How should I enter author names?

Put one author per line in `Family, Given` form, for example `Smith, Jane`. The formatter handles initialising given names and inverting order according to each style's rules.

What is the difference between APA and Harvard here?

Both are author-date styles, but APA 7th uses an ampersand before the last author and places the year in parentheses after the authors, while the Harvard variant here uses `and` and a slightly different punctuation pattern. Pick the one your institution requires.

Why does IEEE number the authors with initials first?

IEEE style lists given-name initials before the family name (`J. Smith`) and uses a numeric reference style. The formatter follows that convention, including quoting the title and italic-marking the journal in plain text.

Does this fetch anything online?

No. Unlike the DOI tool, this formatter works purely from the data you type — there is no network request, so it works offline and your input never leaves the browser.

What if I leave volume or pages blank?

Optional parts are simply omitted. The formatter only inserts the surrounding punctuation (commas, parentheses, colons) when the corresponding field has a value, so you never get dangling separators.

Citation Style Formatter

Format a citation in any major style

Enter the bibliographic details of a source and this tool renders a clean reference in your chosen style. It is built for students and researchers who have the source details in front of them and just need correct punctuation and ordering for APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, Harvard, or Vancouver.

How it works

You provide structured fields — authors, title, year, journal, volume, issue, pages. The formatter applies the punctuation and ordering rules of the selected style:

APA 7th — Author, A. B., & Author, C. D. (Year). Title. Journal, Vol(Issue), pages.
MLA 9th — Author. "Title." Journal, vol. X, no. Y, Year, pp. pages.
Chicago author-date and Harvard — author-date variants with their own punctuation.
IEEE — [n] A. Author, "Title," Journal, vol. X, no. Y, pp. pages, Year.
Vancouver — numbered biomedical style: Author AB. Title. Journal. Year;Vol(Issue):pages.

Each rule only inserts a separator when the relevant field is filled, so partial records still produce well-formed output. Everything runs locally in your browser.

Tips

For multi-author works, enter one name per line. APA, Chicago, and Harvard initialise given names; MLA spells out the first author inverted and the rest in natural order; Vancouver uses no periods between initials. If your source is a book rather than an article, leave the journal blank and the volume/issue fields empty — the title-only output is still valid for most styles.