How to Cite APA With No Date
Constructing your reference list can be challenging if you can't find all the information for your sources. If you have a source without a date of publication or creation, you can still cite it in an American Psychological Association reference list. Sources with no date should still appear in your references with small substitutions in citation style.
Reference List Citations
The basic APA reference list format for a book is as follows: Author's Last Name, First Initial(s). (Year of Publication). Title of book: Subtitle. Publication location: Publisher name.
A citation for a source with a missing date should include a note that the date is not available. Replace the year of publication with "n.d." This is true for all types of reference list citations in APA style, including websites, periodicals and multimedia documents.
For example: Bern, J. (n.d.). My time in the Andes. Topeka, KA: Prairie Publishers.
In-Text Citations
Dates are also required in in-text citations; with these, the author's name, publication year and page number of cited information are placed in parentheses. Noting a source with no date is a simple substitution. Put "n.d." in place of the year.
For example: (Bern, n.d., p. 18)
Need help with a citation? Try our citation generator.
References
Writer Bio
Jon Zamboni began writing professionally in 2010. He has previously written for The Spiritual Herald, an urban health care and religious issues newspaper based in New York City, and online music magazine eBurban. Zamboni has a Bachelor of Arts in religious studies from Wesleyan University.
