APA 7 referencing

Placeholder photograph of reference books.

Academic integrity

This guidance supports planning and revision of your own work. It does not offer ghostwriting, invented sources, or a guarantee that a journal will publish a manuscript.

APA 7 asks you to show a reader how to find the work you used. In the text, cite the author and the year, and add a location when you quote. In the reference list, give the details that identify that specific version. A DOI, when one exists, is written as a link beginning https://doi.org/. Do not invent one, and do not translate a DOI.

Student papers and journal articles do not always share a title page. Follow the version your institution or editor requested. The checklist download on the resources page is a reminder, not a reproduction of the Publication Manual.

A practical sequence

  • Match every in-text citation to a reference entry.
  • Match every reference entry to the text.
  • Add a location for quotations.
  • Check capitalisation, italics, and DOI links against a current APA 7 example you trust.

Examples

  • Parenthetical: (Sapkota, 2026). Use a real year only when the work exists.
  • DOI form: https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx — never a guessed string.

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