How to Create or Generate APA Reference Entries (7th edition)
Published on November 5, 2020, by Raimo Streefkerk. Revised on January 17, 2024.
This article reflects the 7th edition guidelines of the APA Publication Manual. APA reference entries provide detailed information about a source. They’re listed on the reference page at the end of your paper and correspond to APA in-text citations in the body text.
You can easily generate APA references (and in-text citations) with Datapott Analytics’ APA Citation Generator, but it’s helpful to have a general understanding of the composition of an APA reference. It enables you to review your own work and that of any tool you might be using.
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Table of Contents
The Four Components of an APA Reference
Although the reference format differs depending on the type of source (e.g., a book, webpage, or video), they’re built from the same four components:
- Author: who is responsible for creating the work?
- Date: when was the work published?
- Title: what is the work called?
- Source: where can the work be retrieved?
Author
The author is responsible for creating the work. This can be an individual, multiple people, an organization (such as a company, government agency, or workgroup), or a combination of them. The author can be the writer of a text, but also the host of a podcast or the director of a movie.
Basic format
In an APA reference, the author’s name is inverted: start with the last name, followed by a comma and the initials, separated by a period and space.
Treat infixes, such as “Van” or “De”, as part of the last name. Don’t include personal titles such as Ph.D. or Dr., but do include suffixes.
- Smith, T. H. J.
- Van der Molen, R.
- Brown, A. T. W., Jr.
- Lee, B.-K.
Multiple authors
Separate the names of multiple authors with commas. Before the last author’s name, you should also insert an ampersand (&).
A reference entry may contain up to 20 authors. If there are more than 20, list the first 19 authors, followed by an ellipsis (. . .) and the last author’s name.
- Andreff, W., & Staudohar, P. D.
- Andreff, W., Staudohar, P. D., & LaBrode, M.
- Miller, T. C., Brown, M. J., Wilson, G. L., Evans, B. B., Kelly, R. S., Turner, S. T., Lewis, F., Nelson, T. P., Cox, G., Harris, H. L., Martin, P., Gonzalez, W. L., Hughes, W., Carter, D., Campbell, C., Baker, A. B., Flores, T., Gray, W. E., Green, G., . . . Lee, L. H.
Organizations or Groups as Author
When an organization or group is listed as the author of a source (e.g., a report or brochure), list the name in full—don’t use abbreviations. If multiple organizations or groups are responsible for creating the work, include them all in the reference entry. Do not use a comma to separate two group authors.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (not CDC)
- Microsoft & Apple
Usernames
An author’s name can also be a username (for example, a Twitter handle). If you don’t know the author’s real name, you only provide the username. If you do know the author’s real name, include the username in brackets after the author’s real name. Retain the @ symbol.
- @pewdiepie
- Trump, D. J. [@RealDonaldTrump].
Indication of Roles
If contributors have a different role than “author”, a description of their role is sometimes (but not always) included in parentheses. Check the table below to learn when to provide a role description.
Author roles in APA references
Date
The “date” component appears after the “author” component. Use the following guidelines to determine the publication date:
For books, always take the copyright date.
For journal articles, take the year in which the volume was published.
For web pages, you may use the “Last updated” date if it applies to the content you’re citing. Don’t take the copyright date from the footer of a website.
Basic format
The date of publication appears in parentheses and can take the following forms:
- (2020)
- (2020, January)
- (2020, January 15)
- (1997–1999)
In most cases, you only include the year of publication in the reference entry. Sources published more frequently (e.g., newspapers, blogs) or events taking place on specific dates (e.g., conferences, speeches) usually include the full date.
Retrieval Date
Only provide the retrieval date (i.e., the date you consulted the information) if a work is designed to change over time. Examples include:
- Online dictionary entries
- Social media profiles (not posts)
- Dashboards with statistics (like this world population counter)
The retrieval date appears after the source title and before the URL. Write the word “Retrieved” followed by the month, day, and year.
Webpage (changing over time)
Worldometer. (n.d.). World population clock. Retrieved October 20, 2020, from https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
You do not need to include a retrieval date for an online newspaper article or blog post, even though the content might change a little over time. A retrieval date is also not needed if versions are archived, as is the case with Wikipedia articles.
Same Author, Same Date
When citing multiple works from the same author, published in the same year, you need to add a lowercase letter after the year to distinguish between them. These lowercase letters are also included in the APA in-text citation.
- Cole, A. J. (2016a). Adoption of contactless payment solutions.
- Cole, A. J. (2016b). Trust differences between payment providers.
Assign the letters using the following rules:
- References with only a year precede those with more specific dates.
- References with specific dates are ordered chronologically.
- References with identical dates are ordered by their titles (disregard “A”, “An”, and “The”).
Unknown Publication Date
If the publication date is unknown, write “n.d.” for “no date” in place of the publication date.
Blog post (unknown publication date)
Scribbr (n.d.). An introduction to research methods
