APA 7 is the seventh edition of the American Psychological Association's style, used widely in psychology, education, nursing, social sciences and business. It uses author-date citations in the text and an alphabetical reference list at the end.

How do I cite a source in the text in APA 7?

Give the author's last name and the year in parentheses, such as (Lee, 2021), or work the author into the sentence with the year in parentheses. For a direct quotation, add a page number, such as (Lee, 2021, p. 14).

How many authors do I list in the reference list?

List up to 20 authors. For works with 21 or more, list the first 19, add an ellipsis and then the last author. In the text, use the first author's name and et al. for works with three or more authors.

Include the DOI for any source that has one, formatted as a link starting https://doi.org/. If there is no DOI, include the URL for online works where readers can access them, and no URL for print works.

Is the reference list double spaced?

Yes. Use double spacing throughout, a hanging indent of 0.5 inches for each entry and alphabetical order by the first author's last name. Title the page References, centered and in bold.

APA 7 Referencing: Examples for Every Common Source

APA style is one of the most widely required referencing systems in college. If you study psychology, education, nursing, business or most social sciences, you will probably be asked to use it, and the details matter: markers often take off points for missing years, wrong punctuation or an unsorted reference list.

This guide covers APA 7 with examples for the sources you will cite most often. The examples use invented sources to show the format. Always check the details against your own source, and follow any course-specific rules from your instructor.

How APA 7 works

APA uses an author-date system with two parts that must match:

In-text citations in the body of your paper, giving the author and year.
A reference list at the end, giving the full details of every source you cited.

Every source cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and every entry in the list must be cited in the text. A source that appears in only one place is a common error.

In-text citations

Basic format

Use the author's last name and the year.

Parenthetical: Reading comprehension improves with regular practice (Lee, 2021).
Narrative: Lee (2021) found that reading comprehension improves with regular practice.

Number of authors

Authors	Citation
One	(Lee, 2021)
Two	(Lee & Patel, 2021)
Three or more	(Lee et al., 2021)
Group author	(World Health Organization, 2020)

In narrative form, use "and" instead of the ampersand: Lee and Patel (2021).

Direct quotations

Add a page number, or another locator for sources without pages, such as a paragraph number.

According to Lee (2021), "reading comprehension grows through deliberate practice" (p. 14).

For quotations of 40 words or more, use a block quotation, indented 0.5 inches, without quotation marks, with the citation after the final punctuation.

Citing several sources

Put sources in alphabetical order within one set of parentheses, separated by semicolons: (Lee, 2021; Patel & Gomez, 2019).

No date or no author

Use n.d. for no date: (Lee, n.d.). If there is no author, use the title in place of the author, in italics for standalone works or in quotation marks for articles and webpages.

For more on the rules, see our guide to in-text citations explained.

Reference list entries

Book

Format: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work in italics and sentence case (Edition if not first). Publisher.

Lee, J. (2021). Reading in college: Strategies that work (2nd ed.). Northfield Press.

Chapter in an edited book

Patel, R. (2019). Active reading in the sciences. In M. Gomez (Ed.), Study skills for higher education (pp. 45-67). Harbor Academic.

Journal article

Format: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article in sentence case. Title of Journal in Italic Title Case, volume(issue), pages. https://doi.org/xxxxx

Lee, J., & Patel, R. (2021). Practice and comprehension in first-year students. Journal of College Learning, 14(2), 112-129. https://doi.org/10.0000/example

Notice that the journal title and volume number are italicized, the issue number is not, and the DOI is a full link.

Webpage

Format: Author. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL

World Health Organization. (2020, March 3). Sleep and health for students. https://www.example.org/sleep-students

If the author and site name are the same, leave out the site name.

Report from an organization

National Center for Education Research. (2022). Trends in college reading skills (Report No. 22-04). https://www.example.gov/reports/22-04

Newspaper or magazine article

Gomez, M. (2023, October 5). Why students are reading less. The City Ledger. https://www.example.com/reading-less

Social media post and video

Follow the source's own details: the author or account name, the date, the text or title and the platform. Our guide to how to cite a YouTube video shows the format.

For how to cite specific types in more detail, see the guides on citing a website, a book and a journal article.

Formatting the reference list

Title: References, centered and in bold, at the top of a new page.
Order: Alphabetical by the first author's last name. Ignore "A", "An" and "The" at the start of a title when you alphabetize by title.
Indent: Hanging indent, with the first line at the margin and later lines indented 0.5 inches.
Spacing: Double spaced, with no extra space between entries.
Authors: List up to 20 authors. For 21 or more, list the first 19, an ellipsis and the final author.
Same author, several works: Order by year, earliest first.
Same author and year: Add letters after the year (2021a, 2021b), in the order of the titles.

Title and capitalization rules

APA uses sentence case for titles of books, articles and webpages in the reference list, which means you capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns. It uses title case for journal names. In the text, titles of works in your paper appear in title case.

Student paper basics

A typical APA 7 student paper has a title page with the title in bold, your name, your department and university, the course number and name, your instructor and the due date, plus page numbers at the top right. A running head is not required for student papers unless your instructor asks for one. Headings follow a five-level system, with level 1 centered and bold. Always check the assignment brief for local variations.

Secondary sources and special cases

If you read about one source in another, cite what you actually read. In the text, name the original and say "as cited in", then list only the source you read in the reference list. Our guide to secondary citations explained covers this in detail.

For sources created with AI tools, APA guidance has changed, so see our guide to citing AI tools and check the current rules on the APA Style site.

Common APA mistakes

Missing years or page numbers on direct quotations.
Capitalizing every word in book and article titles in the reference list.
Forgetting the hanging indent and double spacing.
Mismatched citations, where the text and list disagree on the spelling of a name or a year.
Using et al. in the reference list for fewer than 21 authors.
Listing sources you did not cite, or citing sources missing from the list.
Adding "Retrieved from" and access dates that APA 7 does not require for most sources.
Using an ampersand in narrative citations.

Our guide to common referencing mistakes shows what markers see most often.

Tools and checking

A citation generator or reference manager can produce APA entries quickly, but the output often has errors, such as capitalization, missing DOIs or wrong source types. Use one to save time, then check each entry against the examples above. Our citation generator can build entries to start from. Nursing programs lean heavily on APA, so many students have a citation and reference formatting check done before they submit.

A quick APA checklist

Does every in-text citation have a matching reference entry?
Are authors, years, titles and sources correct?
Are titles in sentence case, and journal names in title case?
Are journal titles and volumes italicized?
Are DOIs given as links?
Is the list alphabetical, double spaced and hanging-indented?
Did I add page numbers to direct quotations?

Final thoughts

APA looks fussy, but it follows a pattern: author, date, title, source. Learn the pattern for books, articles and webpages, check small details such as capitalization and italics and keep your text and reference list in sync. Do that, and reference marks are among the easiest to earn.