How to Cite Personal Communication: Emails, Letters, and Texts

If you have ever wondered how to cite an email, a private letter, a text message, or an interview you conducted yourself, you are dealing with a special category called personal communication. These are sources your reader cannot retrieve, locate, or read for themselves, which changes how every style asks you to handle them. This guide explains exactly what counts as personal communication, why APA treats it differently from almost every other source, and how MLA and Chicago each take their own approach.

What counts as a personal communication?

A personal communication is any source that is not recoverable by your audience. Because the reader cannot click a link or pull a book from the shelf to verify it, citation styles treat the whole group consistently. Common examples include:

• Emails you sent or received
• Private letters and memos
• Text messages (SMS) and chat app conversations
• Direct messages (DMs) on social platforms that are not public
• Interviews and conversations you conducted in person, by phone, or over video
• Unrecorded lectures, classroom discussions, and private speeches

The defining test is retrievability. A public tweet is recoverable, so it gets a full reference and follows the rules in our guide to how to cite a tweet. A private DM is not recoverable, so it counts as personal communication. When in doubt, ask whether a stranger reading your paper could find the exact source. If the answer is no, you almost certainly have a personal communication.

APA: cite in the text only, never in the reference list

This is the rule that surprises most students. In APA Style (7th edition), personal communications are cited in the text only and are not included in the reference list. The logic is simple: the reference list exists so readers can retrieve your sources, and there is nothing to retrieve. So you give credit inside the sentence and stop there. For sources that do appear in your bibliography, our APA reference page guide walks through the formatting.

The required format is the communicator’s initials and surname, the words “personal communication,” and the exact date, in the order Month Day, Year. You can write it parenthetically or work the name into your sentence narratively, as explained in our overview of parenthetical vs narrative citations.

Use the same template for an email, a text, a letter, or an interview you conducted. The only thing that changes is the name and date. For a deeper look at the in-text mechanics across source types, see our guide to APA in-text citations. When you also have retrievable sources to format, the APA citation generator can build those entries for you.

MLA: include a works-cited entry

MLA (9th edition) takes the opposite stance: personal communications do get a full works-cited entry. MLA builds entries from a flexible template of core elements, so the description of the source goes where a title normally would. List the author by the name of the person you communicated with, describe the communication, and add the date and medium where relevant. Your in-text citation is just the author’s last name with no page number, since these sources have none. Our MLA works-cited page guide covers the layout in full.

For an interview you personally conducted, MLA labels it as such and gives the date. You can generate clean works-cited entries with the MLA citation generator, then double-check the in-text form against our MLA in-text citations guide.

Chicago: usually a note only

In Chicago style (17th and 18th editions, notes-bibliography system), personal communications are typically cited in a note and are usually omitted from the bibliography, much like the APA approach. The reasoning is the same: the source is not available to readers. Give the communicator’s name, the type of communication, and the full date in your footnote or endnote. Our Chicago footnotes guide explains note numbering and placement.

If your instructor wants an entry in the bibliography anyway, you can invert the name and follow the same elements. The Chicago citation generator can help, and the Chicago style guide covers the broader rules. Note that Turabian, the student-focused version of Chicago, follows the same pattern, as described in our Turabian citation generator page.

Interviews are a special case

Interviews deserve extra attention because the rules depend on who conducted them and whether they are recoverable. An interview you conducted yourself and never published is a personal communication, handled exactly as shown above. But a published interview, a broadcast interview, or a transcript posted online is recoverable, so it gets a full reference in every style. Because this distinction trips up so many writers, we have a dedicated walkthrough on how to cite an interview that covers both situations side by side.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Adding an APA reference-list entry for an email, text, or private interview. APA cites these in text only.
• Forgetting the exact date. All three styles want the full Month Day, Year (or Day Month Year in MLA).
• Using “&” inside an APA personal communication. The format uses initials and a surname, not an ampersand.
• Treating a public post as personal communication. Public tweets, posts, and comments are recoverable and need full references, as in our how to cite social media guide.
• Skipping the citation entirely. Even unrecoverable sources must be credited to avoid plagiarism, the subject of our how to avoid plagiarism guide.
• Quoting private messages without permission. Citing correctly does not replace getting consent to share someone’s private words.

Quick tips for getting it right

• Decide retrievability first. If the reader cannot find it, treat it as personal communication.
• Keep a log of dates as you gather sources so your citations are precise later.
• Match the format to your assigned style, and review the fundamentals in citation styles explained if you are switching between them.
• When mixing personal communications with regular sources, build the recoverable ones with a generator and add the personal ones by hand.

Personal communications are one of the few source types where the styles genuinely disagree, so the safest move is to confirm which style your assignment uses before you start. Remember the core split: APA and Chicago keep these sources inside the text or a note, while MLA gives them a full works-cited entry. Get that decision right, record the exact date and name, and these otherwise tricky sources become some of the simplest citations you will write. For everything else, our broader how to cite sources guide and the format-specific APA format guide will keep the rest of your paper consistent.