Use the following template or our APA Citation Generator to cite a journal. For help with other source types, like books, PDFs, or websites, check out our other guides. To have your reference list or bibliography automatically made for you, try our free citation generator.

Reference list

Place this part in your bibliography or reference list at the end of your assignment.

Template:

Author Surname, Author Initial. (Year Published). Title. Publication Title, Volume number(Issue number), Pages Used. doi:DOI Number

Example:

Esen, E., & Collison, J. (2005). Employee development survey report. Society For Human Resource Management, V(A), 4.

In-text citation

Place this part right after the quote or reference to the source in your assignment.

Template:

(Author Surname, Year Published)

Example:

Research on how poor leadership can effect employee performance. (Esen & Collison, 2005)

Popular APA Citation Guides


Other APA Citation Guides

How do I format a parenthetical in-text citation for a journal in APA style?

APA suggests using only the author’s last name or names (in the case of two authors) and the publication year in in-text citations. Since APA in-text citations don’t include format details, you need only the author’s last name and publication year to create an in-text citation.

So, to cite a journal in the text in APA, include the last name(s) of the author(s) and the year of publication inside parentheses.

The template and example for a parenthetical citation for a journal article in APA are below:

Format

(Author’s Surname, Year)

Example

(Goldstein, 1999)

How do I format a narrative in-text citation for a journal in APA style?

APA suggests using only the author or the authors’ names (in the case of two authors) and the year in in-text citations. As in-text citation style in APA is immaterial of the type of publication (book, journal, or conference), you typically need only the author and the year to create a citation.

In a narrative citation, only the year of publication is given inside parentheses.

To format a narrative in-text citation for a journal in APA style, use the author name followed by the year in parentheses.

Below you will find a one-author example of how to write a narrative citation for a journal in APA:

Format

Author’s Surname (Year)

Example

Mathews (1998)