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Generate citations in APA, MLA and Chicago

Build APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago, Harvard and IEEE citations from a DOI, ISBN or web address and keep your bibliography in this browser; only URL lookups pass through our server.

Citation style

Find a source

Try:

Autofill sends only what you paste: a DOI goes to Crossref, an ISBN to Open Library (or Google Books), and a web address to our server to read the page’s title, author and date. Nothing is stored. Typing the details yourself sends nothing.

Or fill in the details yourself

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Look up a source or fill in the details, then add it here. Your list is saved in this browser and re-formats instantly when you switch styles.
Runs in your browser · no uploadHow it works

How to use Citation generator

  1. 1

    Choose a style

    Pick APA, MLA, Chicago (author-date or notes), Harvard or IEEE — you can switch at any time and every entry re-formats.

  2. 2

    Find your source

    Paste a DOI, an ISBN or a web address and press Cite, or pick a source type to type the details yourself.

  3. 3

    Check the details

    Correct or add authors, dates and page numbers; the preview and any missing fields update as you type.

  4. 4

    Build the list

    Add the citation to your bibliography, then copy everything with italics and hanging indents or download a .docx.

Limits and Pro

Unlimited citations and bibliography entries for free, with up to 20 URL lookups per minute; DOI and ISBN lookups depend only on Crossref and Open Library.

Pro removes the ads; every style and export is already free. See Pro

About Citation generator

A reference list loses marks for the smallest slips — a missing italic, an ampersand where “and” belongs, a journal title in the wrong case. This generator formats each source to the published rules of six styles: APA 7th edition, MLA 9th edition, Chicago 17th edition in both author-date and notes-bibliography form, Harvard as described in Cite Them Right, and IEEE.

Paste a DOI and the article's authors, journal, volume, issue, pages and year are filled in from Crossref, the registry that issues DOIs. An ISBN pulls the book's title, authors, publisher and city from Open Library, with Google Books as a fallback. For a web page, news story or YouTube video, paste the address and the page's own citation, Dublin Core, schema.org and Open Graph tags are read for you.

The style rules are applied for you: author names are inverted or reduced to initials, “et al.” starts at three authors in APA in-text citations, at three in MLA and at four in Chicago and Harvard; article titles become sentence case for APA, Harvard and IEEE and title case for MLA and Chicago; Chicago and MLA shorten page ranges such as 165–76. Each entry comes with its in-text citation, or a full and short footnote for Chicago notes.

Copied citations keep their italics when pasted into Word or Google Docs, and the bibliography can be downloaded as a .docx with hanging indents or as plain text. Automatic case conversion cannot recognise every proper noun, so check names in titles — a “keep my capitalization” switch is there for that.

Privacy

Your bibliography lives only in this browser's local storage. A DOI is sent straight from your browser to Crossref, and an ISBN to Open Library (and Google Books if Open Library has no match). Web addresses go to our server, which downloads that one public page to read its metadata; neither the address nor the result is stored or logged against you.

Features

Six citation styles

APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 17 author-date and notes-bibliography, Harvard (Cite Them Right) and IEEE.

DOI, ISBN and URL autofill

Crossref for articles and chapters, Open Library for books, page metadata for websites and videos.

Copies with italics

Rich-text copy keeps journal and book titles in italics when you paste into Word or Google Docs.

Word export

Download the bibliography as a .docx with the right heading, hanging indents and double spacing.

Citation generator: frequently asked questions

How do I cite a website in APA 7?
List the author, the date in parentheses with year, month and day, the page title in italics, the website name and the URL: Bologna, C. (2019, October 31). Why some people with anxiety love watching horror movies. HuffPost. https://… When the author and the site are the same organisation, leave the site name out. Paste the address above and those parts are filled in for you.
When do I use et al. in a citation?
It depends on the style. APA uses “et al.” in every in-text citation of a work with three or more authors but lists up to 20 in the reference. MLA switches to “et al.” at three authors in both places. Chicago and Harvard name up to three authors in the text and abbreviate from four, and IEEE abbreviates references with more than six names.
Does MLA 9 need an access date?
MLA 9 treats the access date as optional, but recommends it for web pages that have no publication date or that may change. This generator adds “Accessed day month year” to MLA website citations and to videos or news articles without a date. You can change the access date on the form, or clear it to leave it out.
Why did the generator change the capitalization of my title?
Styles prescribe it. APA, Harvard and IEEE put article and book titles in sentence case, so only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns keep capitals. MLA and Chicago use title case. Software cannot always tell that a word like Paris is a proper noun, so tick “Keep my capitalization” to use the title exactly as you typed it.
Is the DOI or web address I paste sent anywhere?
Yes, to look it up. A DOI goes directly from your browser to Crossref and an ISBN to Open Library or Google Books. A web address goes to our server, which fetches that public page once to read its citation tags, then returns the details to you without saving them. Citations you type by hand and your bibliography never leave this browser.

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