You found a source. You read it. You used it in your assignment. Then you stared at the references page for twenty minutes wondering how to format it correctly.

APA citations trip up almost every student who encounters them for the first time, and many who have used them before. The rules feel arbitrary. The punctuation seems fussy. The difference between a journal article, an edited book chapter, and a government report is not always obvious. And online sources add a new layer of confusion every time.

This guide breaks APA 7th edition citations into clear, repeatable patterns. Once you see the logic behind the format, it becomes much easier to apply consistently.

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Why APA has two parts you must always complete

APA citations work as a pair. Every source you use appears in two places: an in-text citation inside your writing, and a full reference entry in the References list at the end. These two elements are linked and must match exactly.

The in-text citation tells your reader that the information came from somewhere else, and points them to the full reference. The reference entry gives them enough information to find the original source themselves. Neither one works without the other.

Element	Where it appears	What it contains
In-text citation	Inside your paragraph, immediately after the information you used	Author surname(s) and year; page number if quoting directly
Reference entry	References list, alphabetical, at the end of your paper	Full author name(s), year, title, source information

A common mistake is to include a reference in the list but forget the in-text citation, or to cite something in the text but leave it out of the References. Both are considered incomplete citation and can affect your grade.

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In-text citations: the basic patterns

There are two ways to work a source into your writing. Both are correct and you can use either, depending on what reads more naturally in context.

Parenthetical citation

The author and year appear in brackets at the end of the relevant sentence, before the period.

Students in online courses report significantly higher rates of procrastination than those in face-to-face settings (Steel, 2007).

Narrative citation

The author’s name is part of your sentence, and only the year appears in brackets immediately after the name.

Steel (2007) found that procrastination is associated with lower academic achievement across multiple disciplines.

Direct quotes

When you copy exact wording, you must add a page number (or paragraph number for sources without page numbers). Use “p.” for a single page and “pp.” for a page range.

“Self-regulation is the most consistent predictor of academic success in online learning environments” (Zimmerman, 2002, p. 65).

Zimmerman (2002) argued that “self-regulation is the most consistent predictor of academic success in online learning environments” (p. 65).

Quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as a block quotation: start on a new line, indent the entire quote 0.5 inches, and do not use quotation marks. The citation comes after the final punctuation of the quote.

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Multiple authors: the rules that catch most students

The number of authors changes how you write the in-text citation. This is one of the most commonly missed rules in APA 7th edition.

Number of authors	In-text format	Example
1 author	Surname (Year)	(Steel, 2007)
2 authors	Surname & Surname (Year) – always use both names, every time	(Lee & Choi, 2011)
3 or more authors	First surname et al. (Year) – from the very first citation	(Broadbent et al., 2015)

Note that APA 7th edition changed the rule for three or more authors: in previous editions you listed all authors the first time. In 7th edition you use “et al.” from the very first citation when there are three or more authors.

Also note the ampersand (&) rule: use “&” between author names when they appear inside brackets, and “and” when they appear as part of your sentence.

In brackets: Online dropout rates remain consistently high (Lee & Choi, 2011).

In your sentence: Lee and Choi (2011) found that online dropout rates remain consistently high.

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Reference list entries: the four source types you will use most

Every reference entry follows the same basic order: Who. When. What. Where. Author, year, title, source. The punctuation and formatting differ by source type, but the logic is the same.

1. Journal article

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article with only the first word capitalised and proper nouns. Title of Journal in Title Case and Italics, Volume(Issue), pages. https://doi.org/xxxxx

Lee, Y., & Choi, J. (2011). A review of online course dropout research: Implications for practice and future research. Educational Technology Research and Development, 59(5), 593-618. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-010-9177-y

Key details to notice: only the first word of the article title is capitalised (plus proper nouns and the first word after a colon). The journal name and volume number are italicised together. The issue number is in brackets after the volume, not italicised. Include the DOI as a hyperlink when one exists.

2. Book

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of book in italics: Subtitle with only first word capitalised. Publisher.

Cirillo, F. (2018). The Pomodoro technique: The life-changing time-management system. Currency.

In APA 7th edition, you do not include the city of publication for books. Just the publisher name. If there is an edition number, it goes in brackets after the title: Title of book (3rd ed.).

3. Chapter in an edited book

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor & F. F. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp. first-last). Publisher.

Garrison, D. R. (2009). Communities of inquiry in online learning. In P. L. Rogers, G. A. Berg, J. V. Boettcher, C. Howard, L. Justice, & K. D. Schenk (Eds.), Encyclopedia of distance learning (2nd ed., pp. 352-355). IGI Global.

The chapter author is listed first. The editor(s) appear in the middle with “(Ed.)” or “(Eds.)” after their names. The book title is italicised. Page numbers for the chapter appear in brackets before the publisher.

4. Webpage or website

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL

Government of Canada. (2023, September 14). Post-secondary education in Canada. Statistics Canada. https://www.statcan.gc.ca/example

If no author is identified, the organisation name moves to the author position. If no date is available, use (n.d.) in place of the year. For webpages that may change over time, you do not need to include a retrieval date in APA 7th edition unless the content is specifically designed to change (such as a wiki).

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The mistakes students make most often

After reviewing hundreds of student assignments, these are the errors that appear most frequently.

Capitalising article and book titles incorrectly

In APA, article and book titles use sentence case: only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns are capitalised. Journal titles and book titles in the source position use title case (every major word capitalised). This is one of the most common errors because it is opposite to how most people write titles naturally.

Incorrect	Correct
A Review of Online Course Dropout Research: Implications For Practice	A review of online course dropout research: Implications for practice
educational technology research and development	Educational Technology Research and Development

Forgetting the DOI or using the wrong URL

When a journal article has a DOI, always include it. A DOI is a permanent link that starts with https://doi.org/ followed by the article’s unique identifier. Do not substitute the journal homepage URL. If an article does not have a DOI but was retrieved from a database (such as JSTOR or PsycINFO), you do not need to include the database URL in APA 7th edition, unless the article is only available through that database.

Hanging indent missing

Every reference entry uses a hanging indent: the first line of the entry starts at the left margin, and every subsequent line is indented 0.5 inches (1.27 cm). This is the reverse of a normal paragraph indent. In Microsoft Word, you can set this under Paragraph – Special – Hanging. In Google Docs, use Format – Align and Indent – Indentation options.

Listing sources in the order they appear rather than alphabetically

The References list is alphabetical by the first author’s surname. It is not ordered by the sequence in which you cited sources in your paper. If you have multiple works by the same author, order them by year, earliest first.

Using “ibid” or footnotes

APA does not use “ibid,” footnotes for citations, or numbered reference lists. If you need to cite the same source twice in a row, repeat the in-text citation. APA uses author-year throughout, not numbers.

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No author, no date, no page: what to do

Real sources do not always cooperate with the standard format. Here is how to handle the most common gaps.

Problem	Solution	Example
No author	Move the title to the author position	Understanding open learning. (2022). Publisher.
No date	Use (n.d.) in the year position	Smith, J. (n.d.).
No page numbers (website, ebook)	Use paragraph number (para. 3) or heading and paragraph (Introduction section, para. 2)	(Smith, 2020, para. 4)
No DOI	Include the URL if the source is freely available online; omit if it is a database source	https://www.example.com/article
Organisation as author	Spell out the full organisation name every time in the reference list; you may abbreviate in the text after the first citation if the abbreviation is widely known	World Health Organization (WHO, 2021) first time; (WHO, 2021) after

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A note on citation generators

Tools like Zotero, Mendeley, Citation Machine, and your library database’s “cite” buttons are useful starting points. They are not reliable final products. Citation generators regularly make errors with capitalisation, missing DOIs, incorrect italics, and extra punctuation. Always check the generated citation against the actual APA 7th edition rules before submitting.

Zotero is the most reliable of the freely available tools and integrates directly with Word and Google Docs. If you are doing significant academic writing, it is worth the time to set it up properly. But even Zotero needs to be checked, especially for capitalisation of article titles.

The APA Publication Manual (7th edition) is the authoritative source. Your institution’s library likely has a copy available online. The APA Style website (https://apastyle.apa.org) also provides free examples for every source type.

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A checklist before you submit

Run through this list before handing in any paper with APA citations.

Check	What to look for
Every in-text citation has a matching reference entry	Go through your text source by source and confirm each one appears in your References list
Every reference entry has a matching in-text citation	Go through your References list and confirm every entry was cited in the paper
Article and book titles use sentence case	Only the first word, proper nouns, and first word after a colon are capitalised
Journal titles use title case and are italicised	Every major word capitalised; volume number italicised with the journal name
DOIs are included and formatted correctly	Must start with https://doi.org/ not just the number
Multiple authors are formatted correctly	Two authors: always list both; three or more: first author et al.
References list is alphabetical	By first author’s surname; same author sorted by year
Hanging indent applied to all entries	First line flush left; subsequent lines indented 0.5 in
Ampersand vs “and” used correctly	& inside brackets; “and” in narrative text
Page numbers included for direct quotes	p. or pp. or para. depending on source type

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References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Broadbent, J., & Poon, W. L. (2015). Self-regulated learning strategies and academic achievement in online higher education learning environments: A systematic review. The Internet and Higher Education, 27, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.04.007

Lee, Y., & Choi, J. (2011). A review of online course dropout research: Implications for practice and future research. Educational Technology Research and Development, 59(5), 593-618. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-010-9177-y

Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory Into Practice, 41(2), 64-70. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4102_2

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🅭🅯 This resource is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. You are free to share, adapt, and build upon this material for any purpose, including commercially, provided you give appropriate credit: Tucker, A. (2026). APA citations made clear: A student guide to referencing. Open Learning Student Resource Series.