APA 7th edition
How to cite a preprint article in APA 7th edition
Preprints carry DOIs but lack journal volumes and page numbers; styles require explicit repository names (arXiv, bioRxiv) and clear preprint designation.
THE FORMAT
A preprint article in APA, at a glance
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article. Repository Name. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx
Zhovnir, A., & Chen, L. (2024). Automated style detection in academic prose. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2401.01234
(Zhovnir & Chen, 2024)
In prose: Zhovnir and Chen (2024) introduced a transformer-based style classifier.
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 preprint article
Elements to collect
- Author or authors
- Year and month of posting
- Article title
- Preprint repository name (e.g. arXiv, bioRxiv)
- DOI or persistent repository URL
Rules specific to this entry
- Preprints have no volume, issue, or page numbers. State the repository name (e.g. arXiv, bioRxiv) in place of the journal title.
- Always use the DOI or direct persistent handle provided by the preprint repository.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element APA needs for a preprint article: Author or authors; Year and month of posting; Article title; Preprint repository name (e.g. arXiv, bioRxiv).
Build the references entry
Arrange those details in the APA order: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article. Repository Name. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Zhovnir & Chen, 2024) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Zhovnir and Chen (2024) introduced a transformer-based style classifier..
Check it against the exceptions
Preprints have no volume, issue, or page numbers. State the repository name (e.g. arXiv, bioRxiv) in place of the journal title.
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 preprint 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 preprints
What if the preprint 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 preprint article?
Author or authors, Year and month of posting, Article title, and the rest of the elements listed above. Preprints carry DOIs but lack journal volumes and page numbers; styles require explicit repository names (arXiv, bioRxiv) and clear preprint designation.
Is there anything unusual about a preprint article in APA?
Preprints have no volume, issue, or page numbers. State the repository name (e.g. arXiv, bioRxiv) in place of the journal title.
What else catches people out here?
Always use the DOI or direct persistent handle provided by the preprint repository.
Can I reformat this preprint 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.
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