APA 7th edition
How to cite a journal article in APA 7th edition
Journal articles carry the most metadata of any source — volume, issue, page range, and a DOI — and each style orders and punctuates them differently.
THE FORMAT
A journal article in APA, at a glance
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
Okonkwo, A. R., & Villalobos, M. (2021). Working memory load and second-language reading fluency. Journal of Applied Psycholinguistics, 44(3), 218–236. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000912
(Okonkwo & Villalobos, 2021)
In prose: Okonkwo and Villalobos (2021) found that fluency dropped sharply once the load exceeded four items.
Okonkwo, A. R., Villalobos, M., & Petrosyan, G. (2021). Working memory load and second-language reading fluency. Journal of Applied Psycholinguistics, 44(3), 218–236. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000912
In text: (Okonkwo et al., 2021)
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 journal article
Elements to collect
- All author names, in the order printed on the article
- Year of publication
- Article title
- Journal name (in full, not the abbreviation, unless the style asks for it)
- Volume and issue number
- Page range
- DOI, or a stable URL when there is no DOI
Rules specific to this entry
- The article title is sentence case; the journal name is title case. Italics cover the journal name and the volume number, but not the issue number in parentheses and not the page range.
- The issue number follows the volume with no space — <em>44</em>(3) — and stays upright. Omit it only when the journal paginates continuously through a volume and prints no issue number at all.
- End with the DOI as a live link and no closing period. If the article has no DOI and you read it in a subscription database, stop after the page range rather than pasting the database link.
- The reference list names up to 20 authors even though the in-text citation collapses to et al. from the first mention. With 21 or more, list 19, then an ellipsis, then the last author.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element APA needs for a journal article: All author names, in the order printed on the article; Year of publication; Article title; Journal name (in full, not the abbreviation, unless the style asks for it).
Build the references entry
Arrange those details in the APA order: 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
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Okonkwo & Villalobos, 2021) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Okonkwo and Villalobos (2021) found that fluency dropped sharply once the load exceeded four items..
Check it against the exceptions
The article title is sentence case; the journal name is title case. Italics cover the journal name and the volume number, but not the issue number in parentheses and not the page range.
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 journal article in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about APA and journal articles
What if the journal article 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 journal article?
All author names, in the order printed on the article, Year of publication, Article title, and the rest of the elements listed above. Journal articles carry the most metadata of any source — volume, issue, page range, and a DOI — and each style orders and punctuates them differently.
Is there anything unusual about a journal article in APA?
The article title is sentence case; the journal name is title case. Italics cover the journal name and the volume number, but not the issue number in parentheses and not the page range.
What else catches people out here?
The issue number follows the volume with no space — <em>44</em>(3) — and stays upright. Omit it only when the journal paginates continuously through a volume and prints no issue number at all.
Can I reformat this journal article 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.
