Citation Generator
Generate citations in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 17, and Harvard styles. Books, journal articles, websites, newspapers, videos. Copy-paste ready.
Citation Generator
APA 7 American Psychological Association
MLA 9 Modern Language Association
Chicago 17 Chicago Manual of Style (Bibliography)
Harvard UK / AU / NZ Standard
How to use the Citation Generator
Pick the source type
Choose from book, journal article, website, newspaper article, or video. The form re-renders with the fields that matter for that source — a book needs publisher and city, a journal needs volume/issue/DOI, a video needs platform and upload date. No need to leave fields blank when they don't apply to your source.
Type in the source details
Author names accept any reasonable input — "John Smith", "Smith, J.", "John Smith and Jane Doe", "Smith, J., Doe, J.; Patel, R." all parse correctly. Use commas, semicolons, or " and " to separate multiple authors. The parser figures out first / last names from word position. Year is just the 4-digit year; full date is optional for APA / MLA / Chicago / Harvard precision.
Watch all four styles update live
APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 17 (Bibliography variant), and Harvard regenerate every keystroke. Italics on titles, period placement, "et al." rules, capitalisation conventions — all baked into the formatters. You'll see identical source data styled four different ways simultaneously, which makes it easy to spot when a single field (e.g. missing edition) creates visible gaps in one style but not another.
Copy the one you need
Click the "Copy" button on the style your professor / journal / institution requires. The plain-text version (italics stripped, replaced with the convention most word processors render correctly when pasted) lands on your clipboard. Paste into Word, Google Docs, Pages, or your reference manager — formatting will re-apply automatically based on your document's character styles.
Citation styles — why so many, and which one do you need?
Academic citation isn't decoration — it's the contract between you and every reader who might want to verify your claim or trace a citation chain back to its source. The four major systems (APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard) carve up the academic world along disciplinary lines that have been remarkably stable for fifty years: APA owns psychology, education, the social sciences, and increasingly business; MLA owns literature, languages, cultural studies, and the humanities; Chicago owns history, religion, and parts of the arts (its Notes-and-Bibliography variant is the gold standard for footnote-heavy disciplines); Harvard owns the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and large parts of the natural sciences. Pick the wrong style and your bibliography looks amateurish; pick the right one and nobody notices, which is the whole point.
The differences are mechanical, not philosophical
Every modern citation style answers the same questions in slightly different mechanical orders: who wrote it, when, what's it called, where to find it. APA leads with author and year because psychology readers care about whether a study is current. MLA leads with full author name because humanities readers care about the human voice behind the text. Chicago bibliography entries use full author name and inverted commas around article titles to match its Notes citation system. Harvard is the most stripped-down — author, year, title, source, period. The "Harvard" name is somewhat misleading: there's no single official Harvard manual, and many institutional variants exist (Anglia Ruskin's guide and Pears & Shields' Cite Them Right are two widely used ones). When in doubt, check what your specific institution publishes; this tool follows the common author–date shape those guides share.
The hardest part of citation isn't the formatting — it's getting the source data right. Title case vs sentence case, "ed." vs "edn.", DOI vs URL, last name first vs first name first. A good generator handles the mechanical part so you can focus on the source.
What changes in the newest editions
APA 7th (published October 2019, copyright 2020) dropped the "Retrieved from" prefix on URLs, lists up to 20 author names before invoking the ellipsis (was 7 in APA 6), and removed the publisher-location requirement — Chicago and Harvard still want city of publication, APA 7 doesn't. MLA 9th (2021) is mostly an extension of MLA 8's "core elements" framework — Author, Title of Source, Title of Container, Other Contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location. Chicago 17th (2017) restructured the Notes-and-Bibliography vs Author-Date split with clearer signposting and added social-media and multimedia templates; an 18th edition followed in 2024, which among other things lowered the bibliography's "et al." threshold (up to six authors listed; seven or more → first three et al.). This generator follows the 17th-edition bibliography forms. Harvard doesn't have a "latest edition" — institutions publish their own style guides and refresh them irregularly. Always double-check your institution's current style guide if grades depend on it.
The ASEAN academic-publishing angle
Across ASEAN universities the same four styles dominate, but the choice is made department by department rather than nationally: a psychology or education department will usually publish an APA guide, a history department a Chicago one, and engineering faculties commonly require IEEE's numbered format, which this tool does not produce. The only reliable rule is the one on your course page or in the journal's author guidelines. Whatever it dictates, mastering the four styles here covers the great majority of undergraduate and postgraduate submissions.
Why et al. takes a full stop and why the DOI outlives the URL
The APA Publication Manual, 7th edition (2020) devotes its Chapter 10 to more than 100 reference examples — many for niche source types such as legal cases, datasets, conference sessions and social-media posts.
The "et al." abbreviation comes from Latin et alii ("and others"). Note the period — it's an abbreviation, so "et al." with the period is the only correct form. "Et al" without the period is a grammatical error.
APA dropped the "Retrieved from" prefix on URLs in the 7th edition because URLs are now so universally understood as access points that the prefix added clutter without information.
The DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is preferred over a plain URL in every modern style because DOIs are permanent — they continue resolving even if the journal moves servers, switches publishers, or restructures its URL scheme.
MLA's container theory (introduced in MLA 8, 2016) is a major conceptual shift. Instead of memorising templates per source type, you identify the source's "containers" (journal → database → website) and list each one. A YouTube video might have two containers: the channel, and YouTube itself.
Chicago has two systems: Notes-and-Bibliography (used in history, arts, humanities — uses footnotes/endnotes) and Author-Date (used in sciences, social sciences — looks more like APA). The "Chicago" most generators produce is the Bibliography variant of the Notes system.
The "Harvard" citation style has no Harvard origin. The name is traced to an 1881 paper by Harvard zoologist Edward Mark (Chernin, BMJ 1988), but the style was popularised by British universities and is now associated with the UK / Australia / NZ — not Harvard University itself, which uses Chicago for many disciplines.
Italicising titles follows a consistent rule across all major styles: italicise "container" titles (book, journal, newspaper, website), use quotes for "contained" titles (chapter, article, web page). A book = italic. A book chapter = "quoted".
Sentence case vs title case distinguishes APA (sentence case for article titles, italic title case for journals) from MLA / Chicago / Harvard (title case for everything). Sentence case capitalises only the first word + proper nouns; title case capitalises all "significant" words.
Mixing styles within one bibliography is the error this side-by-side layout is designed to prevent. Pick one style at the start; never mix APA's initials-and-year entries with MLA's "Last, First" full names in the same document — graders notice.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Your instructor / journal / institution should specify. As a rough guide: APA for psychology, education, social sciences, business, nursing. MLA for literature, languages, philosophy, cultural studies. Chicago for history, religion, art history, some humanities — pick the Bibliography variant for footnote-heavy writing, Author-Date for sciences. Harvard for UK / Australian / NZ universities and many science disciplines globally. When in doubt, ask explicitly — citation style mismatches cost marks.
-
Leave the author field blank. All four styles handle this gracefully: APA and Harvard move the title to the author position, MLA starts with the title in quotes, Chicago does the same. For corporate / organisational authors (e.g. "World Health Organization", "United Nations"), type the full organisation name into the author field — the generator treats it as a single-word last name. For "Anonymous", APA and MLA require typing "Anonymous" as the author; Chicago and Harvard prefer "Anon." or no entry.
-
Different styles handle large author lists differently. APA 7: list up to 20 author names; if more than 20, list first 19, then an ellipsis "…", then the last author. MLA 9: 2 authors → list both with "and"; 3+ → list only the first followed by "et al." Chicago Bibliography (17th ed., §14.76): up to 10 authors list all; 11+ list first 7 plus "et al." — the 18th edition (2024) lowered this to six listed, seven or more → first three plus "et al." This tool simplifies to 4+ → first author + "et al.", so check the full form for long author lists. Harvard: 1-3 authors list all; 4+ → first author + "et al." The generator applies these rules automatically — just paste all authors separated by commas.
-
Italics signal the "container" — the larger work that holds your source. A journal is a container (it holds many articles); a book is a container (it holds chapters). The article or chapter itself is "contained" inside the larger work, and gets quotation marks (MLA, Chicago, Harvard) or no special formatting (APA). The visual hierarchy makes it instantly clear which is the parent publication and which is the specific piece you're citing.
-
Use the Video source type. The "Uploader / Author" field takes the channel name as it appears on YouTube (not your friend's real name — the channel handle). The "Platform" is "YouTube". The URL is the full
youtube.com/watch?v=...link. APA treats the channel as the author and adds "[Video]" after the title. MLA puts the title first, then "uploaded by [channel]". Chicago and Harvard both list channel-first like APA. For very short videos, include exact upload date if known; if not, year alone is acceptable. -
DOI always wins when available. DOIs are persistent identifiers — they survive journal acquisitions, website redesigns, and publisher changes that would break a regular URL. APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard all prefer DOI over URL for any source that has one. For journal articles, paste the DOI in the DOI field (the generator prefixes "https://doi.org/" automatically for APA, MLA and Chicago, and writes "doi:" for Harvard). If only a URL is available (e.g. blog posts, news articles, web pages), use the URL field instead.
-
Not currently — this tool generates the full bibliography / reference list entries (the ones that go at the end of your paper). For in-text citations, the rules are simpler: APA / Harvard use (Author, Year), with page numbers as (Author, Year, p. NN) for direct quotes. MLA uses (Author NN) with just the page number. Chicago Author-Date matches APA; Chicago Notes-and-Bibliography uses superscript footnote numbers. Future tool versions may add an in-text citation helper if there's enough demand.
-
No. Every keystroke is processed entirely in your browser via JavaScript. There's no server roundtrip — open DevTools → Network and confirm zero outbound requests as you type. Citation data stays on your device. Safe for confidential research, unpublished work, or sensitive thesis material that can't leave your machine. Close the tab and the data evaporates; nothing is logged or stored.
-
The clipboard receives plain text (italics stripped) for maximum compatibility — pasting into Word, Google Docs, or Pages without italic markers is universally readable. To re-italicise titles in your final document, manually select the title text and press Ctrl+I (Cmd+I on Mac). For reference managers (Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, Paperpile), the styles are applied automatically based on the manager's CSL style — just paste plain text and let the manager re-format.
-
Use the closest match and edit the output manually. Podcasts → Video (works well with platform field as "Apple Podcasts" / "Spotify"). Datasets → Journal Article (DOI behaviour is similar; cite the dataset paper if there is one). Software → Website (use the GitHub URL or vendor site). Conference proceedings → Journal Article. For complex cases (legal cases, court filings, AI-generated content), consult the official style manual — the templates for niche source types are too specialised for this general-purpose tool, but the five common types cover most student and professional needs.
Method & sources
How it computes
Rule-based formatter that renders one set of source fields into APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago 17th (bibliography form) and Harvard author–date entries for five source types (book, journal article, website, newspaper, video). Author-list rules: APA lists up to 20 authors and for 21+ gives the first 19, an ellipsis and the last; MLA gives 'et al.' after the first author for three or more; Chicago and Harvard are simplified to 'et al.' after the first author for four or more.
What this tool implements
- APA Publication Manual, 7th ed. (2020): sentence-case article titles, italic journal title and volume, up to 20 authors, ellipsis rule at 21+, DOI as https://doi.org/ link, no 'Retrieved from'.
- MLA Handbook, 9th ed. (2021): container model, 'et al.' for three or more authors, DOI presented as https://doi.org/ in the location slot.
- Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (2017), Notes-and-Bibliography bibliography form; §14.76 lists up to 10 authors (11+ → first 7 et al.) — this tool simplifies to 4+ → first author et al. and says so.
- Harvard has no official manual; the tool follows the author–date shape common to institutional guides (e.g. Cite Them Right), with 'et al.' for four or more authors.
Sources
- American Psychological Association. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed. Washington, DC: APA; 2020. Author-number rule: https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/more-than-20-authors
- Modern Language Association. MLA Handbook, 9th ed. New York: MLA; 2021. DOI guidance: https://style.mla.org/page-range-and-doi/
- University of Chicago Press. The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 2017 (§14.76, number of authors in a bibliography entry).
- Chernin E. The 'Harvard system': a mystery dispelled. BMJ 1988;297(6655):1062-1063.
What can make this go out of date
- none at runtime (the access date in MLA/Harvard web entries is the reader's local date)
Pick up where you left off
Stored only in this browser — never sent to our servers.