author–date
APA 7th edition: how to cite anything
APA puts the year next to the author because in the social and behavioral sciences the age of a finding matters almost as much as who produced it. The 7th edition, published in 2019, dropped several things the 6th required — publisher locations are gone, “Retrieved from” is gone, and DOIs are written as plain links. Everything on this page follows the 7th edition. If your department hands you a style sheet that disagrees, the style sheet wins.
- Citation system
- author–date
- Reference list is called
- References
- Common in
- Psychology, Education, Nursing and the health sciences, Sociology and social work, Business and management, Communication
- Authority
- Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.)
- Formatted automatically by Copyeditor
- Yes — cite once and the bibliography builds itself.
THE RULES THAT CARRY
What APA expects of every entry
- Author and date, every time
- Each in-text citation carries a surname and a year, in either order: (Halloran, 2019) or Halloran (2019). The year is what lets a reader judge how current the claim is, so it is never optional — a work with no date takes (n.d.) instead.
- Sentence case for titles, title case for journals
- Article, chapter, book and report titles are written in sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon or dash, and proper nouns. Journal, magazine and newspaper names keep title case and italics.
- Ampersand inside parentheses, “and” in prose
- Use & before the final author in the reference list and inside a parenthetical citation — (Okonkwo & Villalobos, 2021). Use the word “and” when the names run through your sentence: Okonkwo and Villalobos (2021) found.
- Three or more authors become “et al.” immediately
- From the very first citation, a work with three or more authors is cited as (Okonkwo et al., 2021). The 6th edition rule of naming everyone once and shortening afterward no longer applies.
- Up to 20 authors in the reference list
- List every author up to 20. With 21 or more, give the first 19, insert an ellipsis (…) with no ampersand, then give the final author’s name. Nothing is dropped from the middle silently.
- DOIs and URLs are bare links
- Write a DOI as https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx. Do not label it “doi:”, do not precede it with “Retrieved from”, and do not put a period after it. A retrieval date is added only when the content is designed to change.
- References, alphabetical, hanging indent
- The list is headed References, alphabetized by the first author’s surname, and every entry after the first line is indented half an inch. Double spacing throughout, including inside entries.
BY SOURCE TYPE
Every APA format, one page each
Each page carries the pattern, a worked entry, both in-text forms, and the exceptions that apply to that source.
Journal article
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the article in sentence case. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page–page. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx
Book
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the book: Subtitle in sentence case (2nd ed.). Publisher.
Chapter in an edited book
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the chapter. In E. E. Editor & F. F. Editor (Eds.), Title of the book (pp. xx–xx). Publisher.
Website
Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of the page in sentence case. Site Name. https://example.org/page
Thesis or dissertation
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the thesis [Doctoral dissertation, Name of Institution]. Repository Name. https://example.org/record
Conference paper
Presenter, A. A., & Presenter, B. B. (Year, Month Day–Day). Title of the contribution [Paper presentation]. Conference Name, City, Country. https://example.org/program
Report
Organization Name. (Year). Title of the report (Report No. xxx). Publisher. https://example.org/report
Newspaper article
Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of the article in sentence case. Newspaper Name. https://example.com/article
YouTube video
Uploader, A. A. [Channel Name]. (Year, Month Day). Title of the video [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxxxxx
Podcast episode
Host, A. A. (Host). (Year, Month Day). Title of the episode (No. xx) [Audio podcast episode]. In Title of the Podcast. Production Company. https://example.org/episode
Interview
Interviewer, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of the published interview [Interview]. Publication Name. https://example.org/interview
Dataset
Creator, A. A., & Creator, B. B. (Year). Title of the dataset (Version x.x) [Data set]. Repository Name. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx
Where APA entries usually go wrong
- Putting article and book titles in title case. APA uses sentence case for the work itself and saves title case for the journal name.
- Writing “Retrieved from” in front of every URL. The 7th edition removed it except when a retrieval date is genuinely needed.
- Including the publisher’s city — “Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage”. Publisher locations were dropped in the 7th edition.
- Naming all the authors in the first citation of a three-author work and shortening to et al. afterward. In APA 7 it is et al. from the start.
- Swapping & and “and”: an ampersand in running prose, or the word “and” inside parentheses.
- Adding a retrieval date to a stable source such as a published article or a PDF report. Retrieval dates are for pages that change without notice.
- Omitting the year from an in-text citation because the source is undated. Undated works take (n.d.), not a blank.
Questions about APA
Do I need a page number in every APA citation?
No. A page number is required for a direct quotation and strongly recommended when you paraphrase a specific passage in a long work. For a general reference to a whole study, the author and year are enough. Quotations use p. for one page and pp. for a range: (Halloran, 2019, pp. 87–88).
What do I do when a source has no author?
Move the title into the author position, and cite a shortened form of it in the text. If the reference entry italicizes the title, italicize it in the citation too; if the entry uses plain text, put the shortened title in quotation marks. Use “Anonymous” as the author only when the work is explicitly signed that way.
How do I cite the same author twice in the same year?
Add a lowercase letter to the year in both the reference list and the text: (Delgado, 2021a) and (Delgado, 2021b). Order the lettered entries alphabetically by title in the reference list, then assign the letters in that order. Undated works by the same author take (n.d.-a) and (n.d.-b).
Does APA still require a DOI?
Include a DOI whenever one exists, for print and online sources alike, written as a full https://doi.org/ link. When there is no DOI and you read the work through a subscription database, end the reference after the page range — do not give the database URL. Give a plain URL only when the source lives on the open web.
Which sources never appear in the reference list?
Anything a reader cannot retrieve: interviews you conducted, private letters, emails, lecture material that was never posted, and unrecorded conversations. These are cited in the text as personal communications with initials, surname and exact date. Classical religious and ancient works are also cited in text only, using their standard numbering.
Other citation styles
Departments change their minds. Here is the rest of the set.
MLA citation guide
Author–page. Used in Literature and literary studies, Languages and linguistics, Composition and rhetoric.
Chicago citation guide
Notes–bibliography. Used in History, Art history and visual culture, Literature and literary studies.
Harvard citation guide
Author–date. Used in Business and management, Economics, Nursing and allied health.
IEEE citation guide
Numeric. Used in Electrical and electronic engineering, Computer science and software engineering, Robotics, control, and systems engineering.
Vancouver citation guide
Numeric. Used in Medicine and clinical research, Nursing and allied health, Public health and epidemiology.
Stop reformatting
your reference list by hand
Cite as you write and let the bibliography build itself in APA, MLA, Chicago or IEEE. Copyeditor is in beta — apply and we’ll reach out as spots open.
