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Citation generator: APA, MLA, Harvard and Chicago

Make correct references and in-text citations for web pages, books, journal articles, newspapers, YouTube videos and reports. Type the details or fill them in from a DOI or ISBN, copy with real italics, and keep a sorted bibliography you can download as a Word file. Free, no sign-up.

  • Free
  • No sign-up
  • Private — runs in your browser

How do I cite a source in APA, MLA, Harvard or Chicago?

  1. 1Choose the style your teacher or journal asks for — APA 7th, MLA 9th, Harvard or Chicago — and what you are citing.
  2. 2Paste a DOI or ISBN and press Find to fill in the details, or type them in yourself.
  3. 3Check the reference and the in-text citation, then copy them with italics into your document.
  4. 4Add each source to your bibliography: it is sorted A to Z with a hanging indent, ready to copy or download as Word.

What does an APA, MLA, Harvard or Chicago reference look like?

  1. 01APA 7: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the work (2nd ed.). Publisher. https://doi.org/…
  2. 02MLA 9: Last, First. “Title of the Article.” Journal, vol. 50, no. 3, 1994, pp. 127-53.
  3. 03Harvard: Surname, I. (Year) Title of the book. 6th edn. Place: Publisher.
  4. 04Chicago 18: Last, First. Year. “Title of the Article.” Journal 11, no. 1: 1–34. https://doi.org/…

Each style is a fixed recipe of elements and punctuation. The tool follows the official rules: APA from the Publication Manual (7th edition) and the APA Style website, MLA from the MLA Handbook (9th edition), Harvard from Cite Them Right (the version most UK universities use), and Chicago from The Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition, author-date). That covers how names are turned around and shortened to initials, when et al. starts, which titles are in italics or quotation marks, how dates and page ranges are written, and DOIs as https://doi.org/ links.

Capitals are fixed for you: APA and Harvard use sentence case, MLA and Chicago title case. A computer can't always tell a name from an ordinary word, so a title typed in Title Case may lose the capitals of names — check those. When you use Find, only the DOI or ISBN is sent to Crossref or Open Library (free public catalogues); everything else is worked out in your browser.

Good to know

  • Use the style your teacher, university or journal asks for, and use the same one all the way through.
  • For journal articles, always add the DOI: it is the most reliable link to the article.
  • Always check autofilled details against the source itself — databases sometimes have wrong capitals or missing authors.
  • Paste with italics: use “Copy (keeps italics)” and paste into Word or Google Docs as normal.

Citation generator — common questions

What is the difference between APA and MLA?

APA is used mostly in psychology, education and the social sciences. It puts the year after the author, (Smith, 2020), and writes titles in sentence case under the heading References. MLA is used in literature and the humanities. It cites the author and page, (Smith 45), writes titles in title case, and calls the list Works Cited.

How do I cite a website with no author?

Start with the title instead. In APA the title moves to the author's place, followed by the date; in MLA the entry simply starts with the title. In the text, use a short version of the title. Leave the author boxes empty and the tool does this for you.

How do I cite a source with no date?

APA and Chicago write n.d. (no date), Harvard writes (no date), and MLA leaves the date out. For web pages, add the date you viewed the page: MLA and Harvard show it, and Chicago shows it when there is no publication date.

When do I use et al.?

In the text: APA uses it for three or more authors, MLA for three or more, Chicago (18th edition) for three or more, and Harvard (Cite Them Right) for four or more. In the reference list, APA names up to 20 authors, Chicago up to six, and MLA uses et al. from three.

What is a DOI and where do I find it?

A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a permanent ID for an article or book, starting with 10. — for example 10.1037/ppm0000185. It is usually printed on the first page of a journal article or on the journal's web page. All four styles now write it as a link: https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185.

Is my bibliography uploaded anywhere?

No. Your citations are made and saved in your own browser. Only when you press Find is the DOI or ISBN you typed sent to Crossref or Open Library to look the source up.

Sources

Formulas last reviewed: September 30, 2026 ·How we check our formulas

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