How do I convert a citation from APA to MLA?

Paste your APA citation, select APA as the source style and MLA as the target style, then click Convert. The tool re-orders fields, adjusts capitalization (title case for MLA, sentence case for APA), and applies MLA punctuation rules. It also generates the matching in-text citation form.

Which citation styles does the converter support?

APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 17 (notes-bibliography and author-date), Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, and AMA. The tool handles journal articles, books, book chapters, websites, theses, conference papers, newspaper articles, and reports.

Will it convert citations in other languages?

Yes — the tool preserves the source citation's language for fields like author names and titles, and only changes the structural formatting. So a Spanish-language source cited in APA will be re-formatted to MLA with the same Spanish title and author intact.

Why use a converter instead of regenerating from scratch?

When you have an existing reference list and your professor or journal asks for a different style, regenerating each citation from scratch means re-entering author, year, title, journal, volume, issue, pages, and DOI for every entry. The converter parses the existing citation and re-formats it in seconds, dozens of citations in minutes.

Is the converter free?

Yes, free with a fair-use daily limit. For unlimited conversions and full citation generation, open GenText at app.gentext.ai (or install the Word add-in) — the free plan gives you 1,000 words a day, up to 5,000 a month, on both.

Free Citation Style Converter — Convert APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, AMA

How the converter works

Each citation style has different rules: APA uses sentence case for article titles, MLA uses title case; Chicago uses footnotes (notes-bibliography) or parentheticals (author-date); Vancouver uses numbered references; IEEE bracket-numbers them. The converter parses your source citation into its component fields — author(s), year, title, journal/publisher, volume/issue, pages, DOI/URL — and re-emits them according to the target style's rules. It also generates the matching in-text citation form: (Smith, 2023) for APA, (Smith 5) for MLA, [1] for IEEE, etc.

Common style switches by use case

APA → MLA: humanities papers, English literature classes, undergraduate research papers.
MLA → APA: psychology, education, social sciences submissions.
APA → Chicago: history, theology, art history, classics.
Chicago → APA: cross-disciplinary research moving from humanities to social sciences.
APA / MLA → Vancouver: medical journals, biomedical research.
APA / MLA → IEEE: engineering, computer science, technical papers.
Harvard ↔ APA: institutional preference between UK / European and North American norms.

What you can paste

Journal articles (the most common source type — DOI, volume, issue, pages all carried over)
Books and book chapters (publisher, edition, location)
Websites (URL, retrieval date if your style requires it)
Theses and dissertations (institution, degree level)
Conference papers (proceedings name, location, year)
Newspaper articles (publication, section, page)
Reports (publisher, report number, URL)

What it can't do (and what to do instead)

If a required field is missing in your source citation (e.g. you paste an APA citation that has no DOI but you're converting to a style that requires a DOI), the tool will output the citation with a bracketed [DOI missing] placeholder rather than fabricate one. You'll need to look up the DOI yourself. The converter also doesn't validate that the underlying citation is *correct* — if your source citation has the wrong year or a typo, the converted version will preserve that error.

For drafting citations from scratch (rather than converting existing ones), use one of our style-specific generators: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, AMA, CSE, ASA.

Frequently asked questions

How accurate is the conversion?

Citation conversion is mostly mechanical re-formatting. The accuracy depends on whether the source citation is well-formed enough to parse. If your APA citation has all the standard fields, the converted MLA/Chicago/etc. version will match the published rules exactly. Edge cases — cases with multiple editors plus translators, films with credited cinematographers, etc. — sometimes need manual review.

Can I convert a whole reference list at once?

Currently this tool converts one citation at a time. To convert a whole reference list, paste it into GenText with Paste a reference list: it becomes clean library sources, and the References block formats every entry in APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, Harvard or GB/T 7714. Switch styles with one click. The Word add-in remains optional. Paste your list into GenText.

Will it preserve italics and special characters?

Yes. Italics for journal names, book titles, and some other elements are preserved with proper formatting markers. Diacritics, non-Latin scripts, and special punctuation are also preserved.

Is my citation data sent anywhere?

The citation text is sent to our AI service for parsing and reformatting, then immediately discarded. It is not stored, logged, or used for training. Read our privacy policy for details.

How do I cite this tool in a methodology section?

You don't need to cite citation tools in a methodology section — they're a writing aid, not a data source. If your institution requires acknowledgement of AI assistance, a footnote like "Citations were initially formatted using GenText (gentext.ai) and verified manually" is sufficient.

Free Citation Style Converter

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