Locate an APA quotation when the source has no page numbers

When a source has no page numbers, do not invent a page to complete an APA quotation. Give the reader a usable route to the passage. The task is to make the wording findable in the source you actually read.

APA’s guidance for quotations without page numbers permits a section heading, a paragraph number, or both for unpaginated text. You may count paragraphs when the source does not number them. A long heading may be shortened. Kindle location numbers are not suitable substitutes. An audiovisual quotation instead uses the time at which the quoted passage begins.

Inspect the version you used

Open the actual webpage or ebook, not just a search result or the sentence saved in your notes. Check whether it supplies page numbers before treating it as unpaginated. Record its author, date and title separately from the locator: finding a passage and identifying the source are connected checks, but neither completes the other.

A browser’s print preview can divide a webpage differently from another reader’s printout. Do not treat a locally produced sheet number as evidence that the original webpage has that page number. If your institution requires a particular version or format, check that requirement before changing the citation.

Test a locator against a small fictional source

Everything in this exercise is invented: the author, year, heading and short source text. It demonstrates navigation, not a real reference or a research finding.

Imagine a fictional webpage by Mira Vale, dated 2025, with a heading Booking study rooms. Under that heading are exactly three paragraphs:

1. Reservations open on Monday morning.
2. Each booking covers one two-hour session.
3. A cancelled booking returns to the available list.

You want to quote the middle sentence. In this deliberately simple example, a parenthetical citation can read:

“Each booking covers one two-hour session” (Vale, 2025, Booking study rooms section, para. 2).

The section name moves the reader to the right part of the page; the paragraph number then identifies the passage within it. The quotation is still part of your own sentence or explanation. Its locator does not establish why the booking rule matters to your argument.

Now test the citation as a reader: start at the top of the fictional page, find the named heading and count to its second paragraph. If your note points to the cancellations paragraph instead, the citation needs repair even though its punctuation looks plausible.

Keep a recoverable working note

For each quotation, save the exact wording, source identity, URL or file record, heading and chosen locator together. Add a private note explaining your paragraph count if the layout is confusing. These notes support checking; they are not extra material to paste into the submitted citation.

Before submitting, reopen the passage and check the wording and location together. If a live webpage has changed, investigate the source version rather than silently carrying forward a locator that no longer works. Do not fill a missing date or heading from memory.

Keep the reference entry and the locator in their roles

APA explains that citing a section of a webpage does not ordinarily turn that section into a separate reference-list work. The reference identifies the page used; the in-text locator directs the reader within it.

For a video or recording, replay the start of the quoted words and record that starting time. Do not substitute a transcript’s locally printed page for the recording’s time position without checking what source you are actually citing.

Then return to the broader quotation-integration check: exact wording and a retrievable location still need context and explanation. Finish with the citation-to-reference audit so the locator leads into an identifiable source record.