APA citation is the author-date referencing style of the American Psychological Association, currently in its 7th edition. Unlike numbered systems such as Vancouver and AMA, APA identifies sources in the text by author surname and year, and orders the reference list alphabetically. It is the dominant style in psychology, education, nursing, and the wider social sciences, so most researchers in those fields will use it throughout their careers.
This guide covers the APA in-text citation format, the reference list rules for the most common source types, and the mistakes that most often cost marks or trigger editorial corrections.
APA In-Text Citations
APA uses two in-text forms. The parenthetical citation places author and year in brackets at the end of the relevant clause: cognitive load affected recall (Smith, 2024). The narrative citation weaves the author into the sentence with the year in brackets immediately after: Smith (2024) found that cognitive load affected recall. For a direct quotation, add the page number: (Smith, 2024, p. 14).
For two authors, join them with an ampersand in parentheses and "and" in narrative form: (Smith & Patel, 2024) but Smith and Patel (2024). For three or more authors, use the first author followed by et al. from the first citation: (Smith et al., 2024).
APA Reference List Format
The reference list is alphabetical by first author surname and uses a hanging indent. APA capitalises only the first word of article and book titles (sentence case) while journal titles take title case and italics.
Journal article: Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), Page-Page. https://doi.org/xx.xxxx
Smith, J. R., Patel, A., & Okonkwo, C. (2024). Working memory and academic recall. Journal of Educational Psychology, 116(3), 311-325. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000812
Book: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of book (Edition). Publisher.
Website: Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL
Two 7th-edition changes matter most. First, the publisher location is no longer included for books. Second, the DOI is formatted as a full https link rather than the old "doi:" prefix. APA 7 also raised the author cap: list up to 20 authors in a reference, and for 21 or more, give the first 19, an ellipsis, then the final author.