Most citation problems are not formatting problems. They are missing-information problems — you sit down to cite something and cannot tell what counts as the author, or what the thing is even called. This page is about that step.
APA, MLA, Chicago, and the rest disagree about punctuation, but they agree almost completely about what a reader needs in order to find your source again. Every style asks the same five questions, and each one maps onto a part of the entry.
Once you have those five answers, the style decides their order and their punctuation. Take one journal article and watch the same facts rearrange themselves:
This is why collecting the details is the transferable skill. Get the five answers once and you can produce the entry in any of the nine styles — which is what the generator on this site does for you.
A PDF is not a source type. It is a file format. A PDF is almost always a journal article, a report, or a book chapter, and you cite whichever of those it is. Citing something as “a PDF” is the most common way to lose the container.
The container is not always the website you were on. An article you reached through a library database is still a journal article in its journal. The database is how you got there, not what the thing is.
Social media and video keep the original wording. A post has no title, so styles use the first words of the post itself, and the username stays exactly as written — capitalisation included.
The fields below are the ones the generator asks for. Detailed guides for each type are being written and published in batches.
Websites are the most common source students cite. A website citation typically needs the author, page title, site name, publication date, and URL.
Collect: Author · Page title · Site name · Publication date · URL
Books are a cornerstone of academic writing. A book citation usually requires the author, title, publisher, and publication year.
Collect: Author · Book title · Publisher · Publication year · Edition
Journal articles are peer-reviewed research and the backbone of most citations. They require author, article title, journal name, volume, issue, pages, and a DOI.
Collect: Author · Article title · Journal name · Volume · Issue · Pages · DOI
Videos, especially YouTube, are increasingly cited in student work. A video citation needs the creator, title, platform, upload date, and URL.
Collect: Creator · Video title · Platform · Upload date · URL
Podcasts are a modern source type. A podcast citation needs the host, episode title, podcast name, date, and URL.
Collect: Host · Episode title · Podcast name · Date · URL
PDFs are usually reports, papers, or guides hosted online. Treat a PDF by its underlying source type, adding a URL when available.
Collect: Author · Title · Date · Publisher · URL
Newspaper articles are common in current-events papers. They need the author, article title, newspaper name, date, and page or URL.
Collect: Author · Article title · Newspaper name · Date · Pages · URL
E-books are cited like print books with the addition of a DOI or URL and the e-book format note.
Collect: Author · Title · Publisher · Year · DOI or URL
Lectures and course materials are cited with the instructor, lecture title, course, institution, and date.
Collect: Instructor · Lecture title · Course · Institution · Date
Social media posts (tweets, posts) need the author handle, the content, platform, date, and URL.
Collect: Author · Content · Platform · Date · URL
Images and artwork are cited with the creator, title, date, and the museum or collection where they are held.
Collect: Creator · Title · Date · Museum or collection · URL
Datasets need the author, title, repository, version, year, and a DOI for proper citation.
Collect: Author · Title · Repository · Version · Year · DOI
Reports are usually published by organizations. They need the author or organization, title, publisher, year, and report number.
Collect: Author or organization · Title · Publisher · Year · Report number · URL
Theses and dissertations need the author, title, document type, institution, and year.
Collect: Author · Title · Type · Institution · Year
Dictionary entries are cited with the entry title, dictionary name, publisher, year, and URL.
Collect: Entry title · Dictionary name · Publisher · Year · URL
Almost every citation is built from the same five questions: who made it, when, what is it called, where does it sit, and how do I find it again. Which of the five you can answer determines what the entry looks like.
Move the title into the author position. In APA and MLA the entry is then alphabetized by the title's first significant word, and the in-text citation uses a shortened form of the title instead of a surname.
APA uses (n.d.), Harvard usually writes out no date, and MLA simply omits the date and often adds an access date instead. Do not guess a year from a copyright notice that covers the whole website.
For online sources, yes — but prefer a DOI when the source has one, because a DOI keeps resolving after a site is redesigned. MLA drops the https:// prefix by convention; APA and Harvard keep the full link.
No. The style is set by your course or journal and applies to every source in the paper. The source type only decides which fields go into the entry and in what order.