Citation Generator: One Source, Multiple Styles
A citation generator — sometimes called a citation machine or a citation tool — turns the details of a source into a formatted reference and an in-text citation. This one is a source citation generator for fifteen academic styles. Add a book, an article, or a web page once, then switch between APA, MLA, Chicago, and twelve other styles without retyping anything. The Writers Per Hour academic citation generator is free, runs in your browser, and needs no account.
How the Writers Per Hour Citation Generator Works
- Choose a style. Pick one of the fifteen styles at the top of the tool. Some styles come in more than one variant, such as Chicago Notes and Bibliography or Chicago Author-Date, and then a second menu appears.
- Find or add a source. Paste a URL, DOI, or ISBN to look up the details that are publicly available. You can also upload a PDF or a BibTeX (.bib) file, or enter the details yourself.
- Check the details. Compare the author, date, title, and publication details with the original source. Fill in anything that is missing. If a style needs a field you left empty, the form points it out instead of guessing.
- Create the citation and add it to your list. You see the reference entry and the in-text forms for the chosen style. Add the source when it looks right, and edit it later if you need to.
- Copy or export. Copy one reference or the whole list, or export the list to a new Google Doc.
Check Imported Details
A lookup or a file import fills in a draft. Nothing is added to your list until you confirm it. Some web pages and PDFs carry little or no metadata, and scanned PDFs may carry none, so the draft can be incomplete. The generator applies each style’s published rules. It does not check whether a source is reliable, and it does not know the extra rules your course may add. Compare the result with your assignment guide before you submit.
What You Can Cite
The source type decides which details a citation needs. The generator supports these types:
- Website. A web page, an online article, or a blog post.
- Journal article. A paper in a scholarly journal, usually with a DOI (a permanent identifier for the article).
- Book. A whole book, found by its ISBN or entered by hand.
- Book chapter. One chapter in an edited book.
- Report. A report from a government body, an organization, or a company.
- Video. A film, a lecture recording, or an online video.
- AI response. A reply from ChatGPT or another AI tool. Available in APA and MLA only.
The first six types work in all fifteen styles. The type menu only shows what the selected style supports.
A source type is not the same as the way you enter it. Search, manual entry, PDF, and BibTeX are four ways to fill in the same fields. So the tool can work as a PDF citation generator, but a PDF is not a style or a type of its own. A journal article saved as a PDF is still cited as a journal article.
Author–Date Styles
The text names the author and the year, for example (Smith, 2024). The reference list is alphabetical. You get a parenthetical citation and a narrative one, where the author’s name is part of the sentence.
- APA (7th ed.). Psychology, education, nursing, and other social sciences.
- Harvard (Cite Them Right, 12th ed.). Common at UK and Australian universities. Harvard has no single rulebook, so check your university’s own guide.
- ASA (7th ed.). Sociology.
- APSA (2018). Political science.
- ASCE. Civil engineering journals.
- Chicago (18th ed.) and Turabian (9th ed.), Author-Date variants. History of science, social sciences, and student papers. Turabian is the student version of Chicago.
- CSE Name-Year (8th ed.). Biology and the life sciences.
- ACS Author-Date. Chemistry.
Author–Page: MLA
MLA (9th ed.) works differently. Its in-text citation pairs the author with a page number, not a year: (Smith 24). The list at the end is called Works Cited. MLA is the usual choice for literature, languages, and the humanities.
Numeric Styles
The text shows a number, and the number leads to the matching entry in the reference list. Most of these styles number sources in the order you first cite them. CSE Citation-Name and ACM sort the list alphabetically first, then number it.
- IEEE (2018 guide). Engineering and computer science. Numbers appear in brackets, like [1].
- ACM. Computing. Brackets too, on an alphabetical list.
- AMA (11th ed.). Medicine. Superscript numbers.
- NLM (Citing Medicine, 2nd ed.). Medicine and health sciences. The full National Library of Medicine manual.
- Vancouver. Medical journals. A shorter form of the same NLM rules, so the two look alike.
- CSE Citation-Sequence and Citation-Name. The life sciences. Superscript numbers.
- ACS numeric variants. Chemistry. A superscript number or an italic number in parentheses.
Notes and Bibliography Styles
Chicago and Turabian also come in a Notes and Bibliography variant, used mostly in history and the arts. Here the citation goes in a footnote or an endnote. For each source you get a full note for the first mention, a short note for later ones, and a bibliography entry. Paste the note into the footnote your word processor creates.
Choosing a Citation Generator for College Essays
What is the best citation generator for college essays? Start with the one that covers the style your course asks for. Then look for three things: details you can see and correct, in-text citations as well as the reference entry, and a list you can keep while you write. An essay citation generator that hides its data, or cannot edit it, is hard to trust.
Looking for a free online APA citation generator? Choose APA in the style menu above. There is also a separate APA Citation Generator built around APA 7 alone.
Save, Copy, and Export to Google Docs
Your list is saved in this browser, whatever style you used for each source. It stays after a reload. It does not sync to other devices, and clearing your browser data removes it. Change the style, and the whole list is reformatted.
Searching for a Google Docs citation generator? Writers Per Hour does not offer a Google Docs add-on. Instead, the generator can export your list to a new Google Doc in the selected style. Google asks for access only when you export.
Help Beyond Citations
The generator formats sources. It does not write the paper. If you need help with research, structure, or the writing itself, Writers Per Hour is also an academic writing service. You can hire a professional writer through the order form below. That is a separate, paid service. The generator stays free.
