How should I enter author names?

Put one author per line in `Family, Given` form, for example `Smith, Jane`. The formatter handles initialising given names and inverting order according to each style's rules.

What is the difference between APA and Harvard here?

Both are author-date styles, but APA 7th uses an ampersand before the last author and places the year in parentheses after the authors, while the Harvard variant here uses `and` and a slightly different punctuation pattern. Pick the one your institution requires.

Why does IEEE number the authors with initials first?

IEEE style lists given-name initials before the family name (`J. Smith`) and uses a numeric reference style. The formatter follows that convention, including quoting the title and italic-marking the journal in plain text.

Does this fetch anything online?

No. Unlike the DOI tool, this formatter works purely from the data you type — there is no network request, so it works offline and your input never leaves the browser.

What if I leave volume or pages blank?

Optional parts are simply omitted. The formatter only inserts the surrounding punctuation (commas, parentheses, colons) when the corresponding field has a value, so you never get dangling separators.

What is the Citation Style Formatter?

Type author, title, year, journal, volume, issue, and pages, then render the citation in APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago author-date, IEEE, Harvard, or Vancouver style. Fully browser-based — nothing is uploaded. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Citation Style Formatter

Name: Citation Style Formatter
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Format a citation in any major style

Enter the bibliographic details of a source and this tool renders a clean reference in your chosen style. It is built for students and researchers who have the source details in front of them and just need correct punctuation and ordering for APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, Harvard, or Vancouver.

How it works

You provide structured fields — authors, title, year, journal, volume, issue, pages. The formatter applies the punctuation and ordering rules of the selected style:

APA 7th — Author, A. B., & Author, C. D. (Year). Title. Journal, Vol(Issue), pages.
MLA 9th — Author. "Title." Journal, vol. X, no. Y, Year, pp. pages.
Chicago author-date and Harvard — author-date variants with their own punctuation.
IEEE — [n] A. Author, "Title," Journal, vol. X, no. Y, pp. pages, Year.
Vancouver — numbered biomedical style: Author AB. Title. Journal. Year;Vol(Issue):pages.

Each rule only inserts a separator when the relevant field is filled, so partial records still produce well-formed output. Everything runs locally in your browser.

Choosing the right style for your discipline

The choice of citation style is usually set by your institution, journal, or department — but knowing the logic behind each style helps you use it correctly:

APA (Psychology, social sciences, education). The author-date format puts the year near the author so readers can quickly assess how recent the evidence is. APA 7th edition is the current standard; it removed the publisher location requirement for books and simplified formatting for corporate and group authors.

MLA (Humanities, literature). MLA emphasises the author and the work’s container (the journal, anthology, or website). The 9th edition introduced a flexible “Works Cited” framework that handles almost any source type including social media and streaming video.

Chicago (History, arts, some sciences). Two forms exist: notes-bibliography (footnotes/endnotes, common in humanities) and author-date (similar to APA, common in sciences). This formatter produces the author-date variant.

IEEE (Engineering, computer science). Numeric references in square brackets appear in the text; the full reference list is ordered by citation number. Given-name initials come before the family name. This is the format for most IEEE journals and conferences.

Vancouver (Medicine, health sciences). Like IEEE it is a numbered system, but with a biomedical punctuation convention. Used by most medical journals and by PubMed/MEDLINE citations.

Harvard. Technically a family of author-date styles rather than a single standard. This formatter follows a common UK academic variant; check your institution’s specific guide if you need to match their exact punctuation.

Tips for accurate output

Enter names as Family, Given one per line. If a given name has a middle name or initial, include it after a space: Smith, Jane A.
For a single-author source, just one line is fine.
APA adds & before the last author in a multi-author list; Vancouver drops given names to initials only and uses no period between them.
If your source is a chapter in an edited book rather than a journal article, most styles need the editor names and book title too — use this tool for the journal-article format and adapt manually for edited volumes.
Always double-check the final output against an example in your style guide; citation rules have exceptions for specific source types that no formatter can anticipate for every case.