How to Cite a Journal Article in APA 7th Edition

Journal articles are the backbone of academic writing, and citing them correctly in APA 7th edition is essential for credibility and avoiding plagiarism. The format changed meaningfully between APA 6 and APA 7 — most notably, DOIs are now always formatted as hyperlinks and the "Retrieved from" label is gone. This guide walks through every element of a journal article citation so you get it right the first time.

Basic APA 7 Journal Article Format

The standard reference list entry for a journal article follows this pattern:

Format

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article in sentence case. Journal Name in Title Case, Volume(Issue), page–page. https://doi.org/xxxxx

The article title is not italicized. The journal name and volume number are both italicized. The issue number appears in parentheses directly after the volume, with no space, and is not italicized.

Examples

Article with a DOI (most common)

Example

Mitchell, T. R., & Thompson, L. K. (2022). Decision-making processes in high-pressure academic environments. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(6), 1243–1258. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000721

Article with no DOI but available online

If a journal article has no DOI but is freely available online, include the URL of the article instead. Do not include a URL if the article is only available via a database login — in that case, simply end the citation after the page range.

Example

Garcia, M. A., Reyes, S. L., & Kim, J. H. (2023). Screen time and sleep quality in undergraduate students: A longitudinal analysis. Sleep Health, 9(2), 187–196. https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/example-link

Field-by-Field Breakdown

Field	Format	Notes
Authors	`Last, F. M.`	Last name, then initials. List all authors up to 20. Use an ampersand (&) before the final author. For 21+ authors, list the first 19, then an ellipsis (…), then the last author.
Year	`(2022)`	Publication year in parentheses, followed by a period. Use the year the article was published, not the year accessed.
Article title	Sentence case, no italics	Capitalize only the first word of the title, the first word after a colon or dash, and proper nouns. Do not italicize.
Journal name	Title Case, italicized	Write out the full journal name — do not abbreviate. Capitalize all major words. Italicize.
Volume	Italicized number	Italicize the volume number. Do not write "Vol." before it.
Issue	`(Issue number)`	Placed in parentheses immediately after the volume, with no space. Not italicized. Omit if the journal does not use issue numbers.
Page range	`1243–1258`	Use an en dash (–), not a hyphen (-). Do not write "pp." before page numbers in a journal citation.
DOI	`https://doi.org/xxxxx`	Always format DOIs as full hyperlinks starting with https://doi.org/. Do not use the older "doi:" prefix. Include a DOI whenever one exists.

Articles with Many Authors

APA 7 expanded the author threshold compared to APA 6. You now list up to 20 authors in full. Only when there are 21 or more authors do you truncate: list the first 19, insert an ellipsis (…), then give the very last author's name. There is no "et al." in the reference list entry itself — et al. is reserved for in-text citations only.

Example — 21+ authors

Patel, R. S., Nguyen, T. A., Brown, C. L., Williams, D. J., Anderson, K. M., Thompson, L. R., Martinez, H. A., Jackson, P. B., White, S. E., Harris, F. G., Taylor, M. N., Wilson, Q. H., Moore, J. C., Thomas, O. P., Lee, V. W., Garcia, B. X., Robinson, Y. Z., Clark, I. U., Rodriguez, A. T., … Chen, W. K. (2021). Global patterns of antibiotic resistance in hospital-acquired infections. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 21(3), 345–360. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)00900-1

In-Text Citations for Journal Articles

One author

Parenthetical: (Mitchell, 2022) Narrative: Mitchell (2022) found that…

Two authors

Always name both authors, every time: (Garcia & Kim, 2023) or Garcia and Kim (2023) reported…

Three or more authors

Use et al. from the very first citation: (Patel et al., 2021) or Patel et al. (2021) demonstrated…

Same author, same year

If you cite two articles by the same author published in the same year, add a lowercase letter after the year: (Mitchell, 2022a) and (Mitchell, 2022b). The reference list entries are ordered alphabetically by article title and labeled accordingly.

Tip When quoting directly from a journal article, include the page number in the in-text citation: (Mitchell, 2022, p. 1247). If you're referencing a specific section without quoting, a page number is not required but can help readers locate the information.

Common Mistakes

Do not italicize the article title — only the journal name and volume are italicized.
Do not write Vol. before the volume number — just use the italicized numeral.
Do not italicize the issue number — only the volume is italicized, e.g., 114(6).
Do not write pp. before page numbers in journal citations (unlike book chapters, which do use pp.).
Do not use the old DOI format doi:10.xxxx — APA 7 requires the full hyperlink: https://doi.org/10.xxxx.
Do not write "Retrieved from" before the DOI or URL — this phrase was eliminated in APA 7.
Do not abbreviate the journal name — write it out in full, regardless of how it appears in the database.

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