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What goes in an APA reference list
An APA reference list holds every source you cited in the text, so a reader can find each one. It is not a reading list: a source you read but did not cite does not belong. APA calls it References and does not ask for a bibliography.
One kind of source is cited in the text only: a personal communication, such as an email or an interview you did yourself that nobody else can retrieve. The generator shows its in-text citation and keeps it out of the list.
An interview you conducted: in the text only
(E. Robinson, personal communication, January 4, 2019)
From sources to a finished page
- Name a list for the assignment, so a psychology paper and a nursing care plan do not mix.
- Add sources by DOI where you can. A DOI brings every detail of a journal article from the publisher’s record. Paste a column of DOIs or links at once and each is looked up.
- Fix what the lookup could not know, such as the capital on a place name in a sentence-case title, in Edit.
- Download .docx for a References page with the heading centered and bold, double-spaced, with hanging indents.
How APA sorts references
References are in alphabetical order by the first author’s last name, letter by letter, and nothing comes before something: Brown, J. comes before Browning, A. A group author such as a government agency is spelled out and sorted by its first word. Four sources as the generator sorts them:
Bernstein, M. (2002, August 16). 10 tips on writing the living web. A List Apart. https://alistapart.com/article/writeliving/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, May 15). About sleep. https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html
Hershner, S. D., & Chervin, R. D. (2014). Causes and consequences of sleepiness among college students. Nature and Science of Sleep, 6, 73–84. https://doi.org/10.2147/NSS.S62907
Walker, M. (2017). Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. Scribner.
- Works by the same author run oldest first, and a single-author work comes before one the same person wrote with others.
- Two works by the same author in the same year take letters after the year, 2020a and 2020b, ordered by title. The generator adds them when both are in your list.
- With no author, the title moves to the front and is alphabetized by its first important word.
Laying out the page in a student paper
References starts on a new page after the text, with the page number continuing at the top right. A student paper in APA 7 has no running head. The heading References is centered and bold; entries are double-spaced with a half-inch hanging indent.
DOIs and URLs are written as links, https://doi.org/ followed by the DOI, and may be live or plain text. The References page guide shows a finished page, and the APA citation generator explains each part of a reference.
No ads. No sign-up. Your list stays in your browser.
You are writing your own paper, and the tool that formats your sources should not compete with it for your attention. So there are no ads here, nothing to sign up for, and your lists are kept in this browser instead of on our server.
The generator is paid for by the Format app, which some students choose to pay for, not by ads.
Questions
Is a reference list the same as a bibliography?
Not in APA. A reference list has only the works you cited; a bibliography would add background reading. APA papers use a reference list.
Do I include sources I read but did not cite?
No. Every entry in an APA reference list must be cited in the text, and every citation must have an entry, except personal communications.
Does the References page need a running head?
Not in a student paper. APA 7 dropped the running head for students; keep the page number at the top right. Professional papers still use one.
Is the citation generator free?
Yes, every style, with no account and no limit on citations you type in. Looking up a link, DOI or ISBN is free too; a network that looks up a lot in a short time is asked for a quick human check.
Where are my citations kept?
In this browser only, in as many named lists as you like, until you clear or delete them. What you search for or look up goes to Format’s server, which asks Crossref, Open Library or the page itself. Nothing about you goes with it.
Are there ads?
No. The generator shows no ads and needs no sign-up. Your lists are kept in this browser, not on our server, and what you look up is used only to find the source.