APA format is the author–date referencing style of the American Psychological Association, set out in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition, 2020). It pairs a brief in-text citation — author surname and year — with a full, alphabetically ordered entry in a reference list at the end of the document. APA is the dominant style across psychology, education, nursing and the social and behavioural sciences.
Because APA is built on the author–date principle, every claim that draws on a source carries a signal the reader can resolve immediately: who said it, and when. The year matters because evidence in these disciplines ages, and recency is part of how readers judge relevance. To understand where APA sits among the major systems, it helps to read it alongside our overview of how APA, MLA, Chicago and Vancouver compare.
How APA in-text citation works
APA in-text citations name the author and the year, and add a page or paragraph number for direct quotations. Two formats exist. A parenthetical citation places everything in brackets: (Smith, 2021). A narrative citation weaves the author into the sentence and brackets only the year: Smith (2021) argued that… For a direct quote, add a locator: (Smith, 2021, p. 14).
Works by two authors name both every time, joined by an ampersand inside brackets — (Smith & Jones, 2020) — or by “and” in narrative form. Works by three or more authors use “et al.” from the first mention: (Smith et al., 2019). This shortening was one of the headline changes in the 7th edition.
Anatomy of an APA reference entry
Every full reference answers four questions in a fixed order: Who (author), When (date), What (title), and Where (source). A journal-article entry illustrates the pattern:
Smith, J. A., & Jones, R. B. (2021). Measuring open-access uptake in clinical research. Journal of Research Standards, 14(3), 220–238. https://doi.org/10.1000/jrs.2021.0143
| Element | Example | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Smith, J. A., & Jones, R. B. | Surname, then initials; invert all authors; ampersand before the last |
| Date | (2021). | Year of publication in brackets |
| Title | Measuring open-access uptake in clinical research. | Sentence case; article titles not italicised |
| Source | Journal of Research Standards, 14(3), 220–238. | Journal name and volume italicised; issue in brackets; page range |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1000/jrs.2021.0143 | Presented as a full clickable URL |
Authorship order in the reference list is not cosmetic — it carries credit. The conventions for who appears, and in what order, connect directly to broader debates about contribution and credit and the standards around authorship that CASRAI documents.
Common source types
The four-part skeleton flexes to fit different materials. A book gives author, year, italicised title in sentence case, and publisher: Brown, T. (2019). Foundations of research integrity. Academic Press. A chapter in an edited book adds the editors and book title: Lee, S. (2020). Data-sharing norms. In R. Patel (Ed.), Open science in practice (pp. 45–67). University Press. A web page gives author, date, italicised title and the site, then the URL. A dataset is treated as a recoverable output with author, year, title, a bracketed description such as [Data set], the repository, and a DOI.
DOIs as URLs
One of the clearest shifts in APA 7 is DOI formatting. A digital object identifier is now always presented as a full https://doi.org/ URL rather than the older “doi:” prefix. No full stop follows the DOI or URL, because trailing punctuation can break a link. When a DOI exists, include it for every source type that has one, online or print. The DOI is the source’s persistent address — closely related to the role of a stable identifier in the wider scholarly record.
What changed in the 7th edition
The 7th edition (2020) made several practical changes. Publisher locations were dropped from book references. The “et al.” rule now applies from the first citation for three or more authors, and the reference list may name up to 20 authors before truncating. The phrase “Retrieved from” before URLs was removed unless a retrieval date is genuinely needed. Singular “they” is endorsed as an inclusive pronoun. And the manual added explicit, format-specific guidance for student papers versus professional manuscripts.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a page number for every APA citation?
No. A page or paragraph number is required only for direct quotations and is recommended when you point to a specific passage. Paraphrased material needs author and year but no locator, though giving one is courteous when paraphrasing from a long work.
How do I cite a source with no author?
Move the title to the author position. For an in-text citation, use the first few words of the title in italics or quotation marks, matching how the work is formatted in the reference list, followed by the year. Use “n.d.” for no date.
Is APA the same as Harvard referencing?
They share the author–date family resemblance, but they are not identical. Harvard is a style family with many institutional variants, whereas APA is a single, centrally published standard with precise rules. Always follow the specific guide your publisher or institution names.
Where can I check the correct entry for an unusual source?
Consult the Publication Manual directly, or your institution’s APA guide, for materials such as conference papers, theses, software and social media. CASRAI’s guidance for authors and our research-standards dictionary can help you reason about how an unfamiliar output should be described and credited.
