CitePerfect
Free · private · no accountSix styles · one tool

Citation Generator for APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard & IEEE

Paste a link, DOI or ISBN, pick your style and copy a correctly formatted citation. Build your bibliography as you go. Nothing to sign up for, and your sources stay in your browser.

APA 7MLA 9Chicago 17Turabian 9HarvardIEEE
Source type
Authors (for an organisation, leave “First” empty)
APA 7 · Reference

Your APA citation appears here as you type. Start with a URL, DOI or ISBN above, or fill in the title.

Saved sources: 0 in “My paper”

One source, five styles: what actually changes

Every citation answers the same questions: who, when, what, where and how to find it. Styles differ in the order and punctuation of those answers. Pick a style and tap a part to see where it lands.

Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents. Preventive Medicine Reports, 12, 271–283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.10.003

Why APA looks like this. The date comes second. In psychology and the social sciences, how recent a study is matters almost as much as who wrote it, so APA puts the year next to the name, and the in-text citation (Twenge & Campbell, 2018) shows it too.

Once you see the pattern, every new source type is easier: find the who, when, what and where, then let the style decide the order. Want to see other ideas click into place? ahaboo turns tricky topics into clear, interactive walkthroughs you can move and adjust yourself.

A generator for each style

Each page has the rules, examples and FAQs for its style next to the tool.

7th editionAPAPsychology, education, social sciencesOpen generator →9th editionMLALiterature, languages, humanitiesOpen generator →17th edition, notes & bibliographyChicagoHistory, arts, some humanitiesOpen generator →9th edition, notes & bibliographyTurabianStudent papers using ChicagoOpen generator →Cite Them Right, 12th editionHarvardUK & Australian universities, businessOpen generator →IEEE Reference GuideIEEEEngineering, computer science, ITOpen generator →

Everything for the references page

Bibliography manager. Keep a list per paper, drag entries into order, switch the whole list to another style in one click, and export to Word, Google Docs, BibTeX or RIS for Zotero and Mendeley.

Citation format checker. Paste the references you already have. Over forty style rules flag missing periods, wrong author formats, misplaced dates and out-of-order entries, and an optional AI pass suggests corrected versions.

Research notes. Save quotes and notes against each source with the page number, and get the in-text citation ready to paste. The AI assistant can summarise a passage, pull out quotable lines or help you paraphrase.

How to cite…

Side-by-side examples in every style, with the edge cases that trip people up:

Not sure which style you need? Compare the citation styles, or read the format guides for APA, MLA and IEEE papers.

Questions students ask

Is CitePerfect really free?
Yes. There is no account, no trial and no paywall. The citation formatting runs in your browser, and the autofill and AI helpers are free to use within fair limits.
Which citation styles are supported?
APA 7th edition, MLA 9th edition, Chicago 17th edition (notes and bibliography), Turabian 9th edition, Harvard (Cite Them Right) and IEEE. Switch between them at any time and your saved sources reformat instantly.
Where are my saved sources stored?
In your browser’s local storage on this device. Nothing is uploaded to an account. You can export your bibliography to Word (RTF), BibTeX or RIS and clear everything from the privacy page.
How accurate are the citations?
The formatting follows each style’s official manual, and the examples on this site are produced by the same code. Autofilled data is only as good as the page or database it came from, so always check names, dates and capitalisation against the source.
How do I cite sources in a research paper?
Every time you quote, paraphrase or use an idea from a source, add an in-text citation (or footnote), and list the full reference at the end. Use one style consistently, the one your instructor or journal asks for. See which citation style to use.
Can I paste a citation in one style and convert it?
Yes. Open “paste a messy reference” in the generator, paste one or more references in any format, and the AI reader pulls out the details. Switch the style tab to get them in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard or IEEE.