APA 7th ed: What's New in 7th Ed.

APA style was created by the American Psychological Association as a form of regulation and standardization for the way research papers are written.

In APA, you must "cite" sources that you have paraphrased, quoted or otherwise used to write your research paper. Cite your sources in two places:

1. In the body of your paper where you provide a brief in-text citation after a quote pulled, or paraphrased, from your source.
2. In your References section at the end of your paper where you list a full and correct citation of the source used.

Paper Setup

• APA now has different title page requirements for student papers. This title page does not require a running head and has a different set of information to include. You can check out the 7th Edition: Student Title Page Guide for further information.
• There are no longer font restrictions. Times New Roman Size 12 is still welcome; however, students may use Calibri and Arial Size 11, Lucida Sans Size 10, and Georgia Size 11 as these are now accepted.
• Titles of the paper and the References list are now bolded.
• Tables and Figures now have a standardized format.
• There are now guidelines for annotated bibliographies: annotations will be a new paragraph, indented 0.5" from the left.

Grammar & Usage

• Singular "they" required in two situations:
  • when used by a known person as their personal pronoun
  • when the gender of a singular person is not known.
• Use only one space after the end punctuation of a sentence. 

In-text Citations

• In-text citation has been simplified in regards to multiple authors:
  • For one to two authors, simply list their names and the publication year in parenthesis. For example: "(Doe & Smith, 2019)."
  • For three or more, list only the first author's name followed by et al. For example: "(Doe et al., 2019)."

References List Citations​

Books

• Three or more authors can be abbreviated to "First author, et al." on the first citation.
• Up to 20 authors are spelled out in the References List. For works with more than 20 authors, list the first 19, insert an ellipsis (...) and then list the last author's name.
• Publisher location is not required for books.
• If a book has an assigned DOI, add it at the end of the citation.
  • You no longer need the "DOI" prefix; just insert the link.
  • All hyperlinks retain the "https://"
  • Hyperlinks can remain live, in blue with underlining or black without the underline.
• Platform, format, or device is no longer required for Ebooks. Database is not included, and Ebooks should be cited exactly like print books.
• Sacred texts should now be included in the reference list.

Journal Articles

• Always include the issue number.
• If a journal does not have a DOI, the citation can end after the page numbers used.
• The URL of the journal's homepage is no longer required. But you may link to it if it is open access.

Magazine/Newspaper

• ​The articled title is formatted as usual, but now the newspaper or magazine title is italicized.
• Include a URL if it will take the reader to the text without the need to log in.

Database Content

• If a database contains its own proprietary information, include the name of the database and permalink in the citation.

Webpage

• Omit the words "Retrieved from".
• Include the name of the website, unless it shares its name with its author. 
• Italicize the title of the webpage.
• URLs can now be shortened using shorteners like tinyurl and bit.ly.