PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Speech

How to Cite a Speech in APA 7

An APA 7 reference for a recorded speech lists the speaker as the author, the full date the speech was given in parentheses, the speech title in italics and sentence case, the label [Speech audio recording], the site or archive that holds the recording, and the URL. The in-text citation is the speaker's last name and the year: (King, 1963). If you watched the speech as a video on YouTube, cite the video instead, and if you read it, cite the transcript.

The format

Speaker, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of the speech [Speech audio recording]. Site Name. 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 Speech (Audio Recording). Add the speaker in the Speaker role, then fill in Title of the Speech, the site or archive under Publishers, Date of the Speech, and the URL (Web address). PERRLA italicizes the title, adds [Speech audio recording] after it, and puts every part in order. Type the title in sentence case. If you type it in title case, PERRLA points that out and offers to fix it for you. You can leave Copyright Year blank: the APA format doesn't use it for a speech.

Speech has no title? Type a short description in square brackets in the title field, like [Audio recording of the address at the dedication of the National Institute of Health]. PERRLA prints your description in place of the title and the label, so put the words "audio recording" in the description itself.

Watched it on YouTube? Paste the YouTube link into PERRLA's reference search, or choose Videos (online), then A streaming (online) video, then A video posted on a streaming site (e.g., video on YouTube). If you use the search, check the channel name, the title, and the date against the video before you save, and fix the title's capitals: the search can lowercase a name like Obama and leave other words capitalized. Read a transcript? Choose Webpage and type Speech transcript in the Format field.

Quoting the recording? In the citation, pick Other, leave its label blank, and type the time where the quote starts, like 4:51. PERRLA's Time option is set up for videos, films, music, podcasts, and TV, so a speech recording uses Other.

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

The parts of the reference

1. Speaker

The person who gave the speech is the author. Write their last name, a comma, and their initials. Keep a suffix like Jr. after the initials, set off with a comma.

King, M. L., Jr.

This changes on YouTube. There, the account that posted the video is the author, even when someone else is speaking, so name the speaker in your sentence instead.

2. Date of the speech

Give the year, month, and day the speech was delivered, in parentheses, followed by a period. For a recording on an archive or a speech site, that's the day the speaker gave it, not the day the file went online.

(1940, October 31).

A YouTube video takes its upload date instead, which can be a day or decades after the speech. President Obama spoke to Congress on September 9, 2009, and the White House posted the video on September 10, so the video's reference says 2009, September 10. If no date appears anywhere, write (n.d.).

3. Title and [Speech audio recording]

Italicize the speech title and write it in sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Use the title the site gives the speech, even if the speech is better known by another name. Then add [Speech audio recording], not italic, and a period.

1992 Republican National Convention address [Speech audio recording].

No title at all? Write a short description in square brackets in place of the title, and leave it unitalicized. The description replaces the label, so say it's an audio recording.

[Audio recording of the address at the dedication of the National Institute of Health].

4. Site or archive

Name the website, library, or archive that holds the recording, in plain text. It's the place you listened, not the place the speech was given: write American Rhetoric or the FDR Presidential Library & Museum, not Houston or the Lincoln Memorial.

FDR Presidential Library & Museum.

5. URL

End with the link to the page that holds the recording. Don't put a period after it, and don't write "Retrieved from" in front of it.

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Examples

A speech recording from American Rhetoric

Mary Fisher's speech on HIV and AIDS at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, from the audio on American Rhetoric. It's widely known as "A Whisper of AIDS," but American Rhetoric titles it 1992 Republican National Convention Address, so that's the title in the reference, in sentence case.

  • Parenthetical citation(Fisher, 1992)
  • Narrative citationFisher (1992)

A speech by a speaker with Jr. in their name

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream," delivered at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, and the speech the APA manual itself uses as its speech example. The Jr. follows the initials in the reference, but only the last name goes in the citation.

  • Parenthetical citation(King, 1963)
  • Narrative citationKing (1963)

An untitled speech from a presidential library

Franklin D. Roosevelt's address at the dedication of the National Institute of Health and its new National Cancer Institute building in Bethesda, Maryland, on October 31, 1940. The FDR Presidential Library & Museum, part of the National Archives, posts the audio with no formal title, so a bracketed description takes the title's place.

  • Parenthetical citation(Roosevelt, 1940)
  • Narrative citationRoosevelt (1940)

A speech you watched on YouTube

President Barack Obama's September 9, 2009, address to a joint session of Congress on health care, as posted by The Obama White House channel the next day. A video of a speech is cited as a YouTube video: the channel is the author, the date is the upload date, and the label is [Video].

  • Parenthetical citation(The Obama White House, 2009)
  • Narrative citationThe Obama White House (2009)

A speech transcript

The White House transcript of the same 2009 address, from the archived Obama White House website. A transcript is cited like a webpage with the description [Speech transcript]. The speaker is the author again, and the date is the date on the transcript.

  • Parenthetical citation(Obama, 2009)
  • Narrative citationObama (2009)

In-text citations

An APA 7 in-text citation for a speech uses the author from your reference and the year. For an audio recording or a transcript, that's the speaker. For a YouTube video, it's the channel that posted it.

  • Audio recording: (Fisher, 1992) or Fisher (1992)
  • Speaker with a suffix: leave the Jr. out: (King, 1963) or King (1963)
  • YouTube video: (The Obama White House, 2009). Name the speaker in your sentence: In his address to Congress, President Obama laid out his plan for health insurance reform (The Obama White House, 2009).
  • Transcript: (Obama, 2009) or Obama (2009)
  • No date: use n.d. in place of the year: (Speaker, n.d.)

Quoting a recording? A speech has no page numbers, so add the timestamp where the quote starts, after the year: minutes and seconds, or hours, minutes, and seconds for a long recording. Quoting a transcript with no page numbers? Give a paragraph number (para. 4) or a section name instead.

Heard the speech live, with no recording or transcript anyone else can find? It's a personal communication. Cite it in your text only, with the speaker's initials and last name, the words personal communication, and the full date, and leave it off your references page.

Common mistakes

  • King, M. L., Jr. (1963, August 28). I have a dream [Speech]. American Rhetoric.King, M. L., Jr. (1963, August 28). I have a dream [Speech audio recording]. American Rhetoric.APA's label for a recorded speech is [Speech audio recording]. The label tells your reader they'll be listening to it, not reading it.
  • Obama, B. (2009, September 9). President Obama: Address to Congress on health insurance reform [Speech audio recording]. YouTube.The Obama White House. (2009, September 10). President Obama: Address to Congress on health insurance reform [Video]. YouTube.A speech you watched on YouTube is a YouTube video. The channel that posted it is the author, the date is the upload date, and the label is [Video].
  • Fisher, M. (1992, August 19). 1992 Republican National Convention Address [Speech audio recording].Fisher, M. (1992, August 19). 1992 Republican National Convention address [Speech audio recording].Speech titles take sentence case in the reference. Capitalize the first word and proper nouns, like Republican National Convention, and lowercase the rest.
  • Fisher, M. (1992, August 19). A whisper of AIDS [Speech audio recording]. American Rhetoric.Fisher, M. (1992, August 19). 1992 Republican National Convention address [Speech audio recording]. American Rhetoric.Use the title the source gives the speech, so your reader can find the same recording. You can still mention the popular name in your sentence.
  • Roosevelt, F. D. (1940, October 31). [Audio recording of the address at the dedication of the National Institute of Health]. Bethesda, MD.Roosevelt, F. D. (1940, October 31). [Audio recording of the address at the dedication of the National Institute of Health]. FDR Presidential Library & Museum.The source is where the recording lives, not where the speech was given. The place can go in your sentence.
  • A reference-list entry for a campus speech you attended that was never recordedAn in-text personal communication citation with the speaker's initials, last name, and the date, and no reference entryIf nobody else can hear or read the speech, there's nothing to send your reader to. APA treats it as a personal communication, cited in the text and left off the references page.

Quick checklist

  • The speaker as author for an audio recording or a transcript
  • The full date the speech was given (upload date for YouTube)
  • Title in italics and sentence case, as the source titles it
  • [Speech audio recording] after the title, or [Video] for YouTube
  • The site or archive that holds the recording, then its URL
  • A timestamp in the citation when you quote the recording

Questions students ask

How do I cite a speech on YouTube in APA 7?

Cite it as a YouTube video. The account that posted it is the author, followed by the upload date, the video title in italics, [Video], YouTube, and the URL. If the speaker isn't the account, name the speaker in your sentence.

What date do I use for a speech?

For an audio recording, the date the speech was delivered, with the year, month, and day. For a YouTube video, the upload date shown for the video. For a transcript, the date on the transcript. If you can't find any date, write n.d.

How do I cite a speech transcript?

List the speaker as the author, then the date, the title in italics, the description [Speech transcript], the site that published the transcript, and its URL. If the transcript was posted years after the speech, APA gives the transcript's year in the date and adds (Original work published) with the speech's year at the end, and the citation shows both years with a slash.

How do I cite a speech I heard in person?

If it wasn't recorded and there's no transcript, it's a personal communication. Cite it in your text with the speaker's initials and last name, personal communication, and the exact date, and don't add it to your references page. If the event was recorded and posted, cite the recording instead.

What if the speech doesn't have a title?

Write a short description in square brackets in place of the title, not italicized, and say what it is, like [Audio recording of the address at the dedication of the National Institute of Health]. The description does the job of the [Speech audio recording] label, so it doesn't need both.

How do I cite a speech printed in a book?

Cite the book or the chapter you read it in, not the speech. A speech collected in an edited book takes the chapter format: the speaker, the year of the book, the speech title, In, the editors, the book title, the pages, and the publisher.

Is a TED Talk a speech in APA 7?

APA cites a TED Talk as a video, not a speech audio recording. On TED.com, the speaker is the author and TED Conferences is the publisher. On YouTube, TED or TEDx Talks is the author.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 8.9, 8.10, 8.28, 9.8, 9.11, 9.14, 9.17, 9.19–9.22, 9.29, 9.34, 10.3, 10.12, 10.13 (Example 96), and 10.16, and the APA Style website's transcript of an audiovisual work and YouTube reference examples. Each source was opened on October 21, 2026: the American Rhetoric pages for each speaker, title, delivery date, and audio; the FDR Presidential Library & Museum page for the October 31, 1940, audio recording and transcript; the YouTube video page for the channel, title, and September 10, 2009, upload date; and the archived Obama White House transcript for its title and September 9, 2009, date.

PERRLA builds the speech reference from what you fill in, with the label, italics, and order the APA format calls for.

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