How to make an APA 7 citation for free
Quick answer
Open the DO101 Citation Generator, choose APA 7 and the type of source, and fill in the fields it asks for — authors, year, title, journal or publisher, DOI or URL. You get the reference-list entry and the in-text citation together. Copy it and the italics paste into Word or Google Docs intact. MLA, Harvard, Chicago, IEEE and Vancouver work the same way.
Open the Citation Generator — freeStep by step
- 1Open the Citation Generator and pick APA 7.
- 2Choose the source type: journal article, book, website, and so on.
- 3Fill in the fields. Missing ones the style expects are flagged.
- 4Copy the reference and the in-text citation, or add it to your running reference list.
What an APA 7 reference looks like
A journal article: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the article in sentence case. Journal Name in Title Case, volume(issue), pages. https://doi.org/… — with the journal name and volume number in italics.
In the text, one or two authors are cited by surname and year — (Smith & Lee, 2021) — and three or more by the first author and "et al." — (Smith et al., 2021). In APA 7 that shortening applies from the first citation.
The details marks come off for
Sentence case for article titles but title case for journals. An ampersand before the last author, not "and". A DOI written as a full https://doi.org/ link. No "Retrieved from" for most web pages. The generator handles all of these, which is where hand-typed references usually slip.
Always check against your course guide
Corporate authors, missing dates, translated works and secondary citations all have special rules, and many departments have a house variation. Treat the output as a correct first draft and check it against your referencing guide.
Frequently asked questions
Is the reference list saved?
Yes, in your browser on this device, sorted the way APA expects. It is not sent anywhere and will not appear on another computer.
Can it find the details from a DOI automatically?
No — you fill in the fields. That keeps it working offline and means nothing about your research is sent anywhere.
The tool for the job
APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, IEEE and Vancouver references.