Format citations in APA, MLA, and Chicago style simultaneously. Enter source details once and see all three formatted outputs side by side. Supports book, journal article, and website sources. Copy any style with one click.
Choose Book, Journal Article, or Website. Fill in the author, title, year, publisher/journal, and URL/DOI fields. The formatter shows which fields are required for each style.
All three formatted citations — APA, MLA, and Chicago — appear simultaneously as you type. Colour-coded panels make it easy to compare the differences in punctuation, capitalisation, and field order between styles.
Click Copy under any panel to copy that citation to the clipboard. Use "Copy All" to copy all three formats at once (useful when writing for multiple audiences). Toggle between APA 7th and APA 6th edition in the APA panel.
APA: used in social sciences; author-date in-text citations (Smith, 2023); emphasises publication date; used in psychology, education, nursing. MLA: used in humanities (literature, arts); author-page in-text citations (Smith 45); emphasises author and page; used in English, language, arts. Chicago/Turabian: two systems — Notes-Bibliography (footnotes/endnotes + bibliography, used in humanities and history) and Author-Date (parenthetical + reference list, used in sciences). Choice depends on your discipline.
APA in-text: (Last Name, Year) or (Last Name, Year, p. #) for quotes. Example: (Orwell, 1949, p. 3). MLA in-text: (Last Name Page#) with no comma. Example: (Orwell 3). Chicago Notes-Bibliography uses footnotes or endnotes with full citation first time, then shortened version. Chicago Author-Date uses (Last Name Year, #) similar to APA.
Chicago Manual of Style is the full style guide used by professional publishers and academics. Turabian is a simplified version adapted for student papers. Turabian's A Manual for Writers (named after Kate Turabian) follows Chicago but is streamlined for thesis and dissertation writing. Most university courses that specify "Chicago style" accept Turabian formatting.
Yes — significantly. APA uses sentence case for titles (only the first word and proper nouns are capitalised): "The psychology of learning." MLA uses title case (major words capitalised): "The Psychology of Learning." Chicago uses title case for book/article titles in the bibliography but sentence case for titles in footnotes if the author prefers. Always check your style's specific capitalisation rules.
APA 7th: Author Last, Initials. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL. MLA 9th: Last, First. "Title of Page." Site Name, Day Month Year, URL. Chicago (N-B): Last, First. "Title of Page." Site Name. Month Day, Year. URL. All three styles require the URL. APA and Chicago may include access dates for pages that may change; MLA always includes the access date if a publication date is unavailable.
For physical books and printed journals: always include page numbers for direct quotes. For in-text: APA uses "p." for one page and "pp." for range. MLA and Chicago use just the number(s). For websites and online articles: use paragraph number ("para. 3") when no page numbers are available in APA. MLA and Chicago typically do not require paragraph numbers for web sources.
