Can I cite a lab manual that's just a packet of photocopies?

If the material was written for the course and exists only in the packet, APA's classroom course-pack format applies: author, year of the course pack, title of the material, then “In [Instructor] (Ed.), [Course code: Course title] (pp. x–y). [University].” If the packet reproduces a published source unchanged, cite that source directly instead—APA is explicit that you should not explain in the reference that it was reproduced in a course pack.

Should I cite the lab manual for basic procedures?

Cite it when you are following its method or reporting its values. Genuinely generic technique—using a pipette—needs no citation. If the manual itself credits a source for a procedure, follow that credit to the original.

Can I cite my TA's instructions?

Spoken or informally given instructions are not recoverable by your readers, so APA cites them in the text only as a personal communication. Written material distributed to the whole class and available on your LMS can use the classroom-material format instead.

What if the manual has no author or date?

Use the department or institution in the author position. If no year is printed anywhere on it, APA uses (n.d.). Describe the document clearly enough—“[Week 5 lab procedures]”—that a reader knows what you are referencing.

My lab manual is on Canvas/Blackboard/Moodle—how do I cite it?

APA's format for material on a classroom website or LMS gives the site name and its URL, using the login-page URL for sites that require a login—and says that if your readers do not have access to it, cite it as a personal communication instead.

How to Cite a Lab Manual

Lab manuals are awkward to cite because they come in very different forms: some are commercially published books, some are packets assembled for one course, some are files on a learning management system that only your class can open. The citation depends on which of those you have — and, crucially, on whether your reader could get to it.

Types of Lab Manuals

Published commercial manuals — printed by an academic publisher, with an ISBN. Cite like a book.
Openly published manuals — freely available online, often under a Creative Commons licence, with a named author and a stable URL. Cite like an online book, and record the licence.
Custom course materials — assembled by an instructor or department for one course. APA's classroom course-pack format.
Instructor-created handouts and LMS files — the classroom-material format, or a personal communication if your readers can't reach them.

Work out which type you have before formatting anything.

Published Lab Manuals

If the manual has an author, edition and publisher, cite it as a book.

APA:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of lab manual (edition). Publisher.

A real example, verified in a library catalogue:

Morgan, J. G., & Carter, M. E. B. (2010). Investigating biology laboratory manual (7th ed.). Benjamin Cummings.

MLA:

Author. Title of Lab Manual. Edition, Publisher, Year.

Morgan, Judith Giles, and M. Eloise Brown Carter. Investigating Biology Laboratory Manual. 7th ed., Benjamin Cummings, 2010.

Chicago (18th Edition, Notes–Bibliography):

Chicago's Citation Quick Guide notes that "a place of publication is no longer required in book citations" (CMOS 14.30), so the bibliography entry is simply:

Morgan, Judith Giles, and M. Eloise Brown Carter. Investigating Biology Laboratory Manual. 7th ed. Benjamin Cummings, 2010.

Openly Published Manuals

Some lab manuals are published openly, with an author and licence stated on the record rather than an ISBN — for example Organic Chemistry Lab Techniques by Lisa Nichols, hosted on Chemistry LibreTexts, whose record lists Butte College as the source institution and a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.

Cite these like an online book: author, title, the site or publisher, and the URL. Take the year from the record if it states one, and use (n.d.) if it does not — do not guess a year from the page's "last modified" stamp, which is not a publication date.

[Author, A. A.]. ([Year or n.d.]). [Title of manual]. [Site or publisher]. [URL]

Course-Specific Manuals

For a manual written for one course and circulated only within it, APA's classroom course-pack format applies. APA's own published examples:

Elders, M. (2019). Neighborhood watch: Social media in the community. In M. Elders (Ed.), POL 241: Politics and activism in the 21st century (pp. 34–41). American University.
Young, U., & Sikder, T. (2019). Taking a neighborhood canvasing approach to social media. In M. Elders (Ed.), POL 241: Politics and activism in the 21st century (pp. 34–41). American University.

Read off the structure: the writer of the material is the author; the date is the year of the course pack; the source element gives the instructor as editor, the course-pack title (often the course title), the page range, and the university. Where the instructor wrote the material, their name appears twice — as in the Elders example.

Applied to a lab manual, filling in your own course's details:

[Author, A. A.]. ([Year]). [Title of the experiment or section]. In [Instructor] (Ed.), [Course code: Course title] (pp. [x–y]). [University Name].

When no author is credited, APA moves the title of the material into the author position. Its own example:

Diagram of the tibia–basitarsis joint in Apis melifera. (2015). In B. Haave (Ed.), NEU 451: Movement and perception (pp. 44–45). St. Ambrose University.

APA also sets a limit on when to use this format at all: use it "only for material of limited circulation in a course pack — meaning that it is not available except for in the course pack." If the pack reproduces a published article or chapter unchanged, cite that published source.

LMS Files and Slide Decks

For a manual or lab handout distributed as a file on a classroom site or LMS, APA's slide-and-lecture-note format applies. Its own examples:

Jones, J. (2016, March 23). Guided reading: Making the most of it [PowerPoint slides]. SlideShare. https://www.slideshare.net/hellojenjones/guided-reading-making-the-most-of-it
Mack, R., & Spake, G. (2018). Citing open source images and formatting references for presentations [PowerPoint slides]. Canvas@FNU. https://fnu.onelogin.com/login

APA's rule for the second case: give the name of the classroom site, LMS or intranet and its URL — "use the login page URL for sites requiring login" — and only when you are writing for an audience that has access to it. James Cook University Library's APA guide reproduces the same pattern for LMS material.

Adapted to a lab manual:

[Author, A. A.]. ([Year]). [Course code: Title of lab manual] [[Format, e.g. PDF]]. [LMS name]. [Login-page URL]

When Your Readers Can't Reach It At All

If the material was only ever handed out in person or emailed, it is not recoverable, and APA is explicit that such works are cited in the text only, never in the reference list. Give the communicator's initials and surname and as exact a date as possible. APA's own in-text examples of the form:

E.-M. Paradis (personal communication, August 8, 2019)
(T. Nguyen, personal communication, February 24, 2020)

James Cook University Library's guide puts the test usefully: "Can it be retrieved (that is, can anyone find it if they know where to look), or does it have to be given?" Its list of personal communications includes "a copy of someone's notes given to you or sent to you, but not available to anyone else unless given or sent to them" — which is what an in-person-only handout is.

Departments do sometimes ask for a reference-list entry anyway. That is a local instruction rather than an APA rule, so ask your marker rather than guessing.

Who Is the Author?

In order of preference: the named author(s) credited on the manual; the department that produced it; the institution. Check the title page, cover and copyright statement before concluding there is no author, and only then move the title into the author position.

Citing Specific Experiments or Sections

For a specific experiment inside a larger manual, either give a pinpoint in the text:

In-text: ([Department], [Year], Experiment 7)

or cite the section like a chapter, using the course-pack pattern above with the experiment as the title and the manual as the container.

Edition and Version Information

Lab manuals are revised often, and the version you used matters for reproducibility. Record whatever the manual states — "(7th ed.)", "(Rev. ed.)", or a term-specific version label if that is what is printed on it. Don't invent an edition number that isn't on the document.

Where These Rules Come From

APA: the "Classroom Course Pack Material References" page (Publication Manual Section 10.3), the "PowerPoint Slide or Lecture Note References" page (Section 10.14) and the "Personal Communications" page (Section 8.9) on the APA Style site (apastyle.apa.org). APA's site refuses automated requests, so these were read through Internet Archive captures; every APA example and quoted sentence above comes from those captures.
APA, corroborated: James Cook University Library's APA guide, "Class Handouts & Lecture Notes" and "Personal Communication" (libguides.jcu.edu.au/apa/class-material, .../apa/personal-communication) — the first gives the same LMS pattern, with the institution's learning-management URL, and the second is the source of the retrievability test quoted above. Murdoch University Library's APA 7th guide has a parallel "Personal Communication" page (libguides.murdoch.edu.au/APA/personal). All read live.
Chicago: the free Chicago Manual of Style 18th-edition Citation Quick Guide (book section), which states that "a place of publication is no longer required in book citations (see CMOS 14.30)".
The Morgan and Carter manual was checked against the Open Library edition record (openlibrary.org/books/OL25074298M), whose statement of responsibility reads "Judith Giles Morgan M. Eloise Brown Carter": 7th ed., Benjamin Cummings, San Francisco, 2010, 828 pages, ISBN 978-0-321-66821-9. The Nichols manual's author (Lisa Nichols), source institution (Butte College) and CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence were read from the Chemistry LibreTexts page record.