APA 7th Edition — Complete Citation Guide

APA 7th edition — overview

APA (American Psychological Association) style is one of the most widely used academic citation systems in the world, particularly in psychology, education, social sciences, nursing, and business. The 7th edition was published in 2020 and introduced several significant changes from the 6th edition.

APA uses an author–date in-text citation system: every source you cite in the text must have a corresponding full reference in the reference list, and every reference list entry must correspond to an in-text citation.

In-text citations

Parenthetical citation (standard)

Place the author surname and year in parentheses at the end of the sentence, before the full stop:

Narrative citation

Name the author in the sentence text; place only the year in parentheses:

Direct quotation — include page number

Multiple authors

• 1–2 authors: Cite all names every time — (Smith & Jones, 2020)
• 3+ authors: First author + "et al." every time — (Smith et al., 2020)

Same author, same year — distinguish with letters

No author — use title (shortened)

No date

Reference list rules

• Title the page References (centred, bold)
• Double-space all entries; use a hanging indent (first line flush left, subsequent lines indented 0.5 inch)
• Alphabetise by author surname
• For the same author, list entries chronologically (oldest first)
• Include DOI as a hyperlink where available: https://doi.org/xxxxx
• Titles of books, reports, dissertations: italicised
• Titles of articles and chapters: plain text, sentence case
• Journal names: italicised, Title Case

Journal article

Book (single author)

Chapter in an edited book

Webpage / website

Dissertation or thesis

Government / organisational report

Key changes from APA 6th edition

• Running head: No longer required in student papers (only in manuscripts for publication)
• Authors with 3+: In 6th, 6+ authors used "et al."; in 7th, 3+ use et al. every time
• Authors up to 20: 6th listed up to 7; 7th lists up to 20
• Publisher location: No longer required for books
• DOIs: Now formatted as hyperlinks (https://doi.org/…), not "doi:" prefix
• "Retrieved from": Removed for most sources; only needed when content may change
• Singular "they": Endorsed as a generic third-person pronoun
• Bias-free language: Expanded guidance on inclusive language

Common APA mistakes

• Capitalising every major word in article/book titles (Title Case is only for journal names)
• Omitting the DOI when one is available
• Writing "doi:10.xxx" instead of "https://doi.org/10.xxx"
• Using "et al." for 2-author citations (only use for 3+)
• Forgetting the page number on direct quotations
• Putting "p." before chapter page ranges in edited books (correct) but omitting it in journal citations (correct — journals don't use "p.")
• Listing references not cited in-text, or in-text citations missing from the reference list