Forty References in Six Minutes: Escaping the Horror of Manual APA Formatting
How an OSCOLA citation generator handles footnotes and case names, what a DOI lookup can and cannot fetch, and how to build a whole bibliography in one pass.
Citation Generator: APA, MLA, OSCOLA, IEEE & More
Generate APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 17, Harvard, OSCOLA, IEEE, and Vancouver citations with batch URL queue and DOI auto-fill.
What the citation generator does
It builds the reference entry and the matching in-text citation from the details of a source: author, title, year, publisher, URL or DOI. APA 7 is the default because it is the most common style in psychology, education, business and the social sciences, and the same tool also produces MLA 9, Chicago 17, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver and OSCOLA.
Paste a URL or a DOI and the metadata is fetched and filled in; every field stays editable, which matters because automatic metadata is wrong often enough that a reference nobody checked is a reference that can lose marks.
How to cite a source in APA 7
- Choose the source type: website, journal article, book, chapter or report. The fields differ, and choosing the wrong one is the most common reason an entry looks almost right.
- Fill the author field as surname plus initials, one author per line. Two authors are joined with an ampersand; three or more use the first author and "et al." in text, and all of them in the reference list.
- Add the year, the title in sentence case, and the source: the journal with volume and issue, or the site name, or the publisher.
- Add the URL or DOI, without a full stop after it.
- Copy the reference and the in-text form together. A reference list with no matching in-text citations is the second most common way to lose marks on referencing.
A worked example
A web page from the World Health Organization on depression, published 31 March 2023. The APA 7 reference is: World Health Organization. (2023, March 31). Depression. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression
The in-text form is (World Health Organization, 2023). A second citation in the same paragraph keeps the year; the third and later ones in that paragraph may drop it. If the page has no date, the year becomes (n.d.), and the retrieval date is only added when the content is designed to change, such as a live dashboard.
Mistakes worth avoiding
Title case where sentence case is required. APA capitalises only the first word of a title, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns.
Leaving the period after a DOI or URL. In APA 7 there is no full stop after a link, because it can break the link.
Citing the aggregator instead of the source. The reference names the site that published the page, and the author is the organisation when no person is named.
Mixing editions in one list. APA 6 and APA 7 differ in how many authors are listed and where the publisher sits; a list that mixes them is visible to any marker.
Where your sources go
Nowhere. The style engine runs in this tab; the URLs you paste are used to fetch public metadata and are not stored on a server or tied to an account.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I generate an APA 7 citation?
Pick APA 7 as the style, choose a source type (journal, book, website…), then fill the fields or paste a URL/DOI and press Fetch to auto-fill metadata from Crossref/DataCite. The formatted reference and in-text citation appear instantly.
Is my bibliography saved locally?
Yes. Every entry you add to the bibliography is stored in your browser’s localStorage; it survives reloads and never leaves your device. Export any time with Copy all, Download .txt, or Send to Text Studio.
Which citation styles are supported?
Over 40 styles grouped by family: APA 6/7, MLA 8/9, Chicago 17 (full note and author–date), Turabian, Harvard variants, IEEE, Vancouver, AMA, ACS, CSE, NLM, OSCOLA, Bluebook, McGill, MHRA, SBL, ABNT, GOST, Nature, Science, PLOS, Cell, and more.
Can I copy footnotes for Chicago or OSCOLA?
Yes. Note-based styles show the full footnote as the citation preview. Copy citation copies exactly what you paste into your document, and the Footnotes box collects every note for bulk export.
Why should I review fetched metadata?
Databases occasionally miss fields or return partial records. The review hint flags gaps so your final reference is accurate, and nothing is auto-submitted anywhere.
Is this APA 6 or APA 7?
APA 7 by default, which is the current edition. APA 6 is still available from the style list for courses that have not updated, but mixing the two in one reference list is not valid.
How many authors should I list?
In APA 7, up to 20 authors are listed in the reference; beyond that, the first 19, an ellipsis and the last author. In text, two authors are always both named, and three or more become "et al." from the first citation.
What if the page has no author?
Move the title into the author position. If the title is long, use the first few words in the in-text citation, in quotation marks.
Can I cite a whole reading list at once?
Yes. The batch tab takes a list of URLs or DOIs, cites each one, removes duplicates and exports the combined list.
Does it produce BibTeX or RIS?
Yes, for the styles that support export, which is what makes the same entries usable in a reference manager rather than only in a document.