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MLA to APA converter

Paste MLA references, get APA. Free, no sign-up.

Paste references written in MLA and get them back in APA, ready to copy into Word or Google Docs. The main changes: author–page in-text citations become author–date citations, your “Works Cited” list becomes “References” and titles switch to sentence case. CiteSwap looks each reference up in the open Crossref catalogue, so authors, years and page numbers come from the publisher’s record rather than being rewritten by hand.

MLA vs APA: the same sources side by side

Each example below was formatted by CiteSwap’s engine, exactly as the converter outputs it.

Journal article

MLA

Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack. “The Long-Run Poverty and Gender Impacts of Mobile Money.” Science, vol. 354, no. 6317, Dec. 2016, pp. 1288–92, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5309.

In-text: (Suri and Jack 1290)

APA

Suri, T., & Jack, W. (2016). The long-run poverty and gender impacts of mobile money. Science, 354(6317), 1288–1292. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5309

In-text: (Suri & Jack, 2016, p. 1290)

Book

MLA

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Heinemann, 1958.

In-text: (Achebe 1290)

APA

Achebe, C. (1958). Things fall apart. Heinemann.

In-text: (Achebe, 1958, p. 1290)

Web page

MLA

World Health Organization. “Malaria.” World Health Organization, 4 Dec. 2023, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria.

In-text: (World Health Organization 1290)

APA

World Health Organization. (2023, December 4). Malaria. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malaria

In-text: (World Health Organization, 2023, p. 1290)

Key differences between MLA and APA

11 of 12 rules differ; they are listed first.

RuleMLAAPA
Reference list headingWorks CitedReferences
In-text citationsauthor and page number in parentheses with no comma, e.g. (Suri and Jack 1290)author and year in parentheses, e.g. (Suri & Jack, 2016), with a page number for quotations
Author namesFirst author inverted with full names, the second in normal order, e.g. Suri, Tavneet, and William JackSurname and initials for every author, e.g. Suri, T., & Jack, W.
Many authorsThree or more authors: first author followed by “et al.”List up to 20 authors; for 21 or more, give the first 19, an ellipsis, then the last author
DateNear the end, after the journal or publisher detailsStraight after the authors, in parentheses: (2016).
Title capitalisationTitle caseSentence case
Article titlesIn quotation marks, title casePlain text, no quotation marks, sentence case
ItalicsContainers: journal, website and book titlesJournal name and volume number; book and report titles
Journal namesFull journal name in title case, followed by vol. and no.Full journal name in title case
Page rangesShortened range with “pp.”, e.g. pp. 1288–92Full page range, e.g. 1288–1292
DOIs and linksDOI written as https://doi.org/… at the end; URLs without “https://” are also acceptedDOI as a link: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5309
List order(same)Alphabetical by first author’s surnameAlphabetical by first author’s surname

When to use APA

APA is the default in psychology, education, nursing, business and most social sciences, and many universities use it as their house style for coursework and dissertations. It is published by the American Psychological Association; CiteSwap follows the 7th edition (2020).

MLA is more common in literature, languages, cultural studies, while APA is usual in psychology, education, nursing. If your department or journal names a style, always follow it.

MLA to APA: frequently asked questions

How do I convert MLA citations to APA?

Paste your MLA reference list into the box above (one reference per line, numbered, or separated by blank lines), check that “From” says MLA or Auto-detect and “To” says APA, then press Convert. You can also paste DOIs, BibTeX or RIS. Copy the result or download it for Word.

How do in-text citations change from MLA to APA?

MLA uses author and page number in parentheses with no comma, e.g. (Suri and Jack 1290). APA uses author and year in parentheses, e.g. (Suri & Jack, 2016), with a page number for quotations. For the same article and page: MLA gives (Suri and Jack 1290), APA gives (Suri & Jack, 2016, p. 1290).

What is the reference list called in APA?

In MLA the list is headed “Works Cited”; in APA it is “References”. Change the heading when you paste the converted list into your document.

Do titles need different capitalisation in APA?

Yes. APA uses sentence case, capitalising only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns. CiteSwap keeps titles as the publisher’s record has them, so check that capitals on ordinary words are lowered, because catalogues often store titles in title case.

How are author names written in APA?

APA: Surname and initials for every author, e.g. Suri, T., & Jack, W. MLA: First author inverted with full names, the second in normal order, e.g. Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack. When a reference is matched in Crossref, CiteSwap uses full first names from the publisher’s record, so it can produce either form.

Is the MLA to APA converter accurate?

Each reference is matched against the Crossref catalogue (over 150 million records) and only accepted automatically when the title, year and first author agree. Anything uncertain is marked “Needs review” so you can pick the right match, and references that aren’t in the catalogue, like websites or local journals, are parsed from your text and marked so you can check them.