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APA Format Citation Generator for Journal Article – An Ultimate Tool for Students and Scholars

APA referencing style for journal article, book, and newspaper appeared in 1929. This style is older than all authors, students, and researchers who use it today! It was invented by the American Psychological Association to cite outside sources used to create scientific projects in social disciplines like Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, etc. Modern scholars, scientists and college students like you cannot avoid using outside resources to compose a compelling and insightful paper. Therefore, they use APA to indicate quotations and give credit to other authors.

Formatting is crucial for every person who works in an academic or scientific environment and crafts different types of written projects. Consistent formatting will help you create a well-organized and correctly structured work so that your readers won’t have to wander through the content you have written. In a word, correct formatting helps writers improve the quality of their papers. At the same time, poor formatting can spoil one’s grade or even become an issue for those who want to publish their projects in academic journals. Also, if you don’t want to win a bad reputation of a plagiarizer, then you have to pay special attention to correct formatting.

The best way to avoid any problems with formatting is to visit our website and use our free APA journal article citation generator designed for you! Whether you are a student, publisher, editor, researcher or a writer, this fantastic tool will come in handy. You can use it to cite not only articles but also books, websites, newspapers, textbooks, and other sources – both print and online. By the way, not only APA is available but also MLA, Chicago/Turabian, Harvard, Oxford, AMA and other styles. Make sure to use this tool every time you need perfect citations and references!

A small guide on how to create a correct APA in-text journal citation

APA is based on the so-called author-date method of formatting. Therefore, to create an in-text citation, you have to mention author’s last name and year of publication within the text: (Johnson, 1999). Also, a complete reference that includes full information about the source should appear in the reference list found at the end of the paper.

If you use a direct quotation, it means that you just copy a sentence from an outside source and paste it into your paper. In this case, make sure to add a page number in you in-text citation: (Johnson, 1999, p. 45). If you use a paraphrased quote or indicate an entire book, article or other documents, you only have to include author’s last name and year of publication. In this case, the page number is not necessary. Remember that all documents cited within the text should be listed at the end of your paper in the alphabetical order.

Here are some ground rules that will help you create a correct APA in-text journal citation:

  • Proper nouns should be capitalized. Pay special attention to the names of authors and their initials: S. Freud.
  • If you mention a title of an article or a journal in your paper, make sure to capitalize words that contain more than 4 letters: Capitalism and Freedom. There is an exception for short nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and pronouns: New Media Communications: There Is Nothing Left Uncovered. However, please note that this rule is for your in-text citations only. When creating a reference list, capitalize only the first word of the title: New media communications.

Please note: When using signal phrases to define a source or an author, make sure to use the present perfect or past tense: Johnson (1999) found or Johnson (1999) has found…

Check out these journal article citation examples:

  • Direct quotation when the author is mentioned in a sentence: According to Johnson (1999), “Most students have difficulties with APA style and therefore use APA format citation generator for journal article” (p. 10).
  • Direct quotation when the author is not mentioned in a sentence: Author stated, “APA is a formatting style that can be difficult for students who use it for the first time” (Johnson, 1999, p. 11).
  • Paraphrased quotation: According to Johnson (1999), formatting can be challenging.

Formatting can be a real challenge for college students (Johnson, 1999, p. 10).

APA referencing style for journal article – creating a reference list

  • The general structure for the printed article:

Author’s Last Name, Author’s Initials. (Year Published). The title of the Article. The title of the Journal, Volume (Issue), pp.-pp.

  • Example:

Melville, H. (1997). How can technologies change the classroom space? Journal for Educators: Modern Trends in the Educational Environment, 12(4-5), 67-69.

  • The general structure for the online article:

Author’s Last Name, Author’s Initials. (Year Published). The title of the Article. The title of the Journal, Volume (Issue), pp.-pp.

  • Example:

Kurz, K. T. (2000). Research on educational technology and e-leadership in education. American Journal on Technology and Education, 66(4), 677-700. DOI: 10:1111/jet.12345

And now we will provide a small guide on how to cite an article with multiple authors:

  • Two authors:

Include both last names in the text when you use their words: Jameson and Brown (2000) have found…

Or: Modern educators are worried about possible consequences of technological ‘boom’ in the educational environment (Jameson & Brown, 2000, p. 23).

  • Three-five authors

When you use a source for the first time, provide all last names. Mention only the first author’s last name with abbreviation “et al.” for further quotations:

Chen, Brown, Wallace and Johnson (2000) found…

Chen et al. (2000) described…

  • Six and more authors

If an article written by six or more authors, provide the last name of the first author followed by “et al.” from your first quotation to the last one:

Stevenson et al. (2013) claimed that Gestalt psychology is a weak therapy method because…

Gestalt psychology is considered as a weak therapy (Stevenson et al., 2013).

Don’t forget that our online citation tool can help you create correct references in a matter of seconds! Try it right now as it’s free and easy-to-use!