What is Citation Generator?

The Citation Generator creates properly formatted bibliographic citations in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard styles. Pick a source type — book, journal article, website, newspaper, magazine, thesis, or video — and get an instant, copy-ready citation with no manual formatting.

Pick a style (APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago 17th, or Harvard) and a source type and the form swaps to the relevant fields: DOI and volume for journals, access date for websites, dissertation institution for theses. Paste a DOI or ISBN and the lookup auto-fills the fields from public open data. Multiple citations build into a bibliography, sorted alphabetically by first author. Copy any single entry, copy the whole list, or download it as a .txt for Word and Google Docs or a .bib file for LaTeX, Zotero, and other reference managers. Switch on annotated mode to add a note under each source for an annotated bibliography.

How to use

1. Step 1 — Pick a citation style (APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago 17th, or Harvard) and a source type (book, journal, website, newspaper, magazine, thesis, or video).
2. Step 2 — Fill in the source details: author(s), title, publication date, publisher, URL, and page numbers.
3. Step 3 — Click Generate to create the formatted citation, then copy it directly into your bibliography.

When to use

• Writing a research paper that mixes books, journal articles, and online sources.
• Switching a finished draft from APA to MLA without retyping every reference.
• Building a quick bibliography for a thesis chapter before sending to your advisor.

Result

A student writing a research paper enters author "Smith, John", title "Climate Patterns", year 2024, publisher "Oxford University Press" — and instantly gets the APA citation: Smith, J. (2024). *Climate Patterns*. Oxford University Press.

FAQ

What's the difference between APA, MLA, and Chicago for the same source?

APA puts the year right after the author and uses initials for first names. MLA spells the first name and puts the year at the end. Chicago has two flavours: notes-bibliography for humanities and author-date close to APA. The tool handles all three from the same input.

Do I need a DOI for journal articles?

Modern APA and MLA require a DOI when one exists. Leave the DOI field blank if the article doesn't have one and the citation will fall back to journal name, volume, issue, and pages, which is still valid for older articles.

How do I cite a source with no listed author?

Leave the author field empty. The citation starts with the title (italicised for books, in quotes for shorter works). For websites this is common with news articles — the organisation name then serves as the author equivalent.

What does n.d. mean in my citation?

It stands for "no date" and is inserted automatically when you leave the year field blank. It's the standard way to flag undated sources in APA and Chicago, so reviewers know the gap is intentional, not an oversight.

Can I edit a citation after I've added it to my bibliography?

Remove it from the list, change the input fields, and add it again. The bibliography is generated from the source data, so editing the visible text directly would get out of sync next time you regenerate.

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