APA 7th edition
How to cite a conference paper in APA 7th edition
Conference output splits three ways — a paper published in proceedings, a paper presented but never published, and a poster — and the styles treat them differently.
THE FORMAT
A conference paper in APA, at a glance
Presenter, A. A., & Presenter, B. B. (Year, Month Day–Day). Title of the contribution [Paper presentation]. Conference Name, City, Country. https://example.org/program
Adeyemi, T., & Kirchner, P. (2022, June 8–11). Automated feedback and revision behavior in ESL writing [Paper presentation]. International Conference on Academic Literacies, Lisbon, Portugal.
(Adeyemi & Kirchner, 2022)
In prose: Adeyemi and Kirchner (2022) reported that students revised more when the feedback arrived late.
Adeyemi, T., & Kirchner, P. (2022). Automated feedback and revision behavior in ESL writing. In H. Lindqvist (Ed.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Academic Literacies (pp. 88–97). Fenmore University Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/icals.2022.0088
In text: (Adeyemi & Kirchner, 2022)
Copyeditor formats APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE automatically — cite a source once and the references builds itself. See how citations work .
BEFORE YOU FORMAT
What APA needs from a conference paper
Elements to collect
- Presenter or author names
- Date or date range of the conference
- Title of the paper or poster
- Type of contribution — paper presentation, poster session, keynote
- Conference name
- Location of the conference
- Proceedings title, pages, and DOI when it was published
Rules specific to this entry
- Give the full run of the conference, not the day you spoke: 2022, June 8–11. The range uses an en dash and repeats the month only when the conference crosses into a new one.
- The bracketed description names the format exactly — [Paper presentation], [Poster session], [Conference session], [Keynote address] — because a poster and a paper carry different weight.
- The conference name and its location sit where a publisher would, separated by a comma. Include the country for any city a reader outside it might not place.
- If the paper was published in proceedings, cite the published version instead. Unpublished presentations are cited this way only when there is no published record.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element APA needs for a conference paper: Presenter or author names; Date or date range of the conference; Title of the paper or poster; Type of contribution — paper presentation, poster session, keynote.
Build the references entry
Arrange those details in the APA order: Presenter, A. A., & Presenter, B. B. (Year, Month Day–Day). Title of the contribution [Paper presentation]. Conference Name, City, Country. https://example.org/program
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Adeyemi & Kirchner, 2022) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Adeyemi and Kirchner (2022) reported that students revised more when the feedback arrived late..
Check it against the exceptions
Give the full run of the conference, not the day you spoke: 2022, June 8–11. The range uses an en dash and repeats the month only when the conference crosses into a new one.
APA RULES
The conventions behind every APA entry
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.) is the authority. Where a journal or department publishes its own house rules, those win — check your submission guidelines before the references is final.
The rules that apply across every source — author order, capitalization, how the references is sorted, and where APA entries most often go wrong — are collected on the APA 7th edition guide.
The same conference paper in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about APA and conference papers
What if the conference paper has no author?
Move the title into the author position and alphabetize by the first significant word of that title — ignoring an initial “A”, “An” or “The”. In the text, use a shortened form of the title where the author name would go.
What do I need before I can cite a conference paper?
Presenter or author names, Date or date range of the conference, Title of the paper or poster, and the rest of the elements listed above. Conference output splits three ways — a paper published in proceedings, a paper presented but never published, and a poster — and the styles treat them differently.
Is there anything unusual about a conference paper in APA?
Give the full run of the conference, not the day you spoke: 2022, June 8–11. The range uses an en dash and repeats the month only when the conference crosses into a new one.
What else catches people out here?
The bracketed description names the format exactly — [Paper presentation], [Poster session], [Conference session], [Keynote address] — because a poster and a paper carry different weight.
Can I reformat this conference paper in another style later?
By hand, you would retype the entry — the element order, punctuation and italics all differ between styles. In Copyeditor, sources are stored as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole reference list at once.
Cite it once
and never reformat it again
Copyeditor keeps sources as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole references at once.
