How do I cite a conference paper in APA 7?

For proceedings published as a book: authors, the year, the paper's title, In, the proceedings title in italics, the pages in brackets and the publisher with the DOI. For a talk, put [Paper presentation] after the title and give the event and its place: Okafor, A. (2023, June 14). Teaching citation skills with generators [Paper presentation]. Annual Conference on Academic Writing, Toronto, ON, Canada.

How do I cite a conference paper in MLA 9?

Treat the proceedings as the container: author, the paper's title in quotation marks, the proceedings in italics, the publisher, the year, the pages and the DOI. The author rule is the same as for a book: from three authors, the first and et al.

How do I cite a conference paper in IEEE style?

IEEE numbers the references and writes first names as initials, with the paper in quotation marks, then in and the abbreviated proceedings title: K. He, X. Zhang, S. Ren, and J. Sun, “Deep residual learning for image recognition,” in Proc. IEEE Conf. Comput. Vis. Pattern Recognit. (CVPR), 2016, pp. 770–778. Choose IEEE in the style list.

How do I cite a paper I only saw presented?

Cite it as a presentation: the presenter, the date of the talk, the title of the paper, the name of the event and its place. Add the bracketed description in APA. If the slides or the paper are online, add the link.

What is the difference between a conference paper and a journal article?

A conference paper is published in the proceedings of a meeting and a journal article in a journal. Some conference papers are published in series that look like journals; follow the container's own style and cite what you read.

Which citation styles does the conference paper generator support?

APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 and IEEE at the top of the list, and any of the other 10,834 styles. Switch the style and the same details are reformatted.

Conference Paper Citation Generator

Cite a conference paper, published in proceedings or only presented. Enter the authors, the paper's title, the conference or proceedings, the year and the pages, DOI or link, and get the reference and in-text citation in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18, IEEE and 10,834 other styles. Free, no sign-up.

Language

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Conference Paper Citation Examples

APA 7th editionReference list (presentation)

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year, Month Day–Day). Paper title [Paper presentation]. Conference Name, Location. https://doi.org/xxxx

In-text: (Author & Author, Year)

MLA 9th editionWorks Cited

"Paper Title." Conference Name, Day Month Year, Location. Edited by First Last, Publisher, Year, pp. 123–45.

In-text: (Author)

IEEEReference list (proceedings)

A. Author and B. Author, "Paper title," in Proc. Conference Name, Location, Year, pp. 123–145.

In-text: [1]

Presentation vs. Proceedings

How you cite a conference paper depends on whether it was delivered or published:

Unpublished presentation, poster, or session. In APA, add a bracketed descriptor after the title — [Paper presentation], [Poster session], or [Conference session] — then the conference name and location. Use the date range of the event as the date.
Paper published in proceedings. Treat it like a chapter in an edited book (or a journal article for IEEE): give the paper title, the proceedings/conference name, the editors or volume, the page range, the publisher, and a DOI. Fill in the Pages and Conference Name fields above.

How to Cite a Conference Paper

1. Gather the paper details. Note the author(s), the paper title, the conference name, the location, the year (or full event dates), the page range if it was published, and any DOI or URL.
2. Enter them & pick a style. The generator above opens on the Conference Paper source type — fill the fields in and choose APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, or any of the 10,834 styles.
3. Cite. We build a full reference with the authors, title, conference, and date. Edit any field, then copy or export it to BibTeX, RIS, CSV, or Word.

Conference Paper Citation Example

A paper in published proceedings: He, Zhang, Ren and Sun's "Deep residual learning for image recognition", CVPR 2016, pages 770–778, DOI 10.1109/CVPR.2016.90.

APA 7th edition

Reference list:

He, K., Zhang, X., Ren, S., & Sun, J. (2016). Deep residual learning for image recognition. In 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) (pp. 770–778). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2016.90

In-text (parenthetical):

(He et al., 2016)

In-text (narrative):

He et al. (2016)

MLA 9th edition

Works Cited:

He, Kaiming, et al. “Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition.” 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), IEEE, 2016, pp. 770–78, https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2016.90.

In-text citation:

(He et al.)

Chicago 18th edition (notes and bibliography)

Footnote:

Kaiming He et al., “Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition,” in 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) (IEEE, 2016), 770, https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2016.90.

Bibliography:

He, Kaiming, Xiangyu Zhang, Shaoqing Ren, and Jian Sun. “Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition.” In 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 770–78. IEEE, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2016.90.

The generator formats proceedings the way it formats a serial: the proceedings title straight after the paper, then the pages. APA also has this form, with no In and no (pp.), for proceedings published as a regular series. Where your proceedings is a book, as in the example above, add In before it, put the pages in (pp. …) and add the publisher. Chicago and MLA both need the publisher after the proceedings title.

A Talk Given at a Conference

A paper that was presented but never published is cited with the event, not a book. APA marks it with a bracketed description and names the event with its place; the generator leaves that label out, so type it into the reference after copying.

APA 7 (illustrative details)

Reference list:

Okafor, A. (2023, June 14). Teaching citation skills with generators [Paper presentation]. Annual Conference on Academic Writing, Toronto, ON, Canada.

In-text:

(Okafor, 2023)

Use the first day of the event, or the full range of dates (June 14–16, 2023) if the style asks for it. MLA lists the speaker, the title in quotation marks, the event, the date and the place; Chicago gives the same facts in a note.

Published or Presented? Which Tool

You have	Use
A paper in conference proceedings, with pages or a DOI	This page
A talk, poster or session you saw, not published	This page, with the format label
A poster	Poster Citation Generator
A paper that appears on arXiv	arXiv Citation Generator
A journal article, even one based on a conference paper	Journal Article Citation Generator

Common Mistakes

Confusing the conference and the proceedings. The proceedings is the book or series that published the papers, and its title often starts with Proceedings of. The conference is the event.
Leaving out the publisher. Proceedings are published by someone, often IEEE, ACM or Springer; name it.
Using the conference year for a paper published later. Use the year of the proceedings.
Citing an abstract as a paper. If you only read the abstract, say so in the title, or cite the abstract as it appears in the program.
Skipping the DOI. Most proceedings papers have one.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I cite a conference paper in APA 7?: For proceedings published as a book: authors, the year, the paper's title, In, the proceedings title in italics, the pages in brackets and the publisher with the DOI. For a talk, put [Paper presentation] after the title and give the event and its place: Okafor, A. (2023, June 14). Teaching citation skills with generators [Paper presentation]. Annual Conference on Academic Writing, Toronto, ON, Canada.
How do I cite a conference paper in MLA 9?: Treat the proceedings as the container: author, the paper's title in quotation marks, the proceedings in italics, the publisher, the year, the pages and the DOI. The author rule is the same as for a book: from three authors, the first and et al.
How do I cite a conference paper in IEEE style?: IEEE numbers the references and writes first names as initials, with the paper in quotation marks, then in and the abbreviated proceedings title: K. He, X. Zhang, S. Ren, and J. Sun, “Deep residual learning for image recognition,” in Proc. IEEE Conf. Comput. Vis. Pattern Recognit. (CVPR), 2016, pp. 770–778. Choose IEEE in the style list.
How do I cite a paper I only saw presented?: Cite it as a presentation: the presenter, the date of the talk, the title of the paper, the name of the event and its place. Add the bracketed description in APA. If the slides or the paper are online, add the link.
What is the difference between a conference paper and a journal article?: A conference paper is published in the proceedings of a meeting and a journal article in a journal. Some conference papers are published in series that look like journals; follow the container's own style and cite what you read.
Which citation styles does the conference paper generator support?: APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 and IEEE at the top of the list, and any of the other 10,834 styles. Switch the style and the same details are reformatted.

How to cite a Conference Paper in each style

Format rules, templates, and worked examples for the styles most often required.

All source types and styles →

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