Apps, Extensions, and AI Tools to Help With APA Citations
Many colleges and universities, including Purdue Global, rely on the American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual to guide writing usage and grammar style. While the best resources for APA Style are both the website and the publication manual itself, if you’re in the middle of research and need help, you can get some quick aid from citation generators.
From APA citation apps to browser extensions, websites, and AI-powered tools, here are citation management tools that can help.
Websites for Citations
Several websites can help generate citations in APA Style and other styles. When looking for a citation generator, check that it appropriately cites different sources and review your citations for accuracy before submitting any class assignments.
Academic Writer is a tool that is offered by many institutions, including Purdue Global, to help students write in APA Style. It is developed by the APA and includes videos and tutorials about APA Style. You can also manage your references and format your paper by creating an account within the site.
This tool allows students to create references in APA and a variety of other formats. You can either enter the information manually or search for a source by name or URL, and Citation Machine will fill it in automatically.
Cite This For Me is a free citation generator that can create citations in APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, ASA, IEEE, and AMA styles. The site is fairly bare-bones, providing only the generator and some general guidance on when citations are appropriate.
This web-based citation generator offers a simple interface and quick results. It gives you results in MLA, APA, Chicago, or Harvard format. If you include artwork that was generated by AI, Formatically has a tool to help you properly cite it.
This old-style online citation generator creates a basic citation for books in APA format. Choose APA from the menu on the left and fill out the fields to create a citation.
Mendeley is an all-inclusive research tool. It is primarily used as a document organizer and research aid, but it also generates references, citations, and bibliographies in a number of different styles.
This web-based generator is easy to use and walks you through everything you need to do to get APA citations. It also offers citation styles such as AMA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, MLA, and more. Be sure to use the most recent version of APA (7th edition) when you use this citation generator.
Scribbr is an easy-to-use online citation generator that uses the 7th edition of APA Style. The generator is free for students. Scribbr also offers a plagiarism checker, spell checker, and grammar proofing.
Zotero is a robust research tool available for download and includes a quick version for use online. While the program is helpful for many types of research, it also offers a feature that creates references and bibliographies for any text editor and directly inside Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs.
Citation Apps
About 40% of U.S. website users browse the web and work on their mobile devices as of July 2026, according to StatCounter. A number of mobile-first citation apps are available to help with APA citations, including:
Author (Apple)
This paid app, available for Apple devices, provides a tailor-made writing environment. It provides a word processor that automatically saves and works well with Apple apps such as Reader. As part of the tool, you can automatically create citations by copying text from a PDF in the companion Reader app and pasting it into Author as a full citation. You can also paste a BibTeX entry or DOI from an academic PDF.
APA, Harvard & MLA Generator (Google Play)
This free app generates citations in APA, MLA, or Harvard referencing styles.
Citation Maker (Google Play)
This app has an easy-to-understand layout that produces both MLA and APA formats and supports a variety of resource formats. It also gives you a preview as you type and can even create citations with incomplete information. Some reviews suggest you double-check results produced by Citation Maker for capitalization errors.
Cite It Now: Easy Referencing (Apple)
This iPad app will scan a book's barcode and serve up citations in a variety of styles, including APA. It also supports university-specific styles and will use the correct one required.
Chrome Browser Extensions
About 52% of U.S. online users prefer Google Chrome for their browser, according to StatCounter. One appeal of this browser is its robust selection of extensions. Several Chrome extensions can help you create APA citations.
This AI-powered, browser-based tool can read a webpage and extract metadata (author, date, etc.) to instantly create an APA 7th edition citation.
Bibcitation Bibliography & Citation Generator
This extension works with websites and journal articles, generating citations in MLA, APA, Chicago, and more styles. It can add citations to a list if you have an account with Bibcitation.com.
Citationsy – Cite Websites and Papers
This tool cites articles, books, papers, podcasts, songs, websites, and more. It supports APA, Harvard, MLA, and many other reference styles.
This extension automatically creates citations in APA, MLA, Chicago, or Harvard styles. Navigate to the webpage you want to cite, then click the button to generate the citation.
This toolbar not only generates citations but also gives you advice on the credibility of the website you’re citing, which can help with the overall strength of a paper or other work. It will format, alphabetize, and make your bibliography ready to use.
MyBib: Free Citation Generator
This simple browser extension creates APA, MLA 8, and Harvard referencing-style citations that can be downloaded and pasted into Microsoft Word. The extension works with any URL, including PDFs hosted online.
This free, AI-powered extension integrates its citation generator with its paraphrasing tool, making it easy to cite while you're rewriting text. It lets you create citations in APA Style, organize them, and export them directly as a formatted list.
Featured in the “Websites for Citations” section above, Scribbr also makes an AI-powered Chrome extension that provides citations for any webpage in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard styles.
How Do You Cite AI in APA Style?
While it’s not ethical to submit AI-generated work as your own original writing, it is acceptable to use it for brainstorming, formatting, and proofreading help. If you use an idea from an artificial intelligence tool in your research/writing, do you need to cite it?
Yes. In 2025, the APA published guidance on how to cite generative AI in APA Style, stating, “Thus, we encourage authors to err on the side of thoroughness and transparency by including citations and references for AI in their APA Style papers.”
Read the APA’s advice on AI citations. It gives examples of how to cite content from an AI chat and AI tools in general.
13 APA Formatting Guidelines and Style Tips
The following guidelines provide a quick overview of APA Style. For more detailed instructions and examples, see our guide to formatting papers using APA Style.
Basic APA Guidelines
1. Margins: Use 1-inch margins on all sides of the page.
2. Font: Use the same, legible font throughout the entire paper. Acceptable fonts include 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, 12-point Times New Roman, and 11-point Georgia. Check out the font page of the APA site to see which additional fonts are allowed.
3. Line spacing: Double-space the entire paper, including the title page, block quotations, and the reference list. Do not add blank lines before or after headings or extra spacing between paragraphs.
4. Paragraph alignment and indentation: All paragraphs should align to the left margin. Leave the right margin ragged, and don’t use full justification.
5. Page numbers: Put a page number in the top right of every page header, including the title page, starting with page number 1.
6. Placement of tables and figures: There are two options:
- Place all tables and figures on separate pages after the reference list.
- Embed each table and figure within the text after its first callout.
Call out the table or figure in the text before embedding it (e.g., write “see Figure 1” or “Table 1 presents”).
Reference List Guidelines
7. Alphabetize references by the last name of the first author of each source.
8. Capitalize all major words in the title of a journal.
9. Capitalize only the first letter in article titles. If there’s a colon in the title, capitalize the first letter after the colon. Do not underline, italicize, or put the title in quotation marks.
10. Italicize the titles of books and journals.
11. Use a hanging indentation for each reference. The first line of the reference should be aligned to the left, but each additional line should be indented.
Final Checks
12. Check page order: Each section should start on a new page. Arrange pages in the following order:
- Title page (page 1)
- Text (starts on page 2)
- Reference list (starts on a new page after the text)
13. Check headings: Headings should reflect the content in each section.
- Start each main section with a Level 1 heading.
- Use Level 2 headings for subsections of the introduction.
- Use the same heading level for sections of equal importance.
- Avoid having only one subsection within a section (have two or more or none).
Two resources from the APA that provide further guidance:
- Style and Grammar Guidelines
- A step-by-step guide for creating and formatting APA Style student papers
If you need additional help, check with your university writing center.
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