APA 7th Edition: Media

Film or Video

YouTube | Streaming | TED Talk

Podcasts

Quoting from Video

Film or videos follow a very similar format as books, but you will find that more descriptors in brackets or parentheses are involved.

Basic Structure

Contributor, C.C. (Date). Title of work [Description of format]. Production Company. URL.

In-Text Citations

In-text citations follow the usual author/creator-year structure: (Jackson, 2001) or Jackson (2001). Within your narrative or the body of your text, you can identify the format of the media itself:

In the movie adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring (Jackson, 2001), the inciting event ...

Notice the title is capitalized--unlike in the full reference. 

Episode Within a Series or Media Part of a Greater Whole

Episodes or videos within a greater whole are treated similar to book chapters or anthologies. You will include both the title of the particular episode/video and the greater series. 

Writer, W. W. (Date). Title of the episode is sentence case and not italicized (Season X, Episode X) [TV series episode]. In P.P. Name (Producer), Title of series. Production Company. http://wwww

Example:

Greenwalt, D. (Director). (1998). Homecoming (Season 3, Episode 5) [TV series episode]. In Whedon, J. (Producer), Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Warner Brothers.

The extra parentheses and brackets can be confusing, but at its core, this format is very similar to citing a journal article. I

The person or group that uploads a video to YouTube is credited as the author, even if they did not create or own the work. 

Let's say your instructor uploads a lecture from a previous instructor to YouTube and includes the instructor's name, the course, title of the lecture, and date it was given. Your instinct would be to cite that information and include the YouTube URL in your citation. However, APA dictates you use your instructor's username, the date given on the YouTube video (date it was uploaded). You may, however, give more information about origin and contributors of the video in the body of your paper.

AWUC. (2015, August 18). An introduction to cohesion in academic writing [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TScPcKfQ9ds

Username vs. Real Name

If the uploader's real name is known, you will include it in your citation along with the username. If the username's true name is indicated on your source, you list it first just like an author and then add the username in [brackets].

Grammar Girl Example:

Fogarty, M. [Grammar Girl]. (2010, October 20). Where do periods go in quotations? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnfMb0o9bhw

In-Text Citations

For your in-text citations, you will then list the uploader's real name (e.g., Fogarty for Grammar Girl) and follow the same author-date format.

TED Talk

TED Talks are prevalent across multiple platforms. If you watch a particular talk on YouTube or Vimeo or similar platform, you will reference it the same as any other streaming video. If you access it on the TED Conferences website, it'll look something like this:

Wray, B. (2019). How climate change affects your mental health [Video]. TED Residency. https://www.ted.com/talks/britt_wray_how_climate_change_affects_your_mental_health 

TED Talks on its website should cite the speaker's name (instead of an uploader's username, like on YouTube). The above video comes from the TED Residency program, but other videos will come from various TED Conferences. You can simply list TED Conference in your citation.

Podcasts are generally an audio-only format available on direct websites or aggregated through various platforms. You will also see podcasts on YouTube; in those cases, use the YouTube reference format. If you access the podcast via an app (like Google Music or PodcastAddict), do not include a URL.

Cite Entire Podcast

List the host of the podcast as the author. If executive producers are known, list them along with their role in parentheses. Designate if this is an audio or video podcast.

Raz, G. (2012-present). TED radio hour [Audio podcast]. https://www.ted.com/podcasts/ted-radio-hour

Podcast Episode

List the host as author. Like a TV episode, you will include the episode number after the title. If the podcast does not number its episodes, then you will not include it.

Episode number:

Tayler, H., Sanderson, B., Kowal, M. R., & Wells, D. (2017, February 5). Variations on third person (No. 12.6) [Audio podcast episode]. In Writing excuses. https://writingexcuses.com/2017/02/05/12-6-variations-on-third-person/

No episode number:

Nadworny, E. (2019, September 4). How to do well (and be happy!) in college [Audio podcast episode]. In How to Succeed at College. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/757161013/how-to-do-well-and-be-happy-in-college

Whenever quoting from audiovisual (video) work, you'll need to provide a time stamp with your quotation (like a page number) in the body of your text. You will not use the time stamp in your reference list. 

Fogarty (2014) uses a dog chewing a ball scenario to explain how to use who versus whom. For 'who,' the dog is the subject, the one doing the action (chewing the ball). "When you're talking about the target of the action, you use whom," Fogarty explains (2014, 0:44), with an example slide of "The dog chewed whom?" The ball is whom, the target or object of the action.