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APA Style 6th edition Citation Generator
Generate references in APA Style 6th edition from a DOI or link in seconds. CitApp renders this style with citeproc, the same engine as Zotero and Mendeley, so every comma matches the spec. Free for students, no sign-up to try.
What an APA Style 6th edition reference looks like
APA Style 6th edition is an author-date style: the in-text citation gives the author surname and year in parentheses.
Rendered live from the same engine CitApp uses in the app:
Journal article
Babonis, L. S., & Martindale, M. Q. (2022). A novel regulatory gene network in cnidarians. PNAS, 119(19), e2113701119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113701119
Book
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
Web page
IPCC. (2021, August 9). Climate change 2021: the physical science basis. Retrieved July 15, 2026, from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
In-text citation
(Babonis & Martindale, 2022)
Journal article with 26 authors
Harris, C. R., Millman, K. J., van der Walt, S. J., Gommers, R., Virtanen, P., Cournapeau, D., … Oliphant, T. E. (2020). Array programming with NumPy. Nature, 585(7825), 357–362. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2
APA Style 6th edition at a glance
Read from the style file and checked against the examples above.
- Used mainly in psychology.
- For a paper with 26 authors, the reference list names the first 6, then an ellipsis and the last author.
- In the text, the same paper becomes (Harris et al., 2020).
- First names are shortened to initials.
- DOIs are printed as links (https://doi.org/...).
- Web pages include the date you accessed them.
- The reference list is sorted alphabetically by author.
- The reference list uses a hanging indent and double spacing.
- The style file was last updated in September 2016.
The guide this style follows: owl.english.purdue.edu
How APA Style 6th edition compares with APA Style 7th edition
Where APA Style 6th edition differs:
- For a paper with 26 authors, the reference list names the first 6, then an ellipsis and the last author.
- Web pages include the date you accessed them.
Frequently asked questions
How many authors does APA Style 6th edition list?
For a paper with 26 authors, the reference list names the first 6, then an ellipsis and the last author. In the text, the same paper becomes (Harris et al., 2020).
How does APA Style 6th edition handle DOIs and web pages?
DOIs are printed as links (https://doi.org/...). Web pages include the date you accessed them.
How is the reference list ordered in APA Style 6th edition?
The reference list is sorted alphabetically by author. The reference list uses a hanging indent and double spacing.
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