This guide summarizes the citation patterns most researchers need from the American Psychological Association (APA) style, 7th edition. It covers in-text citations and the corresponding reference list entries. For the complete rules, consult the official Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition.

In-text citations

APA uses the author–date system. Every in-text citation names the author(s) and the year, and it appears in one of two forms:

Parenthetical — author and year together in parentheses, usually at the end of the sentence:
Language development is shaped by usage (McCauley & Christiansen, 2019).
Narrative — the author is part of the sentence, with the year in parentheses:
McCauley and Christiansen (2019) describe language development as language use.

For works with one or two authors, name every author in each citation. For works with three or more authors, shorten to the first author plus "et al." from the first citation onward: (Balsam et al., 2019).

Reference list patterns

The reference list at the end of the paper gives full details for every cited work. These are the four patterns you will use most often.

Journal article (with a DOI)

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the article. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), pages. https://doi.org/xxxx

McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review, 126(1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126

Book

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the book (edition, if any). Publisher.

Jackson, L. M. (2019). The psychology of prejudice: From attitudes to social action (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000168-000

Chapter in an edited book

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the chapter. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of the book (pp. xx–xx). Publisher.

Balsam, K. F., Martell, C. R., Jones, K. P., & Safren, S. A. (2019). Affirmative cognitive behavior therapy with sexual and gender minority people. In G. Y. Iwamasa & P. A. Hays (Eds.), Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed., pp. 287–314). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000119-016

Webpage

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of the page. Site Name. URL

Bologna, C. (2019, October 31). Why some people with anxiety love watching horror movies. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anxiety-love-watching-horror-movies_l_5d277587e4b02a5a5d57b59e

Common mistakes

Using "et al." for two-author works. In APA 7, "et al." is only for works with three or more authors; a two-author work always names both authors.
Including the publisher's location. APA 7 removed the city of publication from book references.
Writing "Retrieved from" before URLs. A retrieval statement is only needed when the content is designed to change and has no archived version; otherwise give the plain URL.
Mishandling DOIs. Include the DOI whenever one exists, formatted as a link beginning with https://doi.org/ — not the old "doi:" prefix.
Italicizing the article title. Article titles are plain text; the journal name and volume number are italicized instead.

Formatting references in PaperOne

PaperOne formats references with CSL (Citation Style Language) styles, which include APA. Papers saved in your library can be cited in APA format without retyping the metadata by hand.