works such as books, reports, and web pages; leave article titles plain.	Thinking, fast and slow
Source	Publisher for books; journal, volume(issue), and pages for articles; site name for web pages.	Nature, 171(4356), 737–738
DOI or URL	Present the DOI as an https://doi.org/ link. No period after a DOI or URL.	https://doi.org/10.1038/171737a0
In-text	Author-date. Use et al. from the first citation for three or more authors.	(Vaswani et al., 2017)

05Inputs and outputs

Supported inputs and outputs

Format	Support	Notes
URL, DOI, title, citation, or BibTeX	Supported	Completeness depends on the metadata supplied.
Reference and in-text form	Supported	Output follows the selected style contract.
Uploaded private files	Not supported	Use the authenticated Huggle workspace for file-based context.

06Rules

Rules and common mistakes

Rules to follow

Use sentence case for article, chapter, and book titles.
Format a DOI as an https://doi.org/ URL.
Use a retrieval date only for content designed to change.

Mistakes to avoid

Leaving out source facts or constraints the APA citation generator needs.
Copying generated output without checking it against the original material.
Ignoring the local instructions supplied by a course, journal, client, or organization.

07Workflow

Choose the right workflow

Option	Best for	Difference
APA citation generator	A focused result you can copy	Runs on this public page within the tool’s input and usage limits.
Huggle workspace	A complete editable artifact	Carries the work into a larger document with saved context and iteration.

08Verify

Limitations and sources

What to verify

The tool cannot verify facts or recover source details that are absent from the input.
Specialized institutional, publisher, legal, or regulatory requirements may need manual changes.
Review the result before submitting, publishing, or relying on it.

Primary references

Reference examples — APA Style

More guidance

What does the APA citation generator do?

The APA citation generator turns the source details you provide into the punctuation, ordering, capitalization, and in-text form expected by APA Style, 7th edition. It is useful when you know which source you used but do not want to rebuild every field by hand.

This tool formats books, journal articles, chapters, websites, reports, and other common sources from a URL, DOI, existing citation, or plain-language description. It omits unknown details instead of guessing them, so incomplete input produces an intentionally incomplete citation.

How APA citations work

APA is commonly used by psychology, education, business, and the social sciences. It uses author-date parenthetical and narrative citations. The reference entry and the in-text form are a pair: changing the displayed author, year, title, or number in one may require changing the other.

APA uses sentence case for article and book titles, places the year directly after the authors, and presents DOIs as https://doi.org/ links. Retrieval dates are reserved for content designed to change over time.

What to verify before submitting

Compare the generated result with the source itself. Check the author order, publication date, title capitalization, container or journal details, page range, DOI or URL, and any locator used for a quotation.

A formatter cannot recover reliable metadata that is absent or ambiguous. Follow your instructor, institution, journal, or publisher when its local guide differs from the general style manual.

09FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is this APA citation generator free?

Yes. You can generate and copy a limited number of citations without an account. Huggle adds saved work, continued editing, and the workspace for building the full document.

Which APA version does it use?

The formatter targets APA Style, 7th edition. If your course, institution, or publisher supplies a local guide, use that guide for any stated exceptions.

What source types can I cite?

Common books, chapters, journal articles, conference papers, reports, and websites are supported when you provide enough identifying details. Unusual legal, archival, dataset, media, and unpublished sources may need manual adjustment.

Can I generate an in-text citation?

Yes. The result includes the matching in-text form alongside the full reference entry.

Does the generator invent missing information?

No. It is instructed to use only details in your input and omit unknown fields. Always compare the result with the original source before submitting it.

10Related

11Go further in Huggle

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