Guides

How a citation line is built

One author, one title, one year, one container, and one URL. Three styles arrange those fields differently. Keplar does not look the source up.

4 min read · Updated

The fields you already have

The citation formatter does not search the web, open the URL, or fill a blank author. You type the author, the title, the year, the container, and the address. If a field is empty, that part of the line is left out. A missing year is written as n.d. rather than a guessed date.

The sample below is the same five fields in every style. The page at example.com/notes is a placeholder, not a source Keplar checked. Ada Lovelace and Taylor's Scientific Memoirs are the names you would type if you already had them from the book itself.

APA

APA puts the author, then the year in parentheses, then the title, then the container, then the URL. The formatter's line for the sample is: Lovelace, A. (1843). Notes on the analytical engine. Taylor's Scientific Memoirs. https://example.com/notes

A second author would be joined with an ampersand before the year. More than two authors keep the first name and write et al. The year must be four digits. Anything else, other than a blank year, is rejected before a line is shown.

MLA

MLA puts the author, then the title in quotation marks, then the container, then the year, then the URL. The formatter's line for the sample is: Lovelace, Ada. "Notes on the analytical engine." Taylor's Scientific Memoirs, 1843. https://example.com/notes

MLA here does not add an access date. If you need one, add it yourself after you check the style guide your class names. The formatter will not invent the date you visited the page.

Chicago author-date

Chicago author-date on this tool puts the author, the title in quotation marks, the container, the year, the URL, and an access note when you typed one. The formatter's line for the sample is: Lovelace, Ada. "Notes on the analytical engine." Taylor's Scientific Memoirs. 1843. https://example.com/notes Accessed October 17, 2026.

That access note is the text you typed. It is not a record of when Keplar fetched anything, because this tool does not fetch.

What is refused

A title is required, and so is an author. A year that is not four digits and is not n.d. is refused. A URL must start with http:// or https://, so a javascript: address is refused and is never turned into a link on the page. The result is plain text.

These lines are a draft for a bibliography. They are not a statement that the page exists, that the author is right, or that your school uses this exact pattern. Open the URL yourself, and compare the line with the style sheet you were given.

Sources inside a Keplar answer are a different thing. Those are labeled as cited by a model. Keplar does not open them to prove they exist. The formatter does not change that.

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