APA Citation Style: Home

The official word on APA style from the APA style experts. Got a question? Check the blog.

The library's research databases will help you format sources you find while searching them, but they will not help you with other sources. These tools can help you format your references in APA style. Select the resource type, enter your data, and get a formatted citation that you can paste into your bibliography.

Caveat: These citation machines are not perfect - they are only as good as the data you feed them. You will still need to proofread your references - use the basic rules above to catch the most common mistakes.

The following is a summary of the basic rules for APA citations.

Author Names

• use initials for the first name(s), e.g., Public, J. Q. or Public, J., not Public, John Q.
• cite author names in the same order as they're listed on the document
• include up to 20 authors.e.g., Smith, J., Spade, S., & Fudd, E. J.; if there are more than 20 authors, insert an ellipsis (...) after the 19th author and before the last author, e.g., Jones, H. M., McKay, J., Alvarado, F., Plath, E., Jordan, A., Porter, M., ...Johnson, K.

Dates

Make sure the date of publication is in the correct format

• for journals and books, give the year only, e.g., (2007)
• for magazines, newspapers, and web sites, include the full date as provided on the publication, e.g. (2007, November 15), (2007, November)
• if there is no date of publication, indicate so with 'n.d.' in place of the date, e.g., (n.d.)

Titles

Watch for capitalization:

• journal (periodical) titles should be capitalized and italicized (e.g., Advertising Age; Journal of Contemporary Health Issues; The New York Times)
  • journal volume numbers should also be italicized
• all other titles should be lowercase, except for the first word, the first word after a colon (:), period (.) or question mark (?) and proper nouns, e.g.
  • EA Canada to announce third quarter results on December 20
  • Donut wars: Can anyone catch Tim?
• do not put titles in quotation marks
• italicize book titles (e.g., Who moved my cheese? An amazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life)

Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers

Last  name,  First  initial.  Nation/Community.  Treaty  Territory  if  applicable.  Where  they  live  if  applicable.  Topic/subject  of  communication  if  applicable.  personal  communication.  Month  Date,  Year.

For example:

Cardinal, D. Goodfish Lake Cree Nation. Treaty 6. Lives in Edmonton. Oral teaching. personal communication. April 4, 2004.

Template taken from: MacLeod, L. (2021). More than personal communication: Templates for citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers”. KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies 5 (1). https://doi.org/10.18357/kula.135. 

ChatGPT and AI citations

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

In-Text:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Details from APA blog, April 7, 2023. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt

Sample Citations