This guide to citing a podcast or video transcript is published by EdCitation, whose tools look each reference up and never write one. The rule underneath every style is short: cite the version you used. If you read a transcript the publisher put online, cite the transcript; if you listened or watched, cite the episode or video, and point to the quotation with a time stamp.
We read each style's rules at its publisher on 27 September 2026, APA's through archived copies because its site answered with a bot check. Cite Them Right, the Harvard we build, is a subscription site we could not open, so its rules come from university libraries that follow it. We ran EdCitation's free Cite a source on a podcast episode, its transcript, a TED talk and a YouTube lecture, and Verify references on the list, and quote the results.
Should you cite the podcast episode, the video or the transcript?
Cite the one you actually used. APA gives a transcript the same reference as the episode, with one change: the description after the title reads "[Audio podcast transcript]" (American Psychological Association, n.d.-e). The host is the author, with "(Host)" after the name, and the address is the transcript's.
Why the audio usually wins
The publisher often says so itself. Under every transcript, NPR warns that its transcripts may vary in accuracy, may be revised, and that the audio is "the authoritative record" of its programming (Barber & Rott, 2026). If you quote from a transcript, play the passage and check the words before you hand in.
A transcript you made yourself
Cite the recording, not your transcript. MLA says quotations from an unpublished transcript you made are cited to the audio, with a note the first time if it matters (Modern Language Association, 2021b). Text from a transcription app is the same: a copy of the recording, not a source.
Can you quote YouTube's auto-generated captions?
You can quote the words, but cite the video, and check each quotation against the sound first. YouTube's help page says automatic captions come from machine learning, vary in quality, and "might misrepresent the spoken content" through accents, dialects or background noise (Google, n.d.). None of the style pages we read gives a separate rule for captions or an automatic transcript; each treats the video as the source.
We compared the two English caption tracks on MIT OpenCourseWare's upload of Gilbert Strang's first linear algebra lecture (MIT OpenCourseWare, 2019). The menu lists "English - CC (English)", captions the channel supplied, and "English (auto-generated)".
| Time | Channel's captions | Auto-generated |
|---|---|---|
| 0:47 | "So, and later we'll give the web address for viewing these, videotapes." | "So uh and later we'll say where which we'll give the web address for viewing these uh video tapes." |
| 1:49 | "I'll put a star beside that, because that's such an important one." | "I'll I'll I put a star beside that cuz that's such an important one" |
| 35:49 | "some vector x equals some right-hand side b" | "some vector X equals some right-hand side B" |
Neither track is simply right: the automatic one keeps hesitations the edited one removed, and capitalises x and b, which in algebra changes their meaning. MIT's transcript on the course page matches the edited captions.
How do you put a timestamp in an in-text citation?
Give the time where the quoted words begin, in the place a page number would go. APA's own example is (Cuddy, 2012, 2:12), and APA extends the rule to any audiovisual work: audiobooks, YouTube videos, TED talks, television (American Psychological Association, n.d.-b).
- APA 7: (Robinson, 2006, 2:46), the start of the quotation.
- MLA 9: the time as your player shows it, hours, minutes and seconds separated by colons, according to the University of British Columbia Library (n.d.), as in (Robinson 00:02:46). MLA's own posts ask for time stamps on every quotation from a recorded lecture and suggest them for a paraphrase when they help the reader (Modern Language Association, 2020, 2021a).
- Chicago author-date: "at" before the time, as in the Manual's (Cowan 2022, at 6:09–17) (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-a).
- Harvard (Cite Them Right): UWE Bristol's guide to the style says to add a time stamp for videos and podcasts but prints no example (University of the West of England, n.d.); (Robinson, 2006, 2:46) follows the page-number pattern.
- IEEE and Vancouver: the numbered citation has no time element in either guide we read. We suggest putting the time in your sentence: "at 1:05 in [3]".
Where the time comes from
A transcript's time marks show where a paragraph starts, not each sentence. TED's transcript of Ken Robinson's 2006 talk starts a paragraph at 2:46 with "So I want to talk about education, and I want to talk about creativity." For that sentence 2:46 is right; for the next one, play the talk and read the player. NPR's transcripts carry no time marks at all.
How do you cite a TED talk or a recorded lecture?
The author changes with the platform. On TED's own site, APA makes the speaker the author and TED Conferences the publisher; on YouTube, the TED account is the author and the speaker is named in your sentence (American Psychological Association, n.d.-d). Robinson appears on TED as "Sir Ken Robinson"; the reference takes his surname and initial, Robinson, K., because a title is not an initial.
A lecture on YouTube or a course site
APA makes the uploading account the author and asks you to name whoever is speaking in the text (American Psychological Association, n.d.-f). So Strang's lecture is cited to MIT OpenCourseWare, with Strang named in the sentence. Its dates are a trap: the course page says the lectures were recorded in autumn 1999, YouTube's description calls it the Spring 2005 course, and the upload is dated 24 September 2019, which YouTube shows as 25 September to a viewer in Pakistan. Give the upload date the page records, and the recording year in your text if it matters.
A lecture on your university's learning platform takes the platform's name and address; MLA's example names Blackboard (Modern Language Association, 2021a).
How do you cite a podcast or video in each style?
The six styles differ most in where the host, programme and running time go.
APA 7 and MLA 9
APA puts the host first with "(Host)", the date aired, the episode title in plain type, a description in brackets, "In" and the programme in italics, the publisher and the address (American Psychological Association, n.d.-c). MLA's pattern is the host followed by "host", the episode title in quotation marks, the programme as container, the publisher, date and address (Modern Language Association, 2017). That post predates the ninth edition; MLA's 2022 post on YouTube keeps the shape: creator, title as YouTube shows it, YouTube, upload date, address (Modern Language Association, 2022).
Chicago author-date
The Manual's sample podcast entry ends with "Podcast" and the running time (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-a). Its answer on YouTube asks you to give the details of the item itself, because most of what is on YouTube was made by someone else (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-b).
Barber, Regina G., and Nathan Rott, hosts. 2026. Short Wave. "Why We Should All Be 'Bookmaxxing.'" NPR, September 18. Podcast, 10 min., 58 sec. https://www.npr.org/2026/09/18/nx-s1-5968677/reading-fun-brain-science.
Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver
Robert Gordon University's Cite Them Right templates give the presenter, year, programme: episode in italics, "[Podcast]", day and month, address and date accessed (Robert Gordon University, 2026). IEEE's guide has no podcast or transcript form; its online video form ends "[Online Video]" and the address (IEEE, 2025). NLM's Citing Medicine treats a podcast or online video as a title on the Internet, with its length as the extent, as in "Podcast: 10 min." (Patrias, 2007).
Strang G. 1. The geometry of linear equations [Internet]. Cambridge (MA): MIT OpenCourseWare; 2019 Sep 24 [cited 2026 Sep 27]. Video: 39:49 min. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7DzL2_Na80
How do APA 7 and MLA 9 compare for podcasts and videos?
| Source | APA 7 reference | MLA 9 works cited | With a time stamp |
|---|---|---|---|
| Podcast episode | Barber, R. G., & Rott, N. (Hosts). (2026, September 18). Why we should all be "bookmaxxing" [Audio podcast episode]. In Short Wave. NPR. URL | Barber, Regina G., and Nathan Rott, hosts. "Why We Should All Be 'Bookmaxxing.'" Short Wave, NPR, 18 Sept. 2026, URL. | (Barber & Rott, 2026, time); (Barber and Rott time), the time from the audio |
| Publisher's transcript | As above, with [Audio podcast transcript] and the transcript's URL | As above, with the transcript's URL; "Transcript." may close it | Play the audio for the time |
| TED talk on ted.com | Robinson, K. (2006, February). Do schools kill creativity? [Video]. TED Conferences. URL | Robinson, Ken. "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" TED, Feb. 2006, URL. | (Robinson, 2006, 2:46); (Robinson 00:02:46) |
| Lecture on YouTube | MIT OpenCourseWare. (2019, September 24). 1. The geometry of linear equations [Video]. YouTube. URL | Strang, Gilbert. "1. The Geometry of Linear Equations." YouTube, uploaded by MIT OpenCourseWare, 24 Sept. 2019, URL. | (MIT OpenCourseWare, 2019, 1:05); (Strang 00:01:05) |
| Auto-generated captions | Cite the video, not the captions | Cite the video | Check the words against the audio |
| Any of these, from its address | Built by Cite a source | Built by Cite a source | Time stamps are added by you |
How do you quote speech accurately?
Quote the words as the version you cite gives them, and mark every change. APA lets you change the first letter's case, some final punctuation and the quotation marks without comment; anything else, such as leaving words out, needs an ellipsis, and an addition goes in square brackets (American Psychological Association, n.d.-a). Dropping a speaker's "uh" from a video you cite is an omission; quoting an edited transcript that already dropped it is not.
Name the speaker in your sentence whenever the speaker is not the author of the reference: a guest on a podcast, a lecturer on a channel. On Short Wave, Christelle Langley of the University of Cambridge told the hosts that reading rates among young people in the UK are the lowest since records began (Barber & Rott, 2026). When a speaker quotes someone else, as Robinson quotes Picasso, cite the talk and say whose words they are: you heard Robinson, not Picasso.
Save a copy of any video you rely on: Chicago suggests the Wayback Machine's Save Page Now, because videos disappear (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-c).
How do you cite a podcast or video transcript, step by step?
- Decide what you used: the recording, the publisher's transcript, or your own notes from the recording.
- Paste the page's address into EdCitation's Cite a source and choose your style.
- Correct the author: the host for a podcast, the speaker on TED's site, the uploading account on YouTube.
- Add the description by hand: [Audio podcast episode], [Audio podcast transcript] or [Video] in APA; "[Podcast]" in Harvard; "[Online Video]" in IEEE.
- Check the date against the page: the day the episode aired or the video was uploaded.
- Play each quotation and note the time where it begins.
- Put the time in each citation in your style's form, or in the sentence for IEEE and Vancouver.
- Run the finished list through Verify references.
What does EdCitation build from a podcast or video page?
EdCitation is the best free tool for this job because it reads the details from the page itself, shows you what it read, and leaves out what the page does not give rather than guessing: below, a missing date came back as n.d., not an invented one. It never writes any part of a student's paper. Cite a source takes a web address, free with no account, in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, and lets you correct the page's details before the entry is set again. A web page has no publisher's record, so check what it read.
What Cite a source returned
For the Short Wave episode page, APA came back as:
Barber, R. G. (2026, September 18). Why we should all be “bookmaxxing”: Short Wave. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2026/09/18/nx-s1-5968677/reading-fun-brain-science
MLA began "Barber, Regina G. “Why We Should All Be ‘Bookmaxxing’: Short Wave.” NPR, 18 Sept. 2026". The date is right. To fix: the second host is missing, there is no "(Host)", ": Short Wave" is the programme and belongs after "In", and the page was set as a web page with no [Audio podcast episode]. The transcript page came back identical apart from its address, with nothing to say it was a transcript.
For Robinson's talk, APA gave "Robinson, K. (n.d.). Do schools kill creativity? TED Talks. Retrieved September 27, 2026, from https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity". The name is right, with "Sir" left out, but the page gave no date, and the transcript's address became the talk's. Corrected in the form, APA came back as "Robinson, K. (2006, February). Do schools kill creativity? TED Conferences." with the address: add [Video].
For Strang's lecture on YouTube, APA gave, in a rerun on 27 September 2026, "MIT OpenCourseWare. (2019, September 24). 1. The geometry of linear equations. YouTube." with the address: the channel as author and the upload date, as APA asks, and the title in sentence case, with "The" after the lecture number keeping its capital. Before you copy it, add [Video].
What Verify references returned
We pasted five APA entries: the transcript, two TED talks and the lecture, each correct, plus the lecture's address under a title we made up. The four came back verified, each with "The page is at this address, and its title matches."; the fifth came back "Check this": "The address works, but the page there has a different title. Check it is the page meant." Those reasons cover the address and the title, so hosts, dates and time stamps stay yours to check against the page. Verify references is free; References from a file, in Pro at $8 a month, checks an uploaded paper's references and matches each citation to the list. For web pages generally, see how to cite a website in APA 7.
Quick questions
How do I cite a podcast transcript in APA?
Like the episode, with "[Audio podcast transcript]" after the title and the transcript's address. The host is the author, with "(Host)" after the name.
Where does the timestamp go in an in-text citation?
Where a page number would go, marking the start of the quotation: (Robinson, 2006, 2:46) in APA, (Robinson 00:02:46) in MLA, (Robinson 2006, at 2:46) in Chicago author-date.
Can I cite YouTube's auto-generated captions?
Cite the video, not the captions. YouTube warns that automatic captions can misrepresent what was said, so check every quotation against the sound.
Can EdCitation cite a podcast or a YouTube video?
Yes, from its web address. EdCitation's Cite a source reads the page and builds the entry free in six styles; check the host, the date and the description before you copy it.
References
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-a). Changes to quotations. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/quotations/changes
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-b). Direct quotation of material without page numbers. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/quotations/no-page-numbers
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-c). Podcast references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/podcast-references
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-d). TED Talk references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/ted-talk-references
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-e). Transcript of an audiovisual work references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/transcript-audiovisual-work-references
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-f). YouTube video references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/youtube-references
- Barber, R. G., & Rott, N. (Hosts). (2026, September 18). Why we should all be “bookmaxxing” [Audio podcast transcript]. In Short Wave. NPR. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5968677
- Google. (n.d.). Use automatic captioning. YouTube Help. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6373554
- IEEE. (2025). IEEE reference guide (Version 3.28.2025). IEEE Author Center. https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf
- MIT OpenCourseWare. (2019, September 24). 1. The geometry of linear equations [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7DzL2_Na80
- Modern Language Association. (2017, October 27). How do I cite an episode of a podcast? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/how-do-i-cite-a-podcast-episode/
- Modern Language Association. (2020, November 17). Should I include a time stamp for time-based media when I am paraphrasing rather than quoting? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/time-stamps-paraphrasing/
- Modern Language Association. (2021a, January 27). How do I cite an online lecture from a course I'm taking remotely? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/citing-an-online-lecture/
- Modern Language Association. (2021b, March 11). How do I cite unpublished audio transcripts that I created? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/unpublished-audio-transcripts/
- Modern Language Association. (2022, March 30). How do I cite YouTube videos? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/citing-youtube-videos/
- Patrias, K. (2007). Citing medicine: The NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers (D. L. Wendling, Tech. Ed.; 2nd ed.), Books and other individual titles on the Internet. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7269/
- Robert Gordon University. (2026). Videos and streaming. Cite Them Right Harvard templates. https://library.rgu.ac.uk/harvard-referencing-templates/videos-and-streaming
- Robinson, K. (2006, February). Do schools kill creativity? [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity
- University of British Columbia Library. (n.d.). Audiovisual & images. MLA 9th edition citation style guide. https://guides.library.ubc.ca/c.php?g=725315&p=5195215
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-a). Author-date: Sample citations. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-b). Citation, documentation of sources (Q&A No. 359). The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Documentation/faq0359.html
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-c). Citation, documentation of sources (Q&A No. 452). The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Documentation/faq0452.html
- University of the West of England. (n.d.). In-text citations. Cite Them Right Harvard. https://www.uwe.ac.uk/study/study-support/study-skills/referencing/cite-them-right-harvard/in-text-citations