Free APA Citation Generator — MLA, Chicago, Harvard & More
Free citation generator for APA 7th edition, MLA 9, Chicago, Harvard, and 10,000+ styles. Paste a DOI, URL, or title — get a perfectly formatted citation in seconds.
Use one citation generator for journal articles, websites, books, preprints, datasets, and bibliography lists. Switch between APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, and Vancouver without re-entering the source.
Paste a DOI, URL, ISBN, PMID, arXiv ID, or paper title and get an instant citation plus reference-list entry in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver, or any of 10,000+ CSL styles. Copy, export to BibTeX or RIS, or generate a full bibliography in one pass.
Formatting citations by hand is slow, repetitive, and easy to get wrong. The rules change by source type and by style: APA 7 handles journal articles differently from websites and datasets, MLA depends on container structure, Chicago splits between notes-bibliography and author-date, and Harvard varies by institution. Researchers also need more than a one-off reference: they often need in-text citations, a works cited page, a bibliography, and a way to switch styles when a professor, journal, or department asks for a different format. Existing citation tools often bury bulk generation, exporting, or high-accuracy metadata behind ads or paywalls.
Key Features
- Instant DOI Lookup
- 10,000+ Citation Styles
- Reference List and In-Text Citation Support
- Batch Citation and Bibliography Generation
Tools
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is this APA citation generator free?
- Yes, the PapersFlow citation generator is completely free with no ads and no sign-up required. You can generate unlimited citations in APA 7th edition, MLA 9, Chicago, Harvard, and 10,000+ other styles.
- How do I cite a website in APA format?
- Paste the website URL into PapersFlow's citation generator and select APA 7th. PapersFlow will extract the author, title, publication date, and site name to generate the correct APA format: Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL
- What is the difference between APA 6th and APA 7th edition?
- Key changes in APA 7th: DOIs are now formatted as URLs (https://doi.org/...), up to 20 authors are listed before using ellipsis (was 7), the publisher location is no longer required, and 'Retrieved from' is dropped before URLs. PapersFlow uses APA 7th by default.
- Can I generate citations in bulk?
- Yes. Paste a list of DOIs, one per line, and PapersFlow will generate all citations at once. You can also upload a BibTeX file and convert it to any citation style, or export your entire PapersFlow library as a formatted reference list.
- Does PapersFlow support MLA and Chicago styles?
- Yes. PapersFlow supports MLA 9th edition, Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition (both author-date and notes-bibliography systems), Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver, AMA, and over 10,000 journal-specific formats via the CSL standard.
- How accurate are the generated citations?
- PapersFlow pulls metadata directly from CrossRef, OpenAlex, and PubMed — the same authoritative databases that journals and libraries use. This means author names, publication dates, volume numbers, and DOIs are sourced from publisher records, not scraped from web pages.