Enter a few details about any source, such as a book, journal article, website, film, legal case or thesis, and get a perfectly formatted reference in the style you choose, with the in-text form you need. It takes about twenty seconds.
Three steps from source to submission-ready reference.
Book, journal article, website, book chapter, newspaper article, thesis or report. The form adapts to show exactly the fields that style needs.
Authors, title, year and the source-specific fields. You can leave the author blank for sources published by an organisation or with no named author.
Get the citation in the style you picked, from 13 options including APA 7, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, IEEE and OSCOLA, with the in-text form. Expand to see every style if you like.
References carry marks, and consistent formatting protects you from plagiarism accusations.
Different courses and journals ask for different systems. APA 7 is standard across the social sciences and psychology, MLA 8/9 across the humanities, Harvard across many UK business and law schools, and OSCOLA or Vancouver in law and medicine. This generator covers 13 styles, including AMA, Chicago, IEEE, MHRA and Vancouver, so you can match your handbook without reformatting by hand.
Each result includes the full reference for your list and the short in-text form, parenthetical and narrative, so you can cite correctly the first time. Get the full method, including the mistakes that quietly cost marks, in our guide to referencing made simple.
Our formatter does not guess. References are built deterministically in code from the details you enter, so the punctuation, ordering and structure follow each style's rules consistently. What you type is what gets formatted, which is why the tool asks for the details rather than reading your mind.
The same engine powers the cleaner inside the RefineMyDraft dashboard, which reads a pasted reference list and formats every entry consistently. It pairs naturally with the rest of the application suite: cover letters, personal statements, essay review and word-count reshaping.
Everything students ask about the free citation generator.
Review any essay with explained feedback, generate a tailored personal statement or cover letter, and reshape to an exact word count. Start with a free 30-day trial.