PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Lecture slides

How to Cite PowerPoint Slides in APA 7

An APA 7 reference for PowerPoint slides lists the presenter, the date in parentheses, the title of the slides in italics, the words PowerPoint slides in square brackets, the name of the site that hosts the slides, and the URL. The in-text citation is the presenter's last name and the year: (Hastie & Finch, 2025). Slides from a course site like Canvas get the site's name and its login page as the URL, and slides your reader can't get to at all are cited only in the text, as a personal communication.

The format

Presenter, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of the slides [PowerPoint slides]. Site Name. URL

PERRLA APA Experts ยท 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

Slides from a Network of the National Library of Medicine training class? Paste the class page's link into PERRLA's reference search. PERRLA reads the presenters, the class date, and the title, adds [PowerPoint slides] and the site's full name, and builds the reference for you.

For any other deck, type PowerPoint into the reference search, or choose Lecture & Presentation Materials from the reference types. Add each Presenter (or switch the role to Group Presenter (organization) for an agency or company), then fill in the Title of the Material, type PowerPoint slides in the Format box, pick the Presentation Date, and enter the site in Institution or Platform and the URL. If the title looks like title case, PERRLA points it out and offers a sentence-case version. Check that version before you keep it: it can lowercase a word that should stay capitalized, like Module in Module 1. PERRLA adds the italics, the square brackets, and the hanging indent, and it leaves the site name out when it matches a group presenter.

Copied a link from inside Canvas, Blackboard, or Brightspace? PERRLA can't open pages behind your school's login, so it tells you that instead of guessing. Enter the slides by hand and use your school's login page as the URL.

Look up
Paste an NNLM class page link, get the reference

https://www.nnlm.gov/training/class/connecting-older-adults-health-information

Hastie, S., & Finch, B. (2025, July 23). Connecting older adults to health information [PowerPoint slides]. Network of the National Library of Medicine. https://www.nnlm.gov/training/class/connecting-older-adults-health-information

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

The parts of the reference

1. Presenter

Start with whoever made the slides: last name, a comma, and initials. For slides your instructor wrote, that's your instructor. List co-presenters the way you'd list co-authors, with an ampersand (&) before the last one.

Hastie, S., & Finch, B.

When an organization made the deck, like a government agency's training slides, the organization is the author. Write its full name, with no abbreviation in the reference.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

No presenter named anywhere? Move the title to the front, then the date. Don't write Anonymous unless the slides are signed that way.

2. Date

Give the most exact date the slides offer, in parentheses: the day the presentation was given or the slides were posted. Year, month, and day, in that order.

(2025, July 23).

If you can only find the year, use the year: (2023). If there's no date anywhere, write (n.d.). and cite it as (Presenter, n.d.) in your text. The day you downloaded the slides isn't their date.

3. Title and [PowerPoint slides]

Write the title from the first slide in italics and in sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Right after it, with no italics, add a description of the format in square brackets.

Connecting older adults to health information [PowerPoint slides].

Use [PowerPoint slides] for a PowerPoint deck. For slides in another format, like a PDF of lecture slides, describe what you have instead: [Lecture slides]. Nouns followed by a number keep their capital, so Module 1 stays capitalized in a sentence-case title.

No title on the slides? Put a short description in square brackets where the title goes, with no italics, and leave out the separate format label.

4. Site name

Name the site where the slides live, written the way the site writes it: SlideShare, a conference or organization's site, or your school's course site. For a learning management system, use the name your school gives it.

Network of the National Library of Medicine.

Canvas@FNU.

When a group author also hosts the slides, leave the site name out, so the reference doesn't name the same organization twice.

5. URL

End with the link to the slides, or to the page they're on. No period after it, and no "Retrieved from."

https://www.nnlm.gov/training/class/connecting-older-adults-health-information

For slides behind a login, like a file in your Canvas course, use the site's login or home page instead. A direct link to the file won't open for anyone outside your class.

https://fnu.onelogin.com/login

Examples

Slides from a public training session

Slides from a 2025 Network of the National Library of Medicine webinar on finding health information for older adults, posted on the class page for anyone to download. Both instructors go in the author spot, and the class date is the date.

  • Parenthetical citation(Hastie & Finch, 2025)
  • Narrative citationHastie and Finch (2025)

Slides by an organization

The communication module of TeamSTEPPS 3.0, AHRQ's teamwork training for health care teams. The agency is both the author and the host, so the site name drops out, and the abbreviation shows up only in your in-text citations.

  • Parenthetical citation(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 2023)
  • Narrative citationAgency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ, 2023)
  • Later citations(AHRQ, 2023)

Slides from Canvas or another course site

APA's own example of slides posted in a learning management system. The site is named the way the school brands it, and the URL is the login page, because a link to the file only works for people in the course. Use this form when your reader, usually your instructor, can log in and see the slides.

  • Parenthetical citation(Mack & Spake, 2018)
  • Narrative citationMack and Spake (2018)

Lecture slides that aren't a PowerPoint, cited by slide number

Slides from an MIT lecture on happiness and mental health, posted as a PDF on MIT OpenCourseWare. They aren't a PowerPoint file, so the square brackets say what they are. The slides have no page numbers, so a quote points to the slide.

  • Parenthetical citation(Schilbach, 2020, Slide 9)
  • Narrative citationSchilbach (2020, Slide 9)

In-text citations

Cite slides like any other authored work: the presenter's last name and the year. Slides have no page numbers, so when you quote one, point to the slide number instead.

  • One presenter: (Schilbach, 2020) or Schilbach (2020)
  • Two presenters: both names every time, joined by & in parentheses and by and in your sentence: (Hastie & Finch, 2025) or Hastie and Finch (2025)
  • Three or more presenters: the first presenter and et al., from the first citation on
  • An organization: the full name with its abbreviation the first time, then the abbreviation: (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 2023), then (AHRQ, 2023)
  • A quote from one slide: (Schilbach, 2020, Slide 9)
  • No date: (Presenter, n.d.)

Slides your reader can't get to, like a deck your instructor showed in class but never posted, or course slides you cite in a paper for people outside the course, are a personal communication. They go in your text only, never on the references page: (F. M. Lastname, personal communication, Month Day, Year).

Common mistakes

  • Connecting older adults to health information [PowerPoint slides].Connecting older adults to health information [PowerPoint slides].Only the title is italic. The description in square brackets stays in plain type.
  • Connecting Older Adults to Health InformationConnecting older adults to health informationSlide titles take sentence case in the reference, even when the first slide shows every word capitalized.
  • The link to the file inside your Canvas courseYour course site's login page, like APA's example https://fnu.onelogin.com/loginA direct link to a file in your course won't open for anyone who isn't logged in. APA 7 asks for the course site's login or home page instead.
  • (Schilbach, 2020, p. 9)(Schilbach, 2020, Slide 9)Slides don't have page numbers. Give the slide number so your reader can find the exact spot.
  • Citing the slides for a statistic the slides got from a published studyFind the study, read it, and cite the studyAPA 7 asks you to cite the original source when slides quote other work. Cite the slides only for what the presenter added.
  • A references-page entry for slides your instructor only showed in class(F. M. Lastname, personal communication, Month Day, Year) in your text onlyYour reader has no way to find slides that were never posted, so APA 7 treats them as a personal communication, cited in the text and left off the references page.

Quick checklist

  • Presenter's last name and initials, or the organization's full name
  • The most exact date you can find, or n.d.
  • Title in italics and sentence case
  • [PowerPoint slides] in plain type, or a description of the format you have
  • The site's name, left out when it matches a group author
  • The URL, or the login page for a course site
  • A slide number, not a page number, when you quote

Questions students ask

How do I cite my professor's PowerPoint from Canvas in APA 7?

If you're writing for your class, and your instructor can log in and see the slides, give a full reference: your professor as the presenter, the date, the title in italics, [PowerPoint slides], the course site's name, and the site's login page as the URL. If your reader can't get to the slides, cite them as a personal communication in your text instead.

Should I cite the slides or the sources on the slides?

Cite the original source whenever the slides are quoting or summarizing someone else's work. Find the article or book the slide names, read it, and cite it. Cite the slides themselves for the presenter's own ideas, examples, or explanations.

How do I cite a specific slide in APA 7?

Add the slide number after the year, the way you'd add a page number: (Schilbach, 2020, Slide 9). APA 7 asks for a locator that helps your reader find the spot when a work has no page numbers, and the slide number does that.

What if the slides have no date?

Write (n.d.) in the reference where the date goes, and use n.d. in your in-text citations: (Presenter, n.d.). Check the first slide, the last slide, and the page the slides came from before you decide there's no date.

How do I cite Google Slides, Keynote, or PDF slides?

Use the same reference pattern, and describe the format you have in the square brackets, like [Lecture slides] for a PDF of slides. Everything else stays the same: presenter, date, italic title, site, and URL.

How do I cite the publisher's slides that came with my textbook?

Cite the textbook if what you need is in the book. Those slides summarize the chapter, and your reader can find the book. Cite the slides only for something that appears on the slides and not in the book.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 6.17, 6.19, 8.8, 8.9, 8.17, 8.21, 8.28, and 10.14 (Example 102), and the APA Style website's PowerPoint slide, classroom and intranet source, and personal communication pages. Example sources verified on the NNLM class page, AHRQ's TeamSTEPPS 3.0 teaching page and its slide file, MIT OpenCourseWare's lecture page and slide PDF, and APA Style's own classroom example.

PERRLA turns your slides' details into a finished APA 7 reference, with the italics, the square brackets, and the hanging indent done for you.

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