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APA & MLA Citation Generator

Choose APA 7th or MLA 9th edition and a source type - book, journal article or web page - fill in the details, and copy a correctly formatted reference with authors, dates, italics and DOI links handled for you.

Free, no signupNo daily limitRuns in your browser - nothing you enter is uploadedUpdated

For an organisation, type its name with no comma. Leave empty if there is no author.

APA: sentence case - capitalise only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns.

Your reference

Worked example: one article, two styles

A journal article by Sara Khan and Min-Jun Lee, published in 2019 in volume 12, issue 3 of the Journal of Education, pages 45-67, with the DOI 10.1000/jed.2019.3.

APA 7: Khan, S., & Lee, M.-J. (2019). Feedback in large classes. Journal of Education, 12(3), 45–67. https://doi.org/10.1000/jed.2019.3 MLA 9: Khan, Sara, and Min-Jun Lee. “Feedback in Large Classes.” Journal of Education, vol. 12, no. 3, 2019, pp. 45-67, https://doi.org/10.1000/jed.2019.3.

Spot the differences: APA uses initials, the ampersand and the year straight after the names; MLA uses full first names, quotation marks around the article title, title case, and "vol." and "no." labels with the year near the end.

Where to find each detail

  • Book: the title page and the copyright page (publisher, year, edition). Use the edition only if it is not the first.
  • Journal article: the first page of the PDF or the article's web page lists the journal, volume, issue, pages and DOI. A DOI is better than a URL - it never breaks.
  • Web page: the author or organisation, the date published or last updated, the page title and the site name. If there is no date, leave it blank.

Both styles also need an in-text citation where you use the source: APA (Khan & Lee, 2019) and MLA (Khan and Lee 52), with a page number in MLA when you quote.

What this calculator does not do

  • Books, journal articles and web pages only - not chapters in edited books, videos, reports or social media posts.
  • It formats what you type; it does not check that the details are correct or change your title's capitalisation.
  • In-text citations are not generated. In APA that is (Author, Year); in MLA (Author page).

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between APA and MLA?
APA (used in psychology, education and the sciences) puts the year straight after the author and uses initials for first names. MLA (used in literature and the humanities) uses full first names, puts the date near the end and puts article titles in quotation marks.
How do I enter authors?
One author per line as Last name, First names - for example "Khan, Sara". For an organisation as author, type its name with no comma. With no author, leave the box empty and the title moves to the front, as both styles require.
How are several authors handled?
APA lists up to 20 authors with an ampersand before the last one. MLA lists one or two authors in full and uses "et al." after the first author when there are three or more.
Should titles be in sentence case or title case?
APA uses sentence case for article and book titles (capitalise only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns). MLA uses title case. The generator keeps your capitalisation exactly as typed, because it cannot tell which words are names - so type the title in the style you need.
What if there is no date?
In APA leave the date empty and the reference shows (n.d.), meaning no date. In MLA the date is simply left out.
Does it look up the source for me?
No. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, so the generator cannot search for a book or DOI. Copy the details from the source itself, such as the title page, the journal's article page or the bottom of the web page.

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Step-by-step guide: How to cite sources in APA and MLA →

Built and checked by Taimur Hassan Siddiqui, who has more than ten years in computer-science education. The formulas on this page are covered by an automated test suite, and the worked example on this page is one of its cases. Last updated 7 October 2026.