Free Citation Generator: APA, MLA, Harvard & More
Free citation generator for APA 7, MLA 9, Harvard, Chicago, IEEE and 4 more styles. Auto-fill from a URL, DOI or ISBN and export to Word, PDF or BibTeX. No account.
Citation Generator
APA 7th — psychology, education, sciences
References (0)
Your citation list is empty. Add sources above — they're saved in your browser (your list is never uploaded), survive page refreshes, and re-format instantly when you switch styles.
About this tool
This free citation generator formats references in nine styles — APA 7th edition, MLA 9th, Chicago 17th, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver, Oxford, OSCOLA, and Bluebook — for eleven source types, from websites, books, and journal articles to YouTube videos, podcasts, social media posts, government documents, theses, conference papers, and patents. Paste a DOI, ISBN, or web address and the form fills itself; otherwise type the details once and switch styles freely — every saved citation re-formats instantly. Each source produces both the full reference and its matching in-text citation, footnote short form, or numbered marker, and your finished list exports to Word (with real italics and hanging indents), PDF, or BibTeX for LaTeX. Citations are formatted in your browser with no account, no paywall, and no citation limit, and the list is saved locally on your device between sessions; only auto-fill lookups leave the page, fetching a URL through our server or a DOI or ISBN from Crossref or Open Library.
How to Generate a Citation
- 1
Pick a citation style — APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver, Oxford, OSCOLA, or Bluebook — and a source type. Each type shows only the fields that style guides actually require for it.
- 2
Auto-fill when you can: paste a DOI to pull journal details from Crossref, an ISBN to fetch book data, or a page URL to extract the title, author, site name, and date. Anything the lookup misses, you can edit by hand.
- 3
Watch the reference and its in-text citation build in real time, add an optional annotation, then save the source to your list. Repeat for every source, sort alphabetically, and export the finished bibliography as Word, PDF, or BibTeX.
Why Cite with Wrklyst
- Enter Once, Cite in Nine Styles
- Switching from APA to Harvard or IEEE re-formats your entire saved list instantly — author inversion, punctuation, italics, and numbering all change with it. No retyping when a professor changes the requirement.
- Auto-Fill from DOI, ISBN & URL
- A DOI fetches the exact journal, volume, issue, and page range; an ISBN pulls the book's publisher and year; a URL extracts page metadata. Typos in hand-copied details are the most common citation error — lookups avoid them.
- No Account, No Paywall, No Limits
- Unlike EasyBib and Citation Machine, there is no premium tier gating styles or exports, no sign-up wall before copying, and no ads pretending to be download buttons. Your list stays in your own browser's storage.
Citation Habits That Save Grades
- Cite sources the moment you use them and save each to the list — reconstructing a half-remembered source the night before a deadline is the classic time sink.
- Prefer DOI auto-fill for journal articles; publisher metadata is more reliable than hand-copying from a PDF header.
- Record page numbers when you take quotes — MLA in-text citations and Chicago footnotes need them, and the tool includes them automatically when present.
- Use the annotation field as you read: two sentences on what each source argues turns your bibliography into an annotated one with zero extra work later.
- Exporting to Word keeps hanging indents and italics intact — paste-as-plain-text into a document loses both.
Frequently asked questions
How do I cite a website in APA 7th edition?
The APA 7 pattern is: Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page in italics. Site Name. URL. Select Website as the source type here, paste the page's URL into the auto-fill bar, and the tool assembles that order for you — including the "n.d." placeholder when no publication date exists and the organization-as-author fallback when no person is credited. Note that APA 7 no longer requires "Retrieved from" before the URL for most pages.
What is the difference between APA and MLA citation?
They invert different priorities. APA (used in psychology and the sciences) foregrounds the date — it sits in parentheses right after the author, and in-text citations read (Doe, 2024) — and reduces first names to initials. MLA (used in literature and humanities) foregrounds authorship and location in the text: full first names, the date pushed toward the end of the entry, and in-text citations that pair author with page number, like (Doe 45). Punctuation, capitalization, and the treatment of container titles also differ, which is why the same source looks quite different in each.
How do I cite a YouTube video?
Choose YouTube Video as the source type and enter the channel or creator name, video title, upload date, and URL. In APA 7 the result follows the pattern: Channel Name. (Year, Month Day). Title of video [Video]. YouTube. URL — the [Video] bracket and platform name are required. MLA instead wraps the title in quotation marks and italicizes YouTube as the container. The generator handles all nine styles' video formats, so you only supply the four details once.
Is this citation generator free?
Yes — completely. All nine styles, all eleven source types, DOI/ISBN/URL auto-fill, in-text citations, annotations, and every export format (Word, PDF, BibTeX) work without an account, a subscription, or a trial countdown. There is no citation cap and nothing is watermarked. Citations are built in your browser and stored only on your device, which is also why nothing needs a login.