ERIC Document Citation Generator

Your citations

Enter the title of the document or article to see your citations.

How to Use the ERIC Document Citation Generator

1. 1. Look at the ERIC number. ED followed by digits is a document: a report, paper or digest. EJ followed by digits is a journal article. Choose the matching option.
2. 2. Enter the authors and the title. ERIC prints names as Last, First and capitalizes every word of a title. Type the title in sentence case; MLA and Chicago get title case automatically.
3. 3. Add the date and the number. ERIC shows the year and month. Copy the ED or EJ number from the record page.
4. 4. Add the link. For a document, the full-text PDF address; with none, the generator uses the record's page on ERIC. For an article, a DOI if it has one, and the journal, volume, issue and pages.
5. 5. Copy the style you need. Each entry copies with its italics intact.

ED Documents and EJ Articles

ERIC stores two kinds of record under one search box, and the style manuals treat them differently. An EJ number marks an article from a journal or magazine, which also exists in the periodical, so you cite the article and not ERIC. An ED number marks a document that may exist nowhere else: a report, a conference paper, a curriculum guide. APA calls it a work of limited circulation, so it asks you to name ERIC as the source, to give the ED number, and to link the full text.

APA 7 is the one style with an official ERIC example. Its database-information guidance names monographs in ERIC as works of limited circulation, and its sample, a 2008 public-health curriculum guide, puts the ED number in parentheses after the italic title and ERIC in plain type as the source. MLA 9 and Chicago 18 have no ERIC example. The generator treats an ED document as a stand-alone work held in a database: in MLA ERIC is the container, in italics, followed by the ED number as its accession number, and in Chicago ERIC and the number take the place a database or report series would. These two are conventions, not official examples, so check them against your instructor's preference.

ERIC Citation Examples

Cori Brewster and Jennifer Railsback's Full-Day Kindergarten: Exploring an Option for Extended Learning (ED472733), published by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in December 2002. The APA entry has the shape of the APA report sample for ERIC that library guides reproduce.

Carol S. Dweck's article "The Perils and Promises of Praise" in Educational Leadership, October 2007 (EJ777079). Because it is a magazine article of wide circulation, APA cites the journal and not ERIC.

When a Field Is Missing

• No full-text PDF. Leave the URL empty; a document is then linked to its page on ERIC, at eric.ed.gov/?id= followed by the number.
• No publisher on the record. Leave it out. APA never needs it for an ERIC document, and MLA and Chicago go straight to the date.
• No named author. Leave the box empty and the title moves to the front. If an organization wrote it, tick the organization box.
• No date. APA uses n.d.; MLA and Chicago leave the date out.
• A conference paper or an ERIC Digest in ERIC. APA formats these with a variant of the document entry (a bracketed [Paper presentation] and the meeting). For a conference paper, see the Conference Paper Citation Generator.

Common Mistakes

• Citing ERIC for an EJ article. The periodical is the source; ERIC is how you found it.
• Leaving out the ED number. On a limited-circulation document it is what identifies the record.
• Keeping ERIC's capitals. The record shows every word capitalized. APA wants sentence case.
• Linking the search results. Link the full-text PDF or the record page, not a session or search address.
• Italicizing ERIC. In APA the source name is plain type.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I cite an ERIC document in APA 7?

Give the authors, the year, the title in italics and sentence case, the ED number in parentheses, ERIC as the source, and the link to the full text: Brewster, C., & Railsback, J. (2002). Full-day kindergarten: Exploring an option for extended learning (ED472733). ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED472733.pdf. In text: (Brewster & Railsback, 2002).

What is an ED number in ERIC?

It is the accession number ERIC gives a document that is not a journal article: a report, paper, digest or guide. It is the letters ED and six digits, such as ED472733, and it is on the record page. An EJ number marks a journal article.

Do I cite ERIC for a journal article I found there?

In APA, no. An EJ record is a journal article, so you cite the article with its journal, volume, issue, pages and DOI, and ERIC is how you found it. MLA and Chicago do the same, naming ERIC and the number only when the article has no DOI or link.

How do I cite an ERIC document in MLA 9?

The MLA Handbook has no ERIC example. This generator treats the document as a stand-alone work held in a database: the title in italics, the publisher and date, then ERIC as the container with the ED number and the link. Brewster, Cori, and Jennifer Railsback. Full-Day Kindergarten: Exploring an Option for Extended Learning. Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Dec. 2002. ERIC, ED472733, files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED472733.pdf.

How do I cite an ERIC document in Chicago style?

Chicago 18 has no ERIC example, so cite the document as a report and add ERIC and the number where a database would go: Cori Brewster and Jennifer Railsback, Full-Day Kindergarten: Exploring an Option for Extended Learning (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 2002), ERIC ED472733, followed by the URL.

What if ERIC has no full text?

Cite the record anyway, linking its page on ERIC, and say in your text that you read the abstract only. If you need the full document, the record often names the organization that published it, which may hold a copy.