APA7 Citation Machine

Make accurate APA 7th edition citations within seconds using our free citation maker.

How It Works

What Is the APA Citation Machine?

The APA Citation Machine is a free tool that formats references and in-text citations to the APA Publication Manual, 7th edition - the required style for psychology, education, nursing and most social sciences. Paste a source URL and the tool extracts authors, year, title and publication details, or enter them manually for print sources. You get a correctly punctuated reference list entry with the hanging indent rules APA expects, ready to paste into your paper. Free, unlimited and no account required.

How to Use the APA Citation Machine

  1. Paste the URL of your source into the box above and click generate.
  2. Review the extracted details - authors, year, title - and correct anything missing.
  3. Or use manual entry for print books, PDFs and offline sources.
  4. Copy the reference into your alphabetical reference list and add the in-text citation (Author, Year).

APA 7 Essentials Students Get Wrong

APA in-text citations use author and year with a comma: (Smith, 2024) - unlike MLA's comma-free format. For direct quotes add the page: (Smith, 2024, p. 45). Two authors are always both named (Smith & Jones, 2024); three or more become (Smith et al., 2024) from the very first citation. In the reference list, book and journal titles use sentence case (only the first word capitalized), journal names and volume numbers are italicized, and every entry gets a hanging indent. Websites need a retrieval date only when content changes over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this APA citation machine free?

Yes - completely free and unlimited, with no account or signup required.

Which APA edition does it follow?

APA 7th edition, the current standard published in 2020 and required by most universities today.

How do I cite three or more authors in APA 7?

Use et al. from the first citation: (Smith et al., 2024). In the reference list, spell out up to 20 authors before using an ellipsis.

Do APA website citations need a retrieval date?

Only when the page content is designed to change over time and has no archived version - otherwise the URL alone is enough.

More Free Tools