Free Citation Generator
Paste a DOI, get a perfectly formatted APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago, or Harvard citation — with anatomy breakdown, in-text citation, and BibTeX export. 100% free and private.
What Is a Citation Generator and Why Do You Need One?
A citation generator is a tool that automatically formats bibliographic references according to a specific style guide — such as APA 7th Edition, MLA 9th Edition, Chicago Manual of Style, or Harvard referencing. Instead of manually arranging author names, italics, punctuation, and DOI links according to complex rules, you provide the article's metadata (or just a DOI) and the tool produces a correctly formatted citation.
Proper citation formatting is essential for academic integrity, avoiding plagiarism, and meeting the submission requirements of journals, universities, and publishers. Even experienced researchers spend significant time formatting reference lists — time that a citation generator can reclaim. For students writing a thesis or dissertation, formatting errors in the reference list are among the most common reasons for revision requests from supervisors and committees.
This tool fetches metadata from Crossref — the authoritative registry used by over 18,000 publishers — ensuring your citation data is accurate and complete. Unlike many competing tools, all formatting happens entirely in your browser: no data is sent to our servers, no account is required, and no usage limits apply.
Why Use This Citation Generator?
Most online citation generators are ad-heavy, inaccurate, or require paid subscriptions for basic features. This tool is built by the same team behind the G*Power-verified sample size calculator — with the same commitment to accuracy, transparency, and researcher-friendly design.
Citation Anatomy Display
See exactly which part of your citation is the author, title, journal, volume, and DOI — color-coded so you learn the rules, not just copy-paste.
Confidence Scoring
Every citation includes a confidence indicator showing whether all metadata fields were found. You always know if manual verification is needed.
4 Major Styles
APA 7th Edition, MLA 9th Edition, Chicago Author-Date (17th Ed.), and Harvard — all verified against their official manuals.
In-Text Citations
Both parenthetical and narrative in-text citation formats generated automatically. Copy directly into your paper.
BibTeX Export
Export any citation as BibTeX for LaTeX users. Copy or download as .bib file. Compatible with Overleaf, TeXstudio, and all LaTeX editors.
100% Private
Metadata is fetched from Crossref (open API). Formatting happens locally. No data stored, no tracking, no signup, no cookies.
Supported Citation Styles & Formatting Rules
APA 7th Edition (American Psychological Association)
The most widely used citation style in the social sciences, psychology, education, and nursing. APA 7 was published in 2019 and introduced significant changes from APA 6, including listing up to 20 authors (previously capped at 7), new DOI formatting as URLs, and simplified publisher location rules.
MLA 9th Edition (Modern Language Association)
Standard in the humanities, literature, languages, and cultural studies. MLA 9 (2021) uses a container-based approach to citations, where the journal is the "container" for the article. It emphasizes author names in full, uses quotation marks around article titles, and italicizes journal names.
Chicago Author-Date (17th Edition)
Used across many disciplines including history, social sciences, and natural sciences. The author-date system (as opposed to notes-bibliography) places the year prominently after the author name, similar to APA but with different punctuation and capitalization conventions.
Harvard Referencing
Widely used in the UK, Australia, and many international universities. Harvard is not governed by a single manual but follows established conventions. It places the year immediately after the author, uses sentence case for titles, and formats the journal name in italics.
Style Comparison at a Glance
| Feature | APA 7 | MLA 9 | Chicago | Harvard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Author format | Last, F. M. | Last, First M. | Last, First M. | Last, F.M. |
| Year position | After author in () | End of citation | After author, no () | After author in () |
| Article title | Sentence case | Title Case in "" | "Sentence case" | 'Sentence case' |
| Journal name | Italic | Italic | Italic | Italic |
| DOI format | https://doi.org/… | https://doi.org/… | https://doi.org/… | doi:… |
| Max authors listed | 20 | 2 + et al. | 10 | 3 + et al. |
How to Use This Citation Generator
Step 1: Find the DOI
The DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a permanent link to a published work. You can find it on the article's webpage, in its PDF header or footer, or in database records (PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus). A DOI looks like 10.1037/amp0000255 or as a URL: https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000255.
Step 2: Paste and Generate
Enter the DOI in the input field — you can paste the full URL or just the DOI number. Click Generate. The tool fetches metadata from Crossref (the authoritative DOI registry used by 18,000+ publishers) and formats it in your chosen style.
Step 3: Review the Citation Anatomy
The citation anatomy display color-codes each component — authors, year, title, journal, volume/issue, pages, and DOI — so you can see exactly how the citation is structured. This helps you learn the formatting rules and catch any issues with the source metadata.
Step 4: Check the Confidence Score
The confidence indicator tells you whether all expected metadata fields were found. A green "High Confidence" means all fields are present. Yellow means some fields (like volume or pages) are missing — common for ahead-of-print articles. Red means critical fields are missing and manual verification is recommended.
Step 5: Copy or Export
Click Copy Citation to copy the formatted text to your clipboard. For LaTeX users, click Show BibTeX to reveal the BibTeX entry, which you can copy or download as a .bib file.
Understanding DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
A DOI is a unique, permanent identifier assigned to a digital object — most commonly a journal article, book chapter, or dataset. DOIs are managed by the International DOI Foundation and resolved through services like Crossref, DataCite, and mEDRA.
Every DOI consists of a prefix (identifying the publisher) and a suffix (identifying the specific work), separated by a forward slash. For example, in 10.1037/amp0000255, the prefix 10.1037 identifies the American Psychological Association, and amp0000255 identifies the specific article.
DOIs are persistent — unlike URLs, which can change when websites are restructured, a DOI always resolves to the current location of the content. This is why citation styles now prefer DOIs over URLs for referencing published works. Since APA 7, DOIs are formatted as full URLs: https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000255.
This citation generator accepts DOIs in any format — bare DOI (10.1037/amp0000255), URL format (https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000255), or even with the older doi: prefix. All are automatically cleaned and standardized.
Frequently Asked Questions
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