APA 7th Edition: A Very Brief Introduction
The acronym APA stands for American Psychological Association. Mostly used in the social sciences at first, it is now one of the most widespread citation styles in academia. Scholars in education, business, economics, political studies, social work, communication, psychology, anthropology, and more, use APA.
APA Style was first established in 1929. Since that first publication, there have been seven editions that have grown in scope and length, to address students, educators, and researcher's needs. We are now working with APA 7th edition, which was published in October 2019.
APA Style Guide 7th Edition: What's New?
For those of you who have used APA before, the 7th edition has some changes that are worth highlighting.
| New Changes to the 7th edition | Example |
| The publisher location is no longer included in the reference |
X Peters, M. A., & Britez, R. G. (2008). Open education and education for openness. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. ✓ Peters, M. A., & Britez, R. G. (2008). Open education and education for openness. Sense Publishers. |
| The in-text citation for works with three or more authors is now shortened right from the first citation. You only include the first author's name and "et al.". |
X (Taylor, Kotler, Johnson, & Parker, 2018) ✓ (Taylor et al., 2018) |
| Surnames and names for up to 20 authors (instead of 7) should be provided in the reference list |
X Miller, T. C., Brown, M. J., Wilson, G. L., Evans, B. B., Kelly, R. S., Turner, S. T., … Lee, L. H. (2018). ✓ Miller, T. C., Brown, M. J., Wilson, G. L., Evans, B. B., Kelly, R. S., Turner, S. T., Lewis, F., Lee, L. H., Cox, G., Harris, H. L., Martin, P., Gonzalez, W. L., Hughes, W., Carter, D., Campbell, C., Baker, A. B., Flores, T., Gray, W. E., Green, G., … Nelson, T. P. (2018). |
| DOIs are formatted the same as URLs. The label "DOI:" is no longer necessary. |
X DOI: 10.21083/partnership.v15i1.5450 |
| URLs are no longer preceded by "Retrieved from," unless a retrieval date is needed. The website name is included (unless it's the same as the author), and web page titles are italicized. |
X Gold, K. (2020, August 28). Small-town B.C. sees a rental boom as people migrate from urban centres. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/vancouver/article-small-town-bc-sees-a-rental-boom-as-people-migrate-from-urban/ ✓ Gold, K. (2020, August 28). Small-town B.C. sees a rental boom as people migrate from urban centres. The Globe and Mail. |
| For ebooks, the format, platform, or device (e.g. Kindle) is no longer included in the reference, and the publisher is included. |
X Zhang, K., Bonk, C. J., Reeves, T. C., Reynolds, T. H., Bonk, C. J., Reeves, T. C., & Reynolds, T. H. (2019). MOOCs and open education in the global south : Challenges, successes, and opportunities. [eBook]. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429398919 ✓ Zhang, K., Bonk, C. J., Reeves, T. C., Reynolds, T. H., Bonk, C. J., Reeves, T. C., & Reynolds, T. H. (2019). MOOCs and open education in the global south : Challenges, successes, and opportunities. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429398919 |
APA 7th Edition: The Basics
- When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, like, for example, (Smith, 2018). One complete reference for each source should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.
- Short quotation: If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of publication, and page number for the reference (preceded by "p." for a single page and “pp.” for a span of multiple pages, with the page numbers separated by an en dash).
- Long quotation: Place direct quotations that are 40 words or longer in a free-standing block of typewritten lines and omit quotation marks.
- Your references list should begin on a new page separate from the text of the essay; label this page References in bold, centered at the top of the page. All text should be double-spaced just like the rest of your essay.
Reference List - Basic Forms
Here's a list of basic forms for different types of resources. Before referencing, make sure that you have a good understanding of the source type or format. If the format you are referencing is not listed below, you can consult APA 7th edition or Purdue OWL for more details and examples.
Articles in Periodicals:
Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy
Books:
Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher Name.
Article or Chapters in an Edited Book:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor & F. F. Editor (Eds.), Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle (pp. pages of chapter). Publisher.
Website or Piece of Online Content:
Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of page. Site name. URL
Article from an Online Periodical with DOI Assigned:
Lastname, F. M., & Lastname, F. M. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, Vol.(Issue), page numbers. DOI
Online News Article:
Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of article. Title of Publication. URL
Datasets:
Lastname, F. M. or Name of Group (Year). Title of dataset (Version No.) [Data set]. Publisher. DOI or URL
Questions?
If you have questions, or if you run into problems that the guide does not address, e-mail Catherine Lachaîne at catherine.lachaine@uottawa.ca
This online guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. This page is attributed to Catherine Lachaîne.