What the Citation Formatter does
This citation generator formats your references in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago author-date, Harvard (Cite Them Right) or IEEE style. Paste a BibTeX or RIS export from Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote or Google Scholar, or type a reference in by hand, and it returns a correctly ordered reference list with italics, the matching in-text citation for each source, and copy-ready text or HTML.
The formatting runs in your browser from the published rules of each style: author name inversion and initials, the et al. thresholds, the order of elements, punctuation, page ranges with en dashes and DOIs as links. Nothing you paste is uploaded.
How to use it
- Choose the style your university, journal or publisher asks for.
- Paste BibTeX or RIS into the box, or drop a .bib or .ris file. Most reference managers export both; Google Scholar gives BibTeX from the Cite link.
- For a single source without an export, open "Or enter one reference by hand", fill in the fields you have and add it. Authors go one per line as Family, Given.
- Choose Format references. The list is sorted the way the style requires - alphabetically for author-date styles, in citation order for IEEE.
- Check the notes for missing fields and capitalisation, then copy the list with italics into your document, or download it as HTML, BibTeX or RIS.
Reading the results
Each reference follows the element order of the chosen style. Italics are applied to the journal and volume (APA), to book and journal titles, and to website names where the style asks for them; "Copy with italics" keeps them when you paste into Word or Google Docs.
The in-text table shows how to cite each source in your text, such as (Ray, 2004) in APA, (Ray) in MLA before the page number, (Ray 2004) in Chicago or [1] in IEEE.
Warnings list references that are missing an author, a year, a journal title or a DOI. A missing field is shown as missing - the tool never invents one.
Worked example: one journal article in all five styles
The BibTeX entry for Oakley Ray's 2004 article in American Psychologist, volume 59, issue 1, pages 29-40, with DOI 10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29, formats as follows.
APA 7: Ray, O. (2004). How the mind hurts and heals the body. American Psychologist, 59(1), 29-40. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29 - with the journal name and volume in italics.
MLA 9: Ray, Oakley. "How the mind hurts and heals the body." American Psychologist, vol. 59, no. 1, 2004, pp. 29-40. Chicago author-date: Ray, Oakley. 2004. "How the mind hurts and heals the body." American Psychologist 59 (1): 29-40.
Harvard: Ray, O. (2004) 'How the mind hurts and heals the body', American Psychologist, 59(1), pp. 29-40. IEEE: [1] O. Ray, "How the mind hurts and heals the body," American Psychologist, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 29-40, 2004, doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29. Each style also ends with the DOI in its own form.
How this differs from the Citation Coverage Checker
The Citation Coverage Checker answers a question about AI answers: are the claims in a generated response actually backed by the sources it cites? It does not format references.
This tool does the opposite job, for your own writing: it turns reference data from BibTeX, RIS or typed fields into a formatted reference list and in-text citations in one of five academic styles. If you are checking a chatbot's sources, use the Citation Coverage Checker; if you are writing a bibliography, use this.
The rules that trip people up
Author limits differ: APA 7 lists up to 20 authors, then the first 19, an ellipsis and the last; MLA uses et al. from three authors; Chicago lists up to ten, then seven and et al.; Harvard (Cite Them Right) uses et al. from four; IEEE from seven.
Name order differs too. APA, Harvard and IEEE use initials; MLA and Chicago keep full given names and invert only the first author. A reference manager export usually has the full names, so the formatter can produce either.
Limitations: what the result does not prove
- Titles are kept as entered. APA and Harvard want sentence case and MLA and Chicago title case; converting automatically would break proper nouns and acronyms, so check capitalisation yourself.
- The five styles cover the common source types: journal articles, books, chapters, web pages and reports. Unusual sources such as datasets, legal cases, patents or social media posts may need hand adjustment against the style guide.
- Harvard is a family of styles, not a single standard. This tool follows Cite Them Right; your institution's version may differ in punctuation.
- The output is only as good as the input. Reference manager exports sometimes contain wrong capitalisation, missing issues or conference names in the journal field.
Privacy: where your data goes
Everything you paste, type or drop is processed in this browser tab. It is not uploaded, logged, stored or sent to analytics. Session recording and tag-manager scripts are switched off on this page.
Standards and sources
- APA Style - references (7th edition) - checked 19 Sep 2026
- Citation Style Language 1.0.2 specification - checked 19 Sep 2026
- IEEE Reference Guide - checked 19 Sep 2026
Frequently asked questions
Which citation style should I use?
Use whatever your course, journal or publisher specifies - it is almost always stated in the author guidelines or module handbook. Psychology and education mostly use APA, humanities MLA or Chicago, UK universities often Harvard, and engineering IEEE.
How do I get BibTeX or RIS for a paper?
In Google Scholar, click Cite under a result and choose BibTeX. Zotero, Mendeley and EndNote can export selected items as BibTeX or RIS, and most publisher pages have a Download citation link. The DOI Metadata Lookup tool can also create BibTeX from a DOI.
Does APA 7 still use "Retrieved from" before URLs?
No. APA 7 shows DOIs as https://doi.org/ links and drops "Retrieved from" for most sources. It is only used when a retrieval date is needed for content that is designed to change, such as a frequently updated web page.
Why are my titles not in sentence case?
Automatic case conversion cannot tell proper nouns, acronyms and chemical names from ordinary words, so it would introduce errors. The tool keeps titles as entered and reminds you which case the chosen style wants.
What does et al. mean and when do I use it?
Et al. is short for et alii, "and others". Each style has its own threshold for when to list names and when to shorten to the first author plus et al., both in the reference list and in the text; the formatter applies them for you.
Can I switch styles after formatting?
Yes. Change the style and the same references are re-formatted and re-sorted immediately, which is handy when a journal rejects a paper and the next one wants a different style.
Last reviewed by the A2Z.Tools team against the sources listed above.
