PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Poster presentation

How to Cite a Poster Presentation in APA 7

An APA 7 reference for a poster presentation lists the presenters as authors, the full dates of the conference in parentheses, the poster title in italics and sentence case, the description [Poster presentation] in square brackets, the conference name, and its city, state, and country, followed by a link when the poster or its abstract is online. The in-text citation is the first presenter's last name and the year: (Shah et al., 2024). If you read the poster's abstract in a journal supplement, cite it as a journal article instead.

The format

Presenter, A. A., & Presenter, B. B. (Year, Month Day–Day). Title of the poster [Poster presentation]. Conference Name, City, State, Country. https://xxxx

PERRLA APA Experts · Updated October 21, 2026
Checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Choose Conference & Symposium Materials, then Conference Session or Presentation. Add everyone listed on the poster in the Author / Presenter role, in the poster's order. Type the poster's title in Contribution Title and Poster presentation in Type of Contribution. Then fill in the Conference Name, the city, the state, the country, and the Conference Start Date, add an end date for a conference that ran more than one day, and paste the link to the poster or its abstract.

PERRLA italicizes the title, writes [Poster presentation] after it, and prints the conference dates as one range, like 2024, October 27–30. Type the title in sentence case. If you type it in title case, PERRLA points that out and offers to fix it.

Found the abstract in a journal supplement instead? Paste its DOI into PERRLA's reference search. PERRLA finds it as a journal article with every author, the journal, the volume, and the DOI. Before you save it, check the authors, the title, and the year against the abstract. Then change the issue from Supplement_1 to Suppl. 1, and if the abstract fills one page, keep just that page number instead of a range like 854–854.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.

The parts of the reference

1. Presenters

Everyone named on the poster is an author, not only the person who stood beside it. Write each last name, a comma, and the initials, in the order the poster or program lists them, with an ampersand (&) before the last name. Leave off the credentials programs print after names.

Westmoreland, I., Cortez, Z., Burger, D., Ross, J., Hagans, N., Thomason, J., Godfrey, E., & de Leon-Minch, R.

Keep a lowercase name particle the way its owner writes it, like de Leon-Minch. Posters often have long author lists. List up to 20, and use et al. only in your in-text citations.

2. Conference dates

Use the dates of the whole conference, not the hour your poster session ran. Write the year, the month, and the first and last days with an en dash (–), in parentheses.

(2024, October 27–30).

A poster day at your own school that lasted one day takes just that date: (2025, April 11).

3. Title and [Poster presentation]

Italicize the poster's title and write it in sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Then add [Poster presentation], not italic, and a period.

Protecting nurses from COVID-19: An update on the fight for a national standard [Poster presentation].

Programs and printed posters don't always follow APA capitalization. This program printed covid-19 in lowercase, but COVID-19 is written in capitals. Citing only the abstract, not the poster itself? Use [Poster presentation abstract].

4. Conference name and location

Give the conference's name as the program writes it, then the city, the state's two-letter abbreviation, and the country. The country is always there, even for a poster shown in the United States.

APHA 2024 Annual Meeting and Expo, Minneapolis, MN, United States.

Outside the United States, give the city, the state or province if there is one, and the country. For a school research day, the "conference" is the event's name, like your college's research symposium, and the location is the campus's city.

5. Link

End with a link to the poster file, the poster's page in a repository or e-poster gallery, or its abstract in the online program. No period after it.

https://apha.confex.com/apha/2024/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/553291

Saw the poster at the meeting and can't find it online? Leave the link off and end after the country. The poster still goes on your references page.

Examples

A poster presentation at a national conference

A poster on burnout among school nurses, shown at the American Public Health Association's 2024 meeting in Minneapolis by a team from George Mason University, with Erin Maughan as the fifth author. The reference uses the meeting's dates, not the one-hour poster session on October 28.

  • Parenthetical citation(Shah et al., 2024)
  • Narrative citationShah et al. (2024)

A poster with eight authors

A poster on COVID-19 protections for health care workers by a team from National Nurses United and the Veterans Health Administration, from the 2023 American Public Health Association meeting in Atlanta. All eight authors go in the reference, including the last one, de Leon-Minch, with its lowercase de, and the in-text citation shortens to the first author and et al.

  • Parenthetical citation(Westmoreland et al., 2023)
  • Narrative citationWestmoreland et al. (2023)

A poster abstract published in a journal supplement

A Penn State poster on pain assessment in nursing home residents with dementia, from a poster session at the Gerontological Society of America's 2023 meeting. Its abstract was published in the meeting's supplement to Innovation in Aging, so if that's what you read, it's cited as a journal article. The all-caps title becomes sentence case, and hyphenated first names keep their hyphen in the initials.

  • Parenthetical citation(Liao et al., 2023)
  • Narrative citationLiao et al. (2023)

In-text citations

An APA 7 in-text citation for a poster gives the first presenter's last name and the year of the conference.

  • One presenter: (Presenter, 2024) or Presenter (2024)
  • Two presenters: both names every time, joined by & in parentheses and by and in your sentence: (Presenter & Presenter, 2024)
  • Three or more presenters: the first presenter and et al., from the first citation on: (Shah et al., 2024) or Shah et al. (2024)
  • Eight authors: still the first author and et al.: (Westmoreland et al., 2023)
  • A poster abstract in a journal: the same pattern: (Liao et al., 2023)

Posters have no page numbers. When you quote one, name the section the words come from, like (Shah et al., 2024, Results section), or paraphrase instead.

Common mistakes

  • Shah, Z. (2024, October 28). The association between burnout and education, experience, population served, and staffing level of school health nurses in the US [Poster presentation].Shah, Z., Goldberg, D., Weinstein, A., Wilcox, L., & Maughan, E. (2024, October 27–30). The association between burnout and education, experience, population served, and staffing level of school health nurses in the US [Poster presentation].List every author on the poster, not just the presenter, and use the dates of the whole conference instead of the day of the poster session.
  • Westmoreland, I., Cortez, Z., Burger, D., Ross, J., Hagans, N., Thomason, J., Godfrey, E., & de Leon-Minch, R. (2023, November 12–15). Protecting Nurses From COVID-19: An Update on the Fight for a National Standard [Poster presentation].Westmoreland, I., Cortez, Z., Burger, D., Ross, J., Hagans, N., Thomason, J., Godfrey, E., & de Leon-Minch, R. (2023, November 12–15). Protecting nurses from COVID-19: An update on the fight for a national standard [Poster presentation].Poster titles take sentence case in the reference, however the poster itself prints them. Proper nouns and terms like COVID-19 keep their capitals.
  • Westmoreland, I., et al. (2023, November 12–15).Westmoreland, I., Cortez, Z., Burger, D., Ross, J., Hagans, N., Thomason, J., Godfrey, E., & de Leon-Minch, R. (2023, November 12–15).Et al. belongs in the in-text citation, never in the reference. The reference lists up to 20 authors.
  • Protecting nurses from COVID-19: An update on the fight for a national standard [Poster]. APHA 2023 Annual Meeting and Expo, Atlanta, GA.Protecting nurses from COVID-19: An update on the fight for a national standard [Poster presentation]. APHA 2023 Annual Meeting and Expo, Atlanta, GA, United States.APA's description for a poster is [Poster presentation], and the location always ends with the country.
  • Liao, Y.-J., Jao, Y.-L., Berish, D., & Boltz, M. (2023). Nurses’ pain assessment and treatment outcomes in nursing home residents with dementia and apathy. Innovation in Aging, 7(Supplement_1), 854–854.Liao, Y.-J., Jao, Y.-L., Berish, D., & Boltz, M. (2023). Nurses’ pain assessment and treatment outcomes in nursing home residents with dementia and apathy. Innovation in Aging, 7(Suppl. 1), 854.DOI records write supplements the way the publisher's database does. APA abbreviates supplement as Suppl., and a one-page abstract takes a single page number.

Quick checklist

  • Every author on the poster, up to 20, with no credentials
  • The full dates of the conference, not the poster session's day
  • Poster title in italics and sentence case
  • [Poster presentation] after the title
  • Conference name, then city, state, and country
  • A link to the poster or its abstract when one exists

Questions students ask

What's the difference between a poster and a conference presentation in APA 7?

Only the description in square brackets. A poster takes [Poster presentation], and a talk takes [Conference presentation] or [Paper presentation]. Every other part of the reference follows the same format.

How do I cite a poster from my school's research day?

Use the poster format with the event's name as the conference, like your college's research symposium, and the city, state, and country of the campus. If the posters are in your school's online repository, end with the poster's link. If not, end after the location.

How do I cite my own poster in APA 7?

The same way as anyone's: you and your coauthors as authors, the conference dates, the title, [Poster presentation], the conference, and its location. On a CV you might list it differently, but in a paper it's a regular reference.

What if I only read the poster's abstract?

Cite what you read. For an abstract in the online program, use [Poster presentation abstract] and link to the abstract. For an abstract published in a journal supplement, cite it as a journal article with the supplement written as the issue, like 7(Suppl. 1).

Do I include the poster board number or the session time?

No. A board number or session time helps people find the poster in the exhibit hall, but it isn't part of an APA reference. The conference dates do that job.

How do I cite an e-poster from a virtual conference?

Use the poster format, leave out the location because there's no city to give, and end with the link to the e-poster. The manual's examples are all in-person meetings, so nothing replaces the location.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 6.17, 6.25, 8.13, 8.17, 9.8, 9.14, 9.19, 9.21, 9.25, 9.34, and 10.5 (Example 62), and the APA Style website's conference presentation references page. The two APHA posters were verified on October 21, 2026, against their pages in the American Public Health Association's online program (authors, title, poster session) and each meeting's home page for its dates and city. The journal abstract was verified against PubMed Central (PMC10738190), whose record files it under Session 7620 (Poster), and against its Crossref record (volume 7, Supplement 1, page 854).

PERRLA builds the poster reference from what you fill in, with [Poster presentation], the conference's full dates, and the location in APA order.

Try PERRLA free for 7 days