APA Citation Guide: Difference Between 6th & 7th
A guide for the American Psychological Association (APA) citation style.
Differences in in Reference List
- Up to twenty authors may now appear in the reference citation rather than only seven authors. (9.8)
- Web site name should be included after the Web page title if the page is part of a great whole, the site. The site name should be in title case, but with no other formatting, followed by a period, then the URL of the Web page being cited. (9.33)
- Web pages that stand alone, not part of a larger whole, italicize the title and use sentence case. (9.19)
- Web pages that do not stand alone, but are part of a greater whole, do not italicize the title and use sentence case. (9.19)
- E-book platform, device, or format is not included, but publisher is still necessary. (9.19)
- "Retrieved from" statement no longer used prior to a URL unless a retrieval date is needed, which is rare. Use "Retrieved Month dd, yyy, from http" only when the material is not archived but designed to change over time. (9.16)
- DOI format appears like a URL, using this format: https://doi.org/xxxxxxxxx/xxxxx, and should be changed from any source to match that style. (9.35)
- Include the available DOI in the citation, even if it was accessed in paper format. (9.34)
- Publication location is no longer included at all. (9.29)
- Follow the automatic carriage returns or breaks in your word processor for URLs. If the URL or DOI is broken between lines, keep it that way. If it automatically breaks to a new line, leave it like that. (2.23)
- When publisher and author are the same, such as American Psychological Association, use only the author and exclude publisher. (9.28)
- Separate multiple publishers with a semi-colon. (9.29)
- Hyperlinks may be blue, underlined, and live links, or they may be plain, black text. Either way, they should be correct and functional if used. (9.35)
- Articles retrieved from commonly held research databases do not need the name of the database. They are cited as if they were paper. However, DOI should always be included, if it is available. (9.30)
- Always use both volume and issue number, if they exist. (9.25)
- Comma between the journal name and the volume number is not in italics. (6.22)
Differences in In-Text Citations
- Et al. is now used in the first in-text citation with three or more authors (8.17), for example (Bartle et al., 2020).
- When paraphrasing, do not include the page number, unless it is from a large work, such as a book, and you wish to be helpful to interested readers. (8.23)
- Emphasis on original publication date coupled with edition, translation, or reprint of use, for example, (Piaget, 1964/2005). (8.15)
- The "as cited in" format is unchanged, except with regard to other changes, which includes the change in et al. for 3 or more authors the first time the in-text citation appears in the parenthetical "as cited in" statement, as does the use of original publication date with actual volume referenced. For example, (Smith, 1994/2019 as cited in Martinez et al., 2020).
Differences in Paper Formatting
- There are now two formats for an APA paper, the student paper (2.2) and the professional paper (2.1). The professional paper targets items to be published. The title pages (Figure 2.1 and Figure 2.2) and the running head are the changes of interest. Sample papers for both are located at 2.28 or on the APA site.
- There is now a recommendation for annotated bibliography format. (9.51)
- Acceptable fonts include: Times New Roman 12, Calibri 11, Arial 11, Lucida Sans Unicode 10, Georgia 11, and Computer Modern 10. There are times to use others, but they are very specific. (2.19)
- Use "they" or "their" as a singular, gender neutral pronoun for non-specific people when gender preference is not known or is of no consequence. Variations include: they, them, their, theirs, themself, themselves. (4.18)
- Do not use "Running head:" in the running head of professional papers. The running head is entirely absent from student papers except with regard to pagination. (2.8)
- Heading levels 3,4, and 5 have been updated. The changes are that: 3 is now flushed left and italicized; 4 is not italicized; 5 is now bold. Complete instructions are below. (2.27)
- Level 1 - title case, bold, centered
- Level 2 - title case, bold, flush left
- Level 3 - title case, bold, italic, flush left
- Level 4 - title case, bold, title case, indented, end with period, on same line as text that follows it
- Level 5 - title case, bold, italic, indented, end with period, on same line as text that follows it
- Use a single space after a period or any punctuation that ends a sentence. (6.1)
- Use "I" rather than "the author" when describing your own thoughts, reflections, or actions, do not use quotation marks around the word. (4.16)
- In a professional paper, use a complete title if the number of characters does not exceed 50, or create a shortened title for the running head, if the characters exceed 50. Student papers only use the page number in the running head. (2.8)
- Latin@ or Latinx should be used rather than Latino or Latina, but better to be more specific about the people if possible by using country of origin. Or use the term the participants use, use the most inclusive version, and explain your use of a specific term. (5.7)
- Use numerals for 10 and above, spell out numbers below 10, as in one, two, three, including in the abstract. (6.32)
- Table number is placed above the table itself and is in bold. (7.9)
- Table title is placed a line below the table number, is in title case, and is in italics (7.9)
- Figure number is placed above the figure itself and is in bold. (7.23)
- Figure caption a line below the figure number, is in title case, and is in italics. (7.23)
- If not placed in an appendix, tables and figures should be placed left flush, after the first completed paragraph to call-out the table, with one double-spaced blank line between the text and the table number. There should be a top and bottom border line visible from the table, using the word processor's table function. (7.21)
- Use descriptive phrases rather than nouns to refer to people. (e.g., "People living in poverty" rather than "The poor") (5.2)
- Much stronger statement about using paraphrasing rather than direct quotations unless you are "reproducing an exact definition ... when an author has said something memorably or succinctly, or when you want to respond to exact wording." (8.25)
- The title of the paper on the title page should be bold, centered, and in title case, positioned "three or four lines down from the top margin of the page." (2.4)
- The title of the paper on the first page of the paper should be bold, centered, and in title case on the first line of the page. (2.11)
- The title of "Author Note" (2.3), "Abstract" (2.9/2.28), "References," (2.12/2.28) are in bold, centered, and in title case.
