Terms of Use

Effective date: September 15, 2026

These Terms of Use apply when you access or use APA Citation Builder at apacitationbuilder.com, including its citation workspace, metadata lookup features, downloadable project files, guides, and related website services.

APA Citation Builder is an independent website operated by Muzammal Amin, based in Italy.

By using the website, you agree to use it in accordance with these Terms. If you do not agree with these Terms, you should not use the service.

For questions about these Terms, contact:

contact@apacitationbuilder.com

1. What APA Citation Builder Provides

APA Citation Builder is a citation-formatting and reference-management aid designed primarily for APA 7 workflows.

The service can help users:

  • enter or retrieve source information
  • organize bibliographic metadata
  • format supported reference entries
  • prepare related parenthetical and narrative in-text citations
  • add supported locators where appropriate
  • keep multiple sources in one reference project
  • copy or export supported citation data
  • read guidance about supported citation tasks

The service is intended to reduce repetitive citation work. It is not a substitute for checking the source itself, official APA Style guidance, or specific requirements from an instructor, university, journal, publisher, employer, or other organization.

The How APA Citation Builder Works page describes the supported workflow in more detail.

2. APA Citation Builder Is an Independent Service

APA Citation Builder is not operated by, affiliated with, sponsored by, approved by, certified by, or endorsed by the American Psychological Association.

It is also not a service of the University of Turin.

The website uses “APA” to identify the citation style that its tools and guides are intended to support. Nothing on this website should be understood as a claim that APA Citation Builder owns or controls any trademark, publication, or intellectual property belonging to the American Psychological Association.

3. No Account Is Required for the Core Workspace

The current core citation workspace does not require account registration.

APA Citation Builder does not currently provide:

  • account-based cloud reference libraries
  • automatic cross-device synchronization
  • paid subscriptions
  • premium account tiers
  • billing features

If any of these services are introduced later, the Terms will be updated before those features are offered under materially different conditions.

4. Your Responsibility for Citation Accuracy

You are responsible for reviewing citations before relying on or submitting them.

Citation accuracy depends on both:

  1. the accuracy and completeness of the source information, and
  2. the correct application of citation rules to that information.

APA Citation Builder can help format supported records, but it cannot guarantee that:

  • imported metadata describes the exact source you used
  • a DOI, ISBN, or URL is associated with the intended edition or version
  • a website’s metadata is complete or correct
  • every unusual source type is supported
  • every contextual in-text citation decision can be automated
  • a generated citation will satisfy every local academic or publishing requirement

You should compare source information with the work you actually used and correct the underlying record where necessary.

For more information, read Accuracy, Source Review, and Limitations.

5. Supported and Unsupported Uses

You may use APA Citation Builder for legitimate personal, educational, academic, research, professional, or organizational citation work.

You may also use generated citation output in your own papers, notes, reference lists, reports, and other lawful work.

You must not use the service to:

  • interfere with or disrupt the website or its infrastructure
  • attempt to bypass technical limits intended to protect the service
  • send excessive automated requests to lookup endpoints
  • probe, exploit, or misuse security vulnerabilities
  • submit malicious code or harmful payloads
  • use private credentials, access tokens, or signed links as public lookup inputs
  • use the contact system for spam, harassment, fraud, or unlawful activity
  • falsely represent APA Citation Builder as an official American Psychological Association service
  • use the service in a way that violates applicable law or the rights of others

Reasonable automated access may be restricted when necessary to protect the website, metadata providers, or other users.

6. Source Information You Enter

You are responsible for the information you enter into the citation workspace.

Do not submit information that you do not have the right to use or disclose.

In particular, avoid entering:

  • confidential research data
  • unpublished material that should remain private
  • passwords or authentication credentials
  • private API keys
  • signed or tokenized URLs
  • restricted institutional links
  • sensitive personal information that is unnecessary for a citation

Most citation metadata describes published works and is not sensitive, but the responsibility to decide what is appropriate to enter remains with you.

7. Metadata Lookup Services

APA Citation Builder may provide optional metadata lookup through third-party services.

Depending on the source type and enabled functionality, these services can include providers such as:

When you request a lookup, information such as a DOI, ISBN, title query, or public URL may be sent to the relevant provider through APA Citation Builder.

Metadata returned by a third party can be incomplete, incorrect, outdated, or associated with a different version of a work. You must review the result before using it.

APA Citation Builder does not control the availability, accuracy, or policies of third-party metadata services.

8. Public Webpage Lookup

If public-webpage metadata lookup is enabled, you may submit a publicly accessible URL so that the service can attempt to retrieve bibliographic information.

You must not use this feature with:

  • private URLs
  • password-protected resources
  • signed download links
  • URLs containing access tokens
  • internal network addresses
  • resources you are not authorized to access

A successful webpage request does not guarantee that the returned metadata is correct or sufficient for an APA reference.

9. Saving and Backups

The citation workspace may keep project data in the current browser session.

If you choose the option to remember a project on your device, data can be stored in browser local storage.

Browser storage is not a cloud backup.

Data stored locally can be lost if:

  • you clear browser or site data
  • your browser removes stored data
  • you use a temporary/private browsing session
  • you change browser profiles
  • you switch to another device
  • your device or browser data is lost

APA Citation Builder may also provide a JSON project backup that you can download and later restore.

You are responsible for protecting any backup files you download and for maintaining copies of work that you cannot afford to lose.

10. Export Formats

APA Citation Builder may provide several export options for supported projects.

These can include:

  • plain text
  • formatted HTML
  • RTF
  • RIS
  • JSON project backup

Each format has a different purpose.

RTF is not DOCX. An RTF file is a rich-text document that compatible word processors can open.

RIS is metadata, not a finished APA reference page. RIS is designed for bibliographic exchange with compatible reference-management software.

JSON is a project backup, not a formatted bibliography.

You are responsible for checking the final appearance of references after copying, importing, or opening them in another application.

11. Reference and In-Text Citation Output

Generated output is provided as a formatting aid.

You remain responsible for deciding how a citation should be used in the context of your writing, including:

  • whether a citation is required
  • whether you are paraphrasing or quoting
  • which source supports a claim
  • which locator is appropriate
  • whether the author’s name already appears in the sentence
  • whether a special or unusual APA rule applies

APA Citation Builder does not grade your paper, verify the truth of claims in a source, or determine whether your academic use of a source meets an institution’s rules.

12. Academic Integrity

APA Citation Builder can help format citations, but it does not determine whether your use of a source complies with academic-integrity requirements.

You are responsible for:

  • citing sources where required
  • distinguishing your own work from the work of others
  • following assignment and institutional requirements
  • using quotations and paraphrases appropriately
  • avoiding plagiarism or other academic misconduct

A correctly formatted reference does not by itself establish proper attribution throughout a paper.

13. Service Availability

We aim to keep APA Citation Builder available and useful, but uninterrupted availability is not guaranteed.

The service may be unavailable or limited because of:

  • maintenance
  • software updates
  • hosting problems
  • security issues
  • third-party provider outages
  • network failures
  • rate limits
  • changes to external APIs
  • circumstances outside our reasonable control

Features may also be changed, corrected, limited, suspended, or removed when necessary to improve reliability, security, legal compliance, or citation quality.

Where practical, material changes to the service will be reflected in the relevant documentation.

14. No Promise That Every Source Is Supported

The current citation workspace focuses on defined source workflows.

A source category can contain unusual variations that require rules or fields not represented in the current tool.

Do not assume support for a source merely because it resembles one of the available forms.

If a source does not fit the available fields or the resulting citation appears uncertain, consult authoritative APA Style guidance rather than forcing the work into an inappropriate source type.

APA Citation Builder does not currently claim support for features such as automatic PDF extraction, image citations, video citations, podcast citations, manuscript-wide checking, or automatic conversion among multiple citation styles.

15. Website Content

Citation guides and other written content on APA Citation Builder are provided for general educational and informational purposes related to citation workflows.

We aim to use current and authoritative sources, but written content may contain errors or become outdated.

If official APA Style guidance, an applicable publication requirement, or another controlling rule differs from content on this website, you should follow the authoritative or controlling source.

You can report a suspected error through the Contact page.

16. Intellectual Property

Except where otherwise stated, the original website text, interface design, branding, graphics, and other original site materials are protected by applicable intellectual-property laws.

You may use citation output generated from your own source data in your own lawful work.

You may not falsely claim that APA Citation Builder’s original website content, design, branding, or source code was created by you when it was not.

Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of third-party materials, trademarks, citation styles, metadata, or open-source components to APA Citation Builder.

17. Open-Source Software and Third-Party Components

APA Citation Builder uses or may use open-source software and third-party components.

Those components remain subject to their own license terms. These Terms do not replace, restrict, or override rights granted under an applicable open-source license.

The WordPress plugin developed for APA Citation Builder is currently distributed under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 or later (AGPL-3.0-or-later). The full GNU AGPL version 3 is published by the Free Software Foundation.

Third-party libraries, citation-processing components, style files, metadata services, and other dependencies may use different licenses. Their applicable notices and license terms should be preserved as required.

Where an applicable open-source license requires corresponding source code or other notices to be made available, the deployment and distribution of that software must comply with those requirements.

18. Third-Party Links and Services

APA Citation Builder may link to or interact with third-party websites and services.

These can include:

  • official APA Style resources
  • metadata services
  • academic resources
  • research profiles
  • software projects
  • other external references

APA Citation Builder does not control third-party websites and is not responsible for their content, availability, security, accuracy, terms, or privacy practices.

Your use of an external website is governed by that site’s own terms and policies.

19. Privacy

Use of APA Citation Builder is also subject to the Privacy Policy.

The Privacy Policy explains matters such as:

  • browser project storage
  • metadata lookup requests
  • lookup caching and rate limiting
  • technical server data
  • contact-form information
  • third-party services
  • data-protection rights

These Terms and the Privacy Policy should be read together where relevant.

20. Disclaimer of Warranties

APA Citation Builder is provided as a practical citation aid.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, the service is provided without a promise that it will:

  • always be available
  • be free from every software error
  • correctly identify every source
  • contain complete third-party metadata
  • support every APA citation case
  • produce output accepted without modification by every institution or publisher
  • preserve browser-stored project data indefinitely

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits a warranty, guarantee, consumer right, or other protection that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

21. Limitation of Liability

To the extent permitted by applicable law, APA Citation Builder and its operator are not responsible for indirect or consequential losses arising solely from reliance on generated citation output, loss of browser-stored project data, third-party metadata errors, third-party outages, or use of the service outside its stated scope.

You are expected to review citations and maintain appropriate backups of important work.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where exclusion or limitation is prohibited by applicable law.

In particular, these Terms do not remove mandatory rights that consumers may have under applicable consumer-protection law. European Union rules require standard consumer contract terms to be fair and expressed in plain, intelligible language.

22. Suspension or Restriction of Access

Access to some or all of the service may be restricted when reasonably necessary to:

  • address abuse
  • protect security
  • prevent excessive automated requests
  • comply with legal obligations
  • protect third-party services
  • investigate malicious activity
  • maintain or update the website

Where appropriate, technical restrictions can be applied without creating an account-level suspension because the current core service does not require user accounts.

23. Changes to the Service

APA Citation Builder may evolve over time.

We may add, modify, or remove:

  • source workflows
  • metadata providers
  • export formats
  • storage options
  • user-interface features
  • guides and documentation
  • technical safeguards

A planned or experimental feature should not be considered available until it is actually implemented and presented as supported on the website.

24. Changes to These Terms

These Terms may be updated when the service, applicable legal requirements, software licensing, or operating model changes.

The effective date at the top of this page will be changed when a revised version is published.

If the service later introduces accounts, payments, subscriptions, or other materially different contractual features, additional terms may be required.

25. Mandatory Rights and Applicable Law

These Terms are not intended to deprive you of rights that cannot be waived under the law that applies to you.

Because users may access APA Citation Builder from different countries, mandatory consumer, data-protection, accessibility, intellectual-property, and other laws may apply depending on the circumstances.

No separate arbitration requirement or contractual choice-of-law clause is imposed by this version of the Terms.

If a provision of these Terms conflicts with a mandatory rule of applicable law, the mandatory rule takes priority to the extent required.

26. Severability

If a provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable in a particular situation, the remaining provisions should continue to apply to the extent permitted by law.

The affected provision should be interpreted or limited only as far as necessary to comply with the applicable legal requirement.

27. No Waiver

If APA Citation Builder does not immediately enforce a provision of these Terms, that does not necessarily mean the provision has been permanently waived.

Any waiver must be consistent with applicable law and does not affect mandatory user rights.

28. Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to:

Muzammal Amin APA Citation Builder Italy Email: contact@apacitationbuilder.com

You can also use the Contact APA Citation Builder page.

For information about personal-data handling, see the Privacy Policy.