How to APA cite a YouTube video or channel

Maybe it seems more difficult for you to cite a YouTube video APA style than a book or newspaper, but actually it is not that difficult. And once you have done one video you know how to cite videos from other websites as well. In this article we will go step by step to show you how to cite a YouTube video APA with examples. Did you know you can also cite a whole channel as well?

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How to cite a YouTube video in APA

  1. How to cite a YouTube video in APA style
  2. How to cite a YouTube channel in APA style
If we look at the official APA Style Blog blogpost about how to create a reference to a youtube video we find the following format:

Author, A. A. [Screen name]. (year, month day). Title of video [Video file]. Retrieved from http://xxxxx

As an example we can cite a TED video as follows, note: because the author’s real name is not available from the YouTube video we can omit that part.

TED. (2019, February 13). The disarming case to act right now on climate change | Greta Thunberg [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2QxFM9y0tY

We can use this format for every online video resource, as long as the required information is available.

How to cite a YouTube Channel in APADid you know that we can also APA style cite a whole YouTube Channel? We can do this the same way as we did for the video. Let’s look at an example. Here is the format for a YouTube Channel citation.

YouTube Channel. (n.d.). Home [YouTube Channel]. Retrieved from URL

In this example we will cite the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” YouTube channel APA style.

If we take the channel name, the title, and the URL and put it in the format we end up with the following citation.

Jimmy Kimmel Live . (n.d.). Home [YouTube Channel]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa6vGFO9ty8v5KZJXQxdhaw