APSA citation generator
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How to cite in APSA
APSA style comes from the Style Manual for Political Science by the American Political Science Association. It is used in political science and international relations. It is an author-date style closely based on Chicago author-date, and sources go in an alphabetical list called References.
Journal article
LeCun, Yann, Yoshua Bengio, and Geoffrey Hinton. 2015. “Deep Learning.” Nature 521(7553): 436–44. doi:10.1038/nature14539.
Book
Cormen, Thomas H., Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, and Clifford Stein. 2009. Introduction to Algorithms. 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
Website
Coltrera, Francesca. 2025. “5 Timeless Habits for Better Health.” Harvard Health. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/5-timeless-habits-for-better-health-202509243106 (September 23, 2026).
In-text citations
APSA puts the author’s last name and the year in brackets, with no comma between them. Add a page number after a comma, for example (LeCun, Bengio, and Hinton 2015, 437).
Parenthetical: (LeCun, Bengio, and Hinton 2015)
Narrative: LeCun, Bengio, and Hinton (2015)
With a page number: (LeCun, Bengio, and Hinton 2015, 437)
Frequently asked questions
Is APSA the same as Chicago author-date?
It is very close. APSA follows Chicago author-date with a few differences in punctuation and in how some sources are formatted.
How do I cite a source with four or more authors in APSA?
Use the first author followed by et al. in the text. List all authors in the reference list.
Do I include URLs and DOIs in APSA?
Yes, for sources you found online. Use the DOI when there is one.
How is the APSA reference list ordered?
Alphabetically by the first author’s last name, with sources by the same author ordered by year.