Citation Generator
Generate properly formatted citations in APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, and Vancouver styles. Add multiple sources to build your bibliography, get in-text citations, and export everything as .txt. Free. No sign-up.
Add citations above to build your bibliography.
Sources are automatically sorted alphabetically.
How it works
- 1Choose source and style
Select your source type (book, journal, website, news, or video) and pick one of six citation styles.
- 2Enter source details
Fill in the author names, title, year, and other details. Add multiple authors with the Add Author button.
- 3Copy or build bibliography
Copy your formatted citation and in-text citation, or add it to your bibliography for alphabetical sorting and bulk export.
Why Proper Citations Matter
Citations serve two essential purposes in academic and professional writing. They give credit to the original authors whose ideas, data, and arguments you are building upon, and they provide your readers with a clear path to verify your claims and explore the source material further. Proper citation is not just about avoiding plagiarism — it is about participating in an ongoing intellectual conversation and demonstrating the depth of your research.
Each citation style exists because different academic disciplines have different priorities when referencing sources. Sciences prioritise the publication date because research findings can become outdated. Humanities prioritise the author and page number because close textual analysis requires precision. Engineering fields use numbered references to keep technical documents concise. Understanding why your field uses a particular style helps you apply it correctly and consistently.
The most common mistake students and researchers make is inconsistency — mixing citation styles within a single document, forgetting to include access dates for web sources, or formatting author names differently across entries. This citation generator eliminates those errors by applying the same formatting rules to every source you enter. When you switch styles, every citation in your bibliography updates to match the new format automatically.
Building a bibliography as you research — rather than scrambling to create one after you finish writing — saves significant time and reduces errors. This tool lets you add each source as you encounter it, and the bibliography stays alphabetically sorted throughout your writing process. When you are finished, export the entire bibliography as a plain text file that you can paste directly into your document.
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