APA 7th edition citation reference
The American Psychological Association (APA) style, 7th edition, is the dominant citation system in the social sciences, education, and nursing. Every reference-list entry follows the same four-element order: Author. Date. Title. Source. This tool gives a copyable template and a worked example for each common source type, plus the rules for in-text citations.
The core structure
APA separates a brief in-text citation from a full reference-list entry. In text you give the
author and year — parenthetical (Smith, 2020) or narrative Smith (2020) — adding a page
number for direct quotes: (Smith, 2020, p. 45). The reference list maps that author–year
key to a complete entry.
The four elements are punctuated consistently:
- Author — last name, initials, ended with a period. Two authors joined with
&; for 3–20 authors list all; for 21+ list the first 19, an ellipsis, then the last. - Date — in parentheses, followed by a period:
(2020). - Title — sentence case only (first word, first word after a colon, and proper nouns capitalised). Standalone works in italics; article or chapter titles are not italicised and not in quotes.
- Source — journal name (italicised) and volume number (italicised), issue number in regular text in parentheses, page range, then DOI as a hyperlink.
Worked examples by source type
Journal article: Smith, J. A., & Jones, B. C. (2020). The effect of sleep on cognition. Journal of Sleep Research, 29(3), 45–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.00000
Book: Brown, L. (2019). The history of colour psychology (2nd ed.). Academic Press.
Chapter in edited book: Chen, M. (2021). Visual attention in infants. In A. Torres & R. Patel (Eds.), Developmental perception (pp. 112–134). Springer.
Webpage: World Health Organization. (2023, April 15). Air quality and health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-air-quality
Report (government or organisation): Office for National Statistics. (2022). Annual population survey: Methods and guidance. https://www.ons.gov.uk/
In-text citation rules at a glance
| Situation | Format |
|---|---|
| One author | (Smith, 2020) |
| Two authors | (Smith & Jones, 2020) |
| Three or more authors | (Smith et al., 2020) |
| Direct quote | (Smith, 2020, p. 45) |
| Narrative (author as subject) | Smith (2020) found… |
| No author | Abbreviate title: (“Air Quality,” 2023) |
| No date | (Smith, n.d.) |
Tips and common mistakes
- Sentence case, not title case, for titles. This trips up many writers: “The effect of sleep on cognition” not “The Effect of Sleep on Cognition” — except for journal names, which stay in title case.
- Italicise the journal name and the volume number together, but not the issue number in parentheses: Journal of Sleep Research, 29(3).
- DOI as a hyperlink, not preceded by “doi:”. Format:
https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx. - No “Retrieved from” date unless the page content is explicitly designed to change over time without archiving — most academic sources do not qualify.
- Hanging indent in the reference list — first line flush left, all subsequent lines indented. Set this as a paragraph style in Word or Google Docs rather than using tab characters.
- “et al.” from the first citation in text for three or more authors (APA 7 changed this from the APA 6 rule of naming up to five authors on the first citation).