Citation Generator
Generate citations in APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, and Vancouver formats. Supports books, websites, journals, newspapers, and videos. Build full bibliographies.
Source type
Citation format
Source
1. Book
Full citation:
How to Build a Citation
Pick the source type first - book, website, journal article, newspaper article or video. Different fields appear depending on what you choose. A journal article asks for volume, issue and DOI; a book asks for publisher, edition and city; a website asks for the date you accessed it because URLs change over time. Fill in what you know; missing fields are handled gracefully so a website with no named author still produces a valid citation.
Once you have entered the details, switch between the five tabs at the top to see your reference formatted in APA 7th, MLA 9th, Harvard, Chicago author-date and Vancouver styles. Each tab shows the same source rewritten in that house style. Click the copy icon to grab the formatted citation for your essay, dissertation or bibliography. You can add multiple sources and the tool keeps them all in one list, ready to paste into a reference section.
Picking the Right Citation Style for Your Essay
The style is usually dictated by your department or journal. Psychology and education courses tend to require APA 7th, which is author-date with a hanging-indent reference list. English and humanities subjects often use MLA 9th, which uses Author Last Name and a page number in-text. Harvard is the standard at most UK universities outside of psychology, especially in business and social sciences; check your handbook because Harvard has many regional variations. Chicago author-date appears in history and some sciences, while Vancouver is used for medicine, nursing and biomedical journals.
If your tutor specifies a style not listed here, the closest matches are usually Harvard (for OSCOLA-style legal references, you will need a specialist tool), or APA (for Cite Them Right Harvard, which is used at many UK universities and is very similar). Always check one citation against an example in your handbook before generating a full bibliography - automated tools handle 95% of cases well but can stumble on edited collections, translated works, or edge cases like government reports. While you are tightening up your essay, run the text through a [Word Counter](/word-counter) to confirm you are within the assignment word limit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will this citation generator handle every source type?
It handles the five most common: books, websites, journal articles, newspaper articles and videos. It does not generate citations for podcasts, social media posts, government reports, conference papers, theses, or legal cases - those have format quirks that are easier to handle by hand using your style guide. For 90% of undergraduate essays, the five supported types cover everything you cite.
What is the difference between APA 7th and APA 6th?
APA 7th (released 2019) is the current standard. The main changes from 6th: DOIs are formatted as full URLs (https://doi.org/10.xxxx); the publisher location is no longer required for books; "et al." is used after three or more authors instead of six; and singular "they" is now accepted. If your handbook still shows APA 6th, check whether your institution has updated since the handbook was written - most have.
Why does my citation look slightly different from my professor's example?
Even within one style, formatting varies. Cite Them Right Harvard differs from the original Anglia Ruskin Harvard. Your university may have a house style that tweaks indentation, italics or punctuation. Use the generated citation as a starting point and adjust to match the example in your specific handbook. The order of fields and the punctuation between them is the part the tool gets right; small font choices may need a manual tweak.
Should I cite Wikipedia?
Generally not in academic work. Most tutors will accept Wikipedia as a starting point for finding sources but not as a citation. If you do need to cite it (for example, in a piece about Wikipedia itself), treat it as a website with the page title, the URL, and the date you accessed it. Be aware that Wikipedia content changes, so the access date is essential.
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