Citation Generator

Proper citation is essential for academic integrity, giving credit to original authors, and allowing readers to locate your sources. Different disciplines and publications require different citation formats. This tool generates citations in the five most widely used styles simultaneously, so you can choose the one you need.

APA 7th Edition

Published by the American Psychological Association, APA style is the standard for social sciences, education, and psychology. It uses an author-date system for in-text citations and arranges references alphabetically. APA 7th edition (2019) simplified rules for DOIs, reduced bias in language, and expanded guidelines for online sources.

MLA 9th Edition

The Modern Language Association style is widely used in humanities, literature, and cultural studies. MLA uses author-page number in-text citations. The 9th edition (2021) introduced updated guidance for citing digital content, social media, and other non-traditional sources. Unlike APA, MLA does not place the year prominently in citations.

Chicago 17th Edition

The Chicago Manual of Style offers two systems: notes-bibliography (common in humanities) and author-date (common in sciences). This tool generates the author-date format. Chicago style is widely used in history, philosophy, and publishing. It allows footnotes and endnotes for the notes-bibliography variant.

Harvard Style

Harvard referencing is popular in the UK, Australia, and many international universities. It uses an author-date parenthetical system similar to APA but with distinct formatting conventions. Harvard style is not governed by a single manual, so variations exist between institutions. Our generator follows the most commonly accepted conventions.

IEEE Style

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers style is the standard for engineering, computer science, and technical publications. IEEE uses numbered references in square brackets [1], [2], etc., listed in order of first appearance rather than alphabetically. This makes it efficient for technical papers with many references.

Tips for Accurate Citations

• Always verify author names, publication dates, and titles against the original source.
• Use hanging indents (0.5 inch / 1.27 cm) for reference list entries in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard styles.
• Italicize titles of books, journals, newspapers, and websites in your final document. This tool marks italic text with underscores.
• Include DOIs for journal articles whenever available, as they provide permanent links to the content.
• For sources with no author, begin the citation with the title of the work.
• Check your institution or publisher guidelines, as style requirements may vary slightly.

When to Use Each Style