You’ve spent months on research, crafted a compelling presentation, and delivered it at a conference. Now the proceedings are being published — and you need to cite it correctly. Conference papers occupy a strange middle ground in academic citation: they’re not journal articles, not books, but they have their own rules in every major style.

Getting it wrong means your citation looks amateurish. Getting it right signals that you understand academic publishing conventions. This guide walks you through citing conference papers and published proceedings in APA 7th edition, MLA 9th edition, and Chicago style (both notes-bibliography and author-date).

What Counts as a Conference Paper or Proceeding?

Before diving into formatting rules, it helps to distinguish the two types of conference content you might cite:

• Conference paper presented but unpublished — A talk or poster you attended, but the paper was never formally published in proceedings. This is treated as a presentation, not a publication.
• Published conference proceedings — A collection of papers from a conference, published as a book, journal supplement, or online resource. These follow book or article citation patterns.
• Conference paper accessed in an online repository — Many conferences now post proceedings on platforms like IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, or institutional repositories.

Each style handles these scenarios differently. Let’s break them down.

Citing a Conference Paper in APA 7th Edition

APA 7th edition has separate rules for published proceedings and unpublished presentations. The key distinction is whether the paper was formally published or simply presented.

Published Conference Proceedings (APA)

When a conference paper is published in proceedings (either as a book or journal supplement), treat it similarly to a book chapter or journal article. Use the following structure:

Element	Format
Author(s)	Last name, First initial. Middle initial.
Date	(Year).
Title	Title of paper or contribution.
Proceedings info	In Editor(s) (Eds.), Title of proceedings (pp. page range). Publisher.
DOI or URL	https://doi.org/xxxx

Reference list example:

Miller, T. J., & Chen, L. (2023). Adaptive citation algorithms for multilingual corpora. In A. Rodriguez & S. Patel (Eds.), Proceedings of the 45th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (pp. 213–228). Computational Linguistics Press. https://doi.org/10.1234/coling2023.045

Unpublished Conference Presentation (APA)

For a paper that was presented but not published in proceedings, APA uses a simpler format:

Reference list example:

Kumar, R. (2024, March 15–18). Neural approaches to citation extraction in biomedical texts [Conference presentation]. 2024 Conference on Natural Language Processing, Austin, TX, United States.

Notice the title is italicized, and the format is marked as [Conference presentation] in square brackets. Include the full date range and location of the conference.

In-text citation: (Kumar, 2024) — standard author-date format in APA.

Citing a Conference Paper in MLA 9th Edition

MLA 9th edition emphasizes the container model. A published conference proceeding is a container for the individual paper. For unpublished presentations, the conference itself is the container.

Published Conference Proceedings (MLA)

Works Cited example:

Miller, T. J., and L. Chen. “Adaptive Citation Algorithms for Multilingual Corpora.” Proceedings of the 45th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, edited by A. Rodriguez and S. Patel, Computational Linguistics Press, 2023, pp. 213–28.

MLA uses the following order: author, “paper title,” proceedings title, editor(s), publisher, year, page range. If a DOI is available, append it at the end. If accessed online, include the URL and access date if required by your instructor.

Unpublished Conference Presentation (MLA)

Works Cited example:

Kumar, R. “Neural Approaches to Citation Extraction in Biomedical Texts.” 2024 Conference on Natural Language Processing, 15–18 Mar. 2024, Austin, TX. Conference Presentation.

The key differences from APA: MLA uses quotation marks around the paper title, abbreviates months in the date range, and adds “Conference Presentation” at the end as a descriptive label rather than in brackets.

In-text citation: (Miller and Chen 213) — MLA uses author-page number format.

Citing a Conference Paper in Chicago Style

Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) offers two systems: notes-bibliography (common in humanities) and author-date (common in sciences and social sciences). We cover both.

Chicago Notes-Bibliography: Published Proceedings

Bibliography entry:

Miller, T. J., and L. Chen. “Adaptive Citation Algorithms for Multilingual Corpora.” In Proceedings of the 45th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, edited by A. Rodriguez and S. Patel, 213–28. New York: Computational Linguistics Press, 2023.

First footnote:

T. J. Miller and L. Chen, “Adaptive Citation Algorithms for Multilingual Corpora,” in Proceedings of the 45th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, ed. A. Rodriguez and S. Patel (New York: Computational Linguistics Press, 2023), 213–28.

Shortened footnote (subsequent citations):

Miller and Chen, “Adaptive Citation Algorithms,” 220.

Chicago Author-Date: Published Proceedings

Reference list entry:

Miller, T. J., and L. Chen. 2023. “Adaptive Citation Algorithms for Multilingual Corpora.” In Proceedings of the 45th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, edited by A. Rodriguez and S. Patel, 213–28. New York: Computational Linguistics Press.

In-text citation: (Miller and Chen 2023, 220)

Chicago: Unpublished Presentation

Chicago treats unpublished conference papers as “papers, lectures, or unpublished proceedings.”

Bibliography entry:

Kumar, R. “Neural Approaches to Citation Extraction in Biomedical Texts.” Paper presented at the 2024 Conference on Natural Language Processing, Austin, TX, March 15–18, 2024.

First footnote:

R. Kumar, “Neural Approaches to Citation Extraction in Biomedical Texts” (paper presented at the 2024 Conference on Natural Language Processing, Austin, TX, March 15–18, 2024).

Quick Reference: Conference Paper Citations Across Styles

Element	APA 7th	MLA 9th	Chicago (NB)
Paper title style	Italicized (unpublished); roman (published)	Quotation marks	Quotation marks
Proceedings title style	Italicized	Italicized	Italicized
Presentation label	[Conference presentation]	Conference Presentation	Paper presented at…
Date format	Year, month date–date	Date abbreviated month. year	Month date–date, year
DOI required?	Preferred if available	Recommended	Optional

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Even experienced researchers make errors when citing conference materials. Here are the most frequent ones we see:

• Confusing conference papers with journal articles. If the proceedings were published as a special issue of a journal, cite it as a journal article, not a chapter in proceedings. Check the publisher’s instructions.
• Omitting the location of unpublished presentations. APA and Chicago both require the city and state (or country) of the conference. MLA does too in most cases.
• Forgetting the editor of proceedings. Most proceedings volumes have editors. APA and MLA require “In Editor(s) (Eds.)” in the citation. Chicago uses “ed.” in footnotes.
• Using the wrong label for unpublished papers. APA requires [Conference presentation] in square brackets. MLA simply appends “Conference Presentation” at the end. Chicago uses a full descriptive phrase (“Paper presented at…”).
• Inconsistent date formats. APA uses month day–day, year. MLA abbreviates months and inverts the order: day month year. Chicago spells out months fully and uses commas.

How Formatly Simplifies Conference Paper Citations

Formatly supports all three styles covered in this guide — APA 7th, MLA 9th, and Chicago 17th (both notes-bibliography and author-date). When you upload your conference paper or proceedings document, Formatly automatically detects your citations, applies the correct formatting rules, and produces a style-compliant output with tracked changes you can review.

No more flipping between style manuals, checking whether to italicize or use quotation marks, or wondering if you’ve included the editor’s name correctly. Formatly handles the rules so you can focus on your research.

Upload your document and format it in 30 seconds — free.