APA 7th edition
How to cite a YouTube video in APA 7th edition
The person who uploaded a video is often not the person who made it, and styles disagree about whether the channel name, the real name, or both belong in the entry.
THE FORMAT
A YouTube video in APA, at a glance
Uploader, A. A. [Channel Name]. (Year, Month Day). Title of the video [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxxxxx
Kwan, R. [Writing Lab Weekly]. (2023, October 12). How to structure a literature review in four passes [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fQ2sM1kYcA
(Kwan, 2023)
In prose: Kwan (2023) demonstrates the four-pass method on a single messy folder of PDFs.
Writing Lab Weekly. (2023, October 12). How to structure a literature review in four passes [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fQ2sM1kYcA
In text: (Writing Lab Weekly, 2023)
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 YouTube video
Elements to collect
- Uploader — the channel name, plus the creator’s real name when it is known
- Full date the video was posted
- Title of the video, exactly as it appears
- Platform name
- URL of the specific video
Rules specific to this entry
- APA credits the account that posted the video, because that account controls whether it stays online. Give the person’s name first and the channel name in square brackets when you know both; use the channel name alone when you do not.
- The video title is italicized and set in sentence case, followed by the plain bracketed descriptor [Video]. YouTube then takes the site slot.
- To quote a specific moment, add a timestamp instead of a page number: (Kwan, 2023, 4:12). Give the start of the passage you are quoting.
- Do not silently correct the title. Copy it as posted, including odd capitalization, and only adjust to sentence case where the change is unambiguous.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element APA needs for a YouTube video: Uploader — the channel name, plus the creator’s real name when it is known; Full date the video was posted; Title of the video, exactly as it appears; Platform name.
Build the references entry
Arrange those details in the APA order: Uploader, A. A. [Channel Name]. (Year, Month Day). Title of the video [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxxxxx
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Kwan, 2023) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Kwan (2023) demonstrates the four-pass method on a single messy folder of PDFs..
Check it against the exceptions
APA credits the account that posted the video, because that account controls whether it stays online. Give the person’s name first and the channel name in square brackets when you know both; use the channel name alone when you do not.
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 YouTube video in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about APA and online videos
What if the YouTube video 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 YouTube video?
Uploader — the channel name, plus the creator’s real name when it is known, Full date the video was posted, Title of the video, exactly as it appears, and the rest of the elements listed above. The person who uploaded a video is often not the person who made it, and styles disagree about whether the channel name, the real name, or both belong in the entry.
Is there anything unusual about a YouTube video in APA?
APA credits the account that posted the video, because that account controls whether it stays online. Give the person’s name first and the channel name in square brackets when you know both; use the channel name alone when you do not.
What else catches people out here?
The video title is italicized and set in sentence case, followed by the plain bracketed descriptor [Video]. YouTube then takes the site slot.
Can I reformat this YouTube video 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.
