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Free APA 7 tool
APA Style Reference Organizer and Formatter
Alphabetise your references and preview an APA-style reference list with hanging indents and double spacing. Free to organise, copy and download, without watching an advert to unlock the result.
Paste your references
Add one complete reference per line. The tool sorts the entries and preserves the details you supply.
Use *asterisks* to mark text for italics. Keep each complete reference on one line, including any DOI or URL.
Your organised reference list
Review the result before adding it to your assignment, thesis or report.
References
No references organised yet.
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APA Style Reference Organizer and Formatter
Organising an APA 7 reference list can be surprisingly time-consuming, particularly when an assignment contains dozens of books, journal articles, reports and online sources.
Our free APA Style Reference Organizer and Formatter helps psychology and social science students alphabetise references and create a cleaner reference list with hanging indents and double spacing.
Simply paste your references, organise them and copy or download the result for use in Word. No account or rewarded-ad unlock is required.
How to organise your APA 7 references
Copy your references into the text box, placing each complete reference on a separate line.
Use asterisks around text that should appear in italics, such as Journal Title or Book Title.
Select Organise references.
Review the alphabetised list, then copy or download it.
The tool produces an APA-style layout with a centred References heading, hanging indents and double-spaced entries.
How should APA 7 references be ordered?
APA 7 reference lists are generally arranged alphabetically by the surname of the first author, or by the name of the organisation responsible for the work.
When multiple publications share the same author or author group, additional ordering rules apply, including chronological ordering. More complex cases, such as different combinations of co-authors, may require manual attention.
The free organiser provides basic alphabetical sorting and straightforward date ordering. It does not replace a complete check of APA 7 reference-list rules.
What is a hanging indent?
A hanging indent keeps the first line of a reference aligned with the left margin while indenting subsequent lines by 0.5 inches (1.27 cm).
This makes individual references easier to distinguish and is a standard feature of APA 7 reference lists.
The generator displays references using hanging indents and double spacing, with no additional blank paragraphs deliberately inserted between entries.
Does the tool correct APA referencing errors?
The free organiser works primarily with the information you provide.
It will not automatically find missing author names, correct an inaccurate journal title, verify a DOI or determine whether the original reference follows every APA 7 rule.
You should check each reference against its source, especially where publication dates, editions, URLs, italics or author information may be incorrect.
Need more advanced APA reference formatting?
Simply Put Core includes the advanced APA Reference Organizer, which offers additional cleanup features and warnings for likely referencing issues. The one-off Core Pack also includes tools for APA tables, graphs and results reporting.
Simply Put Premium includes all four Core tools, a wider collection of research and writing tools, additional study resources and an ad-free member experience.
The free organiser remains available for quick alphabetising, formatting previews and Word-compatible downloads.