Citation Generator

1. Pick the Citation style your college or journal asks for: APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago, Harvard or IEEE.
2. If the source has a DOI or an ISBN, paste it into Autofill from a DOI or ISBN and tap Fill in. Check the fields it fills, because databases sometimes have errors.
3. Otherwise choose the Source type (web page, book, journal article, thesis, report or online video) and fill in the authors (one per line as Surname, First name), title, date and the other fields shown.
4. The reference and the in-text citation appear on the right as you type. Notes under them tell you what's missing. Tap Copy reference or Copy in-text; italics are kept when you paste into Word or Google Docs.
5. Tap Add to list to build your reference list, then Copy all or download it as a .txt file. Tick Remember this list on this device if you want it kept for your next visit.

Citations in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard and IEEE

This citation generator formats a reference and its in-text citation in the five styles Indian universities ask for most. Engineering and computer science departments usually want IEEE. Psychology, education, management and many science courses use APA. English and humanities departments prefer MLA, and Harvard is common in commerce and in courses run with UK universities. Fill in the details, or look up a DOI or ISBN, and the citation is formatted as you type.

The same journal article in each style

Here is one article, a paper by two authors in volume 8, issue 3 of a journal, formatted five ways:

The differences are small but examiners notice them: where the year goes, whether first names become initials, which part is in italics, how page ranges are written (Chicago shortens 207–217 to 207–17), and whether a DOI is a link or a “doi:” label.

The rules the tool follows

• APA 7: surname and initials; “&” before the last author; up to 20 authors listed, then the first 19, an ellipsis and the last. In-text citations use “et al.” from three authors. No date gives “n.d.”.
• MLA 9: full first name of the first author; two authors joined with “and”; three or more become “et al.”. Titles of articles and web pages go in quotation marks, books and websites in italics. Dates are day month year (5 Mar. 2020), and “https://” is dropped from URLs but kept for DOIs.
• Chicago author-date (18th edition, 2024): up to six authors listed, more than six become the first three and “et al.”. In the text, three or more authors become “et al.”. The 18th edition no longer requires the place of publication, so it's added only if you fill it in.
• Harvard: follows the Cite Them Right version used by most UK and many Indian universities. Initials without spaces (J.S.), single quotes for article titles, “Available at:” and an access date for online sources. Four or more authors become “et al.” in the text; the reference list names every author, which most university guides ask for.
• IEEE: initials before the surname, up to six authors (more become the first author and “et al.”), titles in quotation marks, abbreviated months (Jan., Sept.), and numbered entries in the order you cite them.

Autofill from a DOI or ISBN

A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is printed on the first page of most journal articles and looks like 10.1037/ppm0000185. Paste it, and the tool asks CrossRef, the registry that issues DOIs, for the article's details. For a book, paste the 10 or 13 digit ISBN from the back cover or the copyright page, and the tool looks it up on Open Library, a free catalogue of books run by the Internet Archive. Only the DOI or ISBN you type is sent. The details you fill in yourself stay in your browser.

Always check an autofilled citation. Database titles are sometimes in capitals, author names can be incomplete, and Open Library may list the year of a reprint rather than the first edition you used.

Tips for Indian names and sources

• Type each author as Surname, First name: “Sharma, Priya”. For someone known by one name, type the name with a comma after it.
• Names written with initials first, common in South India, are usually cited under the last name: for K. V. Raman, type “Raman, K. V.”. Follow the way the author writes their name on the publication.
• Government bodies and companies are authors too. Type “Reserve Bank of India” or “NITI Aayog” with no comma.
• For a Shodhganga thesis, choose Thesis, fill in the university and paste the Shodhganga link as the URL.
• APA wants titles in sentence case (only the first word and names capitalised). The tool doesn't change your capitals, so type the title the way your style needs it.

Your college or journal may have its own version of a style. If its guide differs from what you see here, the guide wins.