Citation Style Apa

APA (American Psychological Association) citation style, 7th edition is the style commonly required in psychology, education, the social sciences, nursing, and business. Family: Author-date.

Input required

• The sources to cite, with author, title, date, publisher or journal, volume, issue, pages, and DOI or URL.
• The edition, institution, or journal whose rules apply.

Questions to ask first

1. Which edition or institutional variant must the work follow?
2. Is the output in-text citations, reference-list entries, or both?
3. What type is each source (book, article, web page, report, legal authority)?
4. Is any information missing, such as the date, pages, or DOI?

In-text citations

• Parenthetical: (Smith, 2020); narrative: Smith (2020).
• Two authors join with & in parentheses and and in narrative: (Smith & Lee, 2020).
• Three or more authors: (Smith et al., 2020) from the first citation.
• Direct quotations add a page: (Smith, 2020, p. 45).

Reference format

Titled References, alphabetical by first author, hanging indent. Article titles in sentence case; journal title and volume in italics; include the DOI as a https://doi.org/ link when one exists.

Example pattern

The names, title, and numbers below are placeholders showing the pattern, not a real source.

Smith, J. A., & Lee, K. (2020). Title of the article in sentence case. *Journal Name, 12*(3), 45–67. https://doi.org/xx.xxxx/xxxxx

Ground rules

• Use only the details the user supplied or that can be checked. Never invent authors, dates, DOIs, page numbers, or sources.
• If a detail is missing, leave a clear placeholder and say so.
• Apply one style consistently throughout the document.
• When the user's institution or journal differs from this guide, follow theirs.

Self-check before answering

• Does every in-text citation have a matching reference entry, and the reverse?
• Are the ordering, capitalization, punctuation, and italics consistent with this style?
• Were any details guessed? Remove or flag them.

Common pitfalls

• Mixing & and and — & inside parentheses, and in running text.
• Title case for article titles — APA uses sentence case for article and book titles; only the journal title is title case.
• Citing the 6th-edition way — the 7th edition dropped the publisher location for books and no longer needs "Retrieved from" before URLs.
• In-text entry with no reference-list entry — every in-text citation needs a matching entry, and the reverse.

Learn more

• Compare with the other styles: Citation Style Mla, Citation Style Chicago, Citation Style Harvard, Citation Style Vancouver, Citation Style Ieee, Citation Style Ama, Citation Style Oscola.
• Official guidance: APA Style.