Paper presentations, keynote addresses, and symposium contributions- brief sessions in which speakers are asked to share their thoughts on a certain subject- can all be included in the conference materials. Any item that has been presented at a conference is called a “conference paper.”. 

They could be released in several formats, like:

• In a conference proceeding, it is an assortment of all or some of the papers delivered at a particular conference. Although this conference proceeding is frequently available on the conference website, it may have been published as a book
• Sometimes, the abstracts are the only ones that are released. These might be posted on the conference website and compiled into a book known as the “Book of Abstracts” or something similar.
• The author(s), year, conference paper title, and source should all be included in the citation. The name of the conference, along with its location and date, or the name of the conference proceeding can serve as the source.

What Distinguishes a Paper Presentation from a Conference Session and the Conference Proceedings?

The live presentation of the content at a conference that isn’t a paper or article presentation is called a conference session. The keynote speech, workshops, and a poster or a PowerPoint presentation should be included.

A live presentation of an article that was submitted before the conference is called a paper presentation.

Paper presentations at proceedings are formally published. They should have the word “proceedings” in the source title since they are frequently published in journals.

Elements to Remember When Citing Conference Papers in APA Format

About Author

• In the order that they appeared in the article, list each author alphabetically by last name and first name initial. Don’t mention the author’s title, position, or rank with the name.
• Don’t forget to include the first 20 authors. Include the first 9 writers if there are more than 20 and then et al. for the remaining authors.
• Put commas between each author’s name and the ampersand symbol.

About Date

• When putting the year, month, and date of the conference in brackets for conference session and presentation, separate them with commas. Like 2020, July 18-21, as an example.
• Simply put the year in parenthesis for the paper that has been published in conference proceedings. 

About Presentation Title

• Italics the title for poster and conference sessions. Put the type of session in brackets.
• Use a normal typeface for papers that are published in conference proceedings.
• The title and subtitle’s initial words should be capitalized since they are proper nouns; the other words are all lowercase. 
• When a title concludes, an exclamation point or question mark. Utilize those punctuation marks rather than a period. 

About Conference Title

• Use a standard typeface for the conference title in both posters and conference sessions.
• Italics the title of the conference proceedings for papers published in those proceedings.
• Put all capital letters in your sentences

About Editor

• After the last name, the first initial of the last editor is listed, followed by the final editor’s last name and the addition of “ED”, for one editor or “EDs” for several editors. 

About Page Number

• Put the page numbers for the conference proceedings in parentheses. For example, see these pages, 125-160.

About Publisher

• In the case of conference proceedings, include the publisher’s name.

About DOIs and URLs

• If a digital identifier is available, include it.
• If an article doesn’t have DOI, omit it
• Use the DOI if an online work has both a URL and a DOI.
• Display the DOI as an online address, like https://doi.org/ before the DOI number.
• When citing online-only sources without DOI, if the URL is available then include it.

How to Cite a Conference Session in APA Format

Even if the session was held on one of the days, include the entire range of dates for the conference in your writing.

Format 

“Author, A., & Author, B. (year Month date range of conference). Title: Subtitle in italic sentence case [Type of conference contribution]. Conference Name, City, State (if applicable), Country. URL/DOI”

Example

“Fistek, A., Jester, E., & Sonnenberg, K. (2017, July 12-15). Everybody’s got a little music in them: Using music therapy to connect, engage, and motivate [conference session]. Autism Society National Conference, Milwaukee, WI, United States. https://asa.confex.com/asa/2017/webprogramarchives/Session9517.html”

How to Cite Published Conference Papers in APA Format

If a conference paper has been published, the format in which it has been published will determine how conference papers will be cited in APA style. Beware that there is a different format for citing any dissertation. 

A publisher may choose to publish conference papers compiled into conference proceedings in print or digital format. It’s possible that the editor of these conference proceedings put together the compilation of the papers. In this situation, the creation of the reference is akin to that of a book chapter.

How to Cite a Conference Paper Published as a Book Chapter

This is how to cite a conference paper that is published in any book chapter.

Format 

“Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (year). Title of paper. In C. Editor, & D. Editor (Ed./Eds.), Title of book or proceeding (pp. x–xx). Publisher. https://doi.org/xx.xxxx

Commentary: Write “In” followed by the editor(s) names and the abbreviation for editor/editors (Ed./Eds.) in parentheses. Use the abbreviation “pp.” for pages and the page numbers in parentheses where the paper is found in the book/proceeding.

Means

“Katz, I., Gabayan, K., & Aghajan, H. (2007). A multi-touch surface using multiple cameras. In J. Blanc-Talon, W. Philips, D. Popescu, & P. Scheunders (Eds.), Lecture notes in computer science: Vol. 4678. Advanced concepts for intelligent vision systems (pp. 97–108). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74607-2_9​”

How to Cite a Conference Paper Published as a Journal Article

Format 

“Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (year). Title of paper. Journal name, volume(issue), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxxx”

Means

“Duckworth, A. L., Quirk, A., Gallop, R., Hoyle, R. H., Kelly, D. R., & Matthews, M. D. (2019). Cognitive and noncognitive predictors of success. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(47), 23499–23504. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910510116”

How to Cite Online Conference Paper in APA Format

If conference papers are not published in book or proceedings form, they are instead available on an online conference website. In this situation, you include the conference name, location, and website address in the citation of your research paper like;

Format 

“Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (year, date). Title of paper  [Type of paper]. Conference name, city, country. https://xxxx”

Means

“Kadav, A., & Swift, M. M. (2008, December 10–11). Live migration of direct-access devices [Paper presentation]. First Workshop on I/O Virtualization, San Diego, CA, United States. https://www.usenix.net/events/wiov08/tech/full_papers/kadav/kadav.pdf”

How to Cite a Conference Paper Presentation in APA Format

Even if the session was held on one day, include the entire range of dates for the conference in your writing.

Format 

“Author, A., & Author, B. (Year, Month date range of conference). Title: Subtitle in italic sentence case [Type of conference contribution]. Conference Name, City, State (if applicable), Country. URL/DOI”

Means

“Maddox, S., Hurling, J., Stewart, E., & Edwards, A. (2016, March 30-April 2). If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy: The effect of parental depression on mood dysregulation in children [Paper presentation]. Southeastern Psychological Association 62nd Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, United States. https://asa.confex.com/asa/2017/webprogramarchives/Session9517.html”

How to Cite Conference Proceedings in APA Format

The majority of the conference proceedings must be cited like a journal article because they are published in journals. They are occasionally released in different formats, though.

Format

“Author, A., & Author, B. (Year). Title: Subtitle in sentence case. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds), Title of conference and location in italic sentence case (pp. page range of paper in proceedings). URL”

Example

“Flintoff, V., & Flanagan, P. (2010). The ‘ménage à trois’ complexity of external supervision. In L. Beddoe & A. Davies (Eds.), Common threads, different patterns: Supervision conference 2010, Auckland, New Zealand: Proceedings (pp. 8-17). https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/education/about/schools/chsswk/docs/2010-Supervision-Conference-Proceedings.pdf”

How to Cite a Conference Symposium Input in APA Style

This kind of document’s reference uses works that are part of a large format, such as an article in a journal or a chapter in any edited book.

Format 

“Contributor, A. A., & Contributor, B. B. (Year, Month, date range). Title of contribution. In C. C. Chairperson (Chair), Title of symposium [Symposium]. Conference name, Location. DOI or URL”

Example

“Lane, J. (2013, May 13—15). Teaching as the class clown: What clowning can bring to the classroom and the lecture hall. In C. Kurbis (Chair), Embracing Change at SFU [Symposium]. 13th Symposium on Teaching and Learning, Burnaby, BC, Canada.”

Wrapping up

So till now, we have discussed almost all the possibilities of citing a conference and its related material in APA style here is an important thing to keep in mind; try your best to locate all the necessary information; however, you might discover that certain publications are lacking important details like an editor. In this situation, you can skip over this information and go on to cite that session.