Emojis. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it’s hard to deny they’re a part of modern language. Heck, they’ve even got their own animated movie.
And believe it or not, thanks largely to social media, there may even come a time when you need to include an emoji in a reference. In all their wisdom, the authors of the APA 7 publication manual foresaw this very scenario, no kidding (as evidenced by the absence of a winking emoji), and offered not one but two ways to handle emojis in your APA 7 references.
If at all possible, the APA says, an emoji should be replicated in a reference; however, if this is not possible, then the name of the emoji should be included inside [square brackets] as part of the reference.
As an example, let’s say we want to cite a Blueksy post from a fictional user who goes by the username RealAPAfan_67. Ideally, we’d want our reference to look like this:
RealAPAfan_67. (2026, January 8). Thanks to PERRLA, I'm able to focus on the actual content of my paper 😀 [Post]. Bluesky. https://www.bluesky.com/exampleemojireference
But, if you cannot re-create the emoji, the APA says this example is also acceptable:
RealAPAfan_67. (2026, January 8). Thanks to PERRLA, I'm able to focus on the actual content of my paper [grinning face emoji] [Post]. Bluesky. https://www.bluesky.com/exampleemojireference
Luckily, whether you’re a 👍or a 👎when it comes to emojis, PERRLA’s got you covered. In fact, both of the example references above were created using PERRLA: first by selecting ‘Create a New Reference,’ clicking on the ‘All Types’ tab, selecting ‘Social Media’ as the Reference Type, and completing the fields in PERRLA’s References & Citations panel.
It’s worth noting that, whether you want to copy and paste an emoji or simply learn the official name of an emoji, the APA recommends using this Emoji List. In Microsoft Word, you can also follow the steps found here to add emojis to your reference. If you’re working in Word on a Mac, you’ll find the Emojis in the Edit menu at the very top of your screen:
If you're using a Windows computer, you can open the emoji keyboard in Word by pressing the Windows key and the . (period) keys at the same time.
Until we meet again, good writing! And remember, PERRLA has your formatting covered (even the obscure stuff).