Journal articles are one of the most important sources of information for research papers. Often times, they will serve as your main source of information, as journal articles contain information that is specific to a topic. This page will show you how to cite journal articles in APA style, updated for the 7th edition.
Here’s a run-through of everything this page includes:
This guide will help you create journal citations in APA format. Check out this hyperlink if you are looking to create APA books citation.
This section will help you create in-text APA citations for journal articles.
In-text citations refer to the crediting of articles within the body of a work, separate from the reference page at the end of a document. An in-text citation comes after a paraphrase or a direct quote. For any APA in-text citation in your own paper, you must include a full citation in your reference page as well.
For an in-text APA journal citation that is not a direct quote, or an APA parenthetical citation, all you need to provide is the author’s last name and the year of publication.
You may provide a page number (preceded by “p.” for one page or “pp.” for multiple pages) as well if the passage or idea you are paraphrasing is on a certain page or set of pages, but this is not necessary for APA journal citations.
Narrative In-Text Citation Example:
According to Currie (2001), there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that early intervention programs can be effective.
Parenthetical In-Text Citation Example:
Research suggests that the absence of behavior problems is just as important to future success as the development of cognitive skills (Currie, 2001, p. 215).
A short quote in APA style must be fewer than 40 words. When using a direct short quote for APA citation of journal articles, you must list the author, the year of publication, the page number(s), and use quotation marks. You can embed this information within the sentence or cite it at the end of the sentence, or use a mixture of both as long as all the components are used in your APA journal citation.
Example:
According to Currie (2001), “the difficulty of overcoming poor endowments later in life—through job training programs for high school dropouts, for example—makes early intervention appear attractive as well” (p. 216).
A long quote in APA citation style (also called a block quote in APA) has 40 words or more. Like short quotes, for APA citation of journal articles, you must also cite the author, year of publication and the page number(s) for long quotes, and this information can be embedded within the sentence surrounding the quote, cited at the end of the sentence, or a mixture of both.
Unlike short quotes, long quotes in an APA citation of journal article require you to start the quote on a new line with a ½ inch indent from the left margin. Maintain double-spacing throughout the quote, and if you haven’t already embedded all the citation information in the sentence preceding the quote, include it at the end of the quote in parentheses after the closing punctuation mark. Do not use any quotation marks around a long quote for journal APA citation.
Example:
Currie’s (2001) study found the following:
Equalizing early endowments through early childhood intervention programs may be a superior approach to the problem of unequal allocations, both because it avoids many of the moral hazard problems that arise when society attempts to compensate those with poor outcomes and because early intervention to equalize allocations may be a more cost-effective way of promoting equity than compensating for unequal outcomes. (pp. 215-216)
Citing Group/Corporate Authors in APA
For a corporate author in an APA citation of a journal, use the publishing company in place of the author’s name in the citation. Place the name of the publishing company at the beginning of the citation just as you would the author’s name with proper capitalization.
Citing a Source with No Authors in APA
If no author is given, to create the APA citation of a journal, use the title of the article in place of the author information. Then, provide the publication date and publication name without repeating the article title.
This section will help you create an APA reference page or an APA bibliography.
Author names, if available, will always come first in your reference page for APA citation for journal articles. Start your reference page citation with the last name of the first author followed by a comma, followed by the author’s capitalized first initial and a period. Then list the author’s middle initial, if one is provided, followed by a period.
Example:
Follow the rules for journal article titles in APA citations.
Example:
Yu, H., & Leadbetter, J. R. (2020, July 15). Bacterial chemolithoautotrophy via manganese oxidation. Nature, 583(7816), 453–458. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2468-5
Author’s last name, Author’s first initial. Author’s middle initial. (Year, Month Date published). Article title. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page number(s). https://doi.org/—– (if available)
Jacoby, W. G. (1994). Public attitudes toward government spending. American Journal of Political Science, 38(2), 336-361. https://doi.org/10.2307/2111407
Author’s last name, Author’s first initial. Author’s middle initial., & Author’s last name, Author’s first initial. Author’s middle initial. (Year published). Article title. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page number(s).
Fearon, J. D., & Laitin, D. D. (2003). Ethnicity, insurgency, and civil war. American Political Science Review, 97(01), 75. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055403000534
The following examples show you how to format an online journal citation in APA style.
With URL
Author’s last name, Author’s first initial. Author’s middle initial. (Year, Month Date published). Article title. Online Journal Name, Volume(Issue). URL
Poiger, U. G. (1996). Rock ‘n’ roll, female sexuality, and the Cold War battle over German identities. The Journal of Modern History, 68(3). https://www.jstor.org/stable/2946768
With DOI
Author’s last name, Author’s first initial. Author’s middle initial. (Year, Month Date published). Article title. Online Journal Name, Volume(Issue). https://doi.org/—–
Poiger, U. G. (1996). Rock ‘n’ roll, female sexuality, and the Cold War Battle over German Identities. The Journal of Modern History, 68(3), 577. https://doi.org/10.1086/245343
For an APA citation journal article from a database, you are not required to include the database information. This is because APA format includes a link to the website or the DOI instead, since database information can change over time. Simply follow the format for an APA citation journal from online as described above.
Here is a video that covers journal article citations in APA style:
The DOI can typically be found on the first page of an article. For an online journal, the DOI is usually at the top of the webpage below the article’s title. It is a unique combination of numbers, letters, periods, which might appear in any of the forms below:
Sometimes, an article does not have a DOI, particularly if it is an older resource. Articles found on JSTOR may just have a stable URL instead of a DOI. If it cannot be found, use the URL in its place.
Example:
Corrigan, P.W. (2000) Mental health stigma as social attribution: Implications for research methods and attitude change. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 7(1), 28-67. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2000-13942-004
If you wish to use a quote or information from an article that is cited as coming from another source, use the reference information provided to find the original source. Find the quote within the source and reference its original author and location. If you cannot locate it, you must still cite both sources, identifying the original author and its location within the secondary source.
The volume and issue number can typically be found on the front cover of a journal. Within the pages of an article, they also might be listed in the top or bottom corners of the page. For an online journal, the volume and issue number are listed after the title of a journal.
Some other formats it might be found in:
Published May 9, 2019. Updated July 16, 2020.