APSA citation generator

Stress-free and accurate citations with the BibGuru APSA citation generator

Getting citations and reference lists done correctly can be very confusing and time-consuming. That's why we developed BibGuru—to let you concentrate on your writing instead of stressing over how to format your references properly. We believe students shouldn't have to spend hours manually entering information or risk losing points due to citation errors.

BibGuru is a quick and easy-to-use APSA citation generator built with students in mind. Its efficient search tool lets you find books, websites, and journal articles and instantly add them to your bibliography. Start citing now:

What is the APSA citation style?

The Style Manual for Political Science, Revised 2018 Edition is published by the APSA (American Political Science Association) and contains style requirements for all APSA membership-wide academic journals. APSA style, in most instances, follows guidelines outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition.

This guide focuses on the citation and reference list guidelines from the APSA. While the Chicago style details two separate citation styles, the notes and bibliography style, and the author-date style, APSA journals employ only the author-date style. Sources are briefly cited in the text (usually in parentheses, author's last name and year of publication), and matched up with an entry in a reference list with full bibliographic information.

How to cite in the APSA author-date style

A parenthetical citation is set off at the end of a sentence by parentheses. The usual format, which refers to the work and the overall ideas of the work as a whole, requires only the last name of the author(s), editor(s), or translator(s) and the year of publication. There should be no comma placed between the last name and year of publication. For example: (Axler 2017)

Page or chapter numbers must be included for direct quotes, and should be included to point to specific data sets, ideas, or to avoid ambiguity.

When there are two or three authors, cite all names each time and use an "and" in between:

(Halliday, Resnick, and Walker 2013)

When four or more authors are cited, use et al. after the first author's name, even in the first reference.

The Reference list in the APSA style

Reference lists must list each source used in the author’s research. Each reference must also explicitly link to at least one parenthetical citation in the manuscript. All references must be listed in alphabetical order. Here are some examples of reference list entries in the APSA style:

While all the specific rules of the APSA citation style might sound very complicated, you don't need to worry about getting them wrong with BibGuru. Use our APSA citation generator above to create the fastest and most accurate APSA citations possible.

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