APA 7 Updates

It’s been a while, but the American Psychological Association (APA) recently released the new 7th edition of the Publication Manual! It outlines the APA citation format rules that millions of writers and students use to make references in research projects and papers. This citation formatting system is most often used in science, psychology, and social science courses, and is one of the most popular citation styles on CitationMachine.net. 

The staff at Citation Machine is in the process of adjustmenting APA style offerings. The plan is to make the 7th edition of APA available to all users in the coming year. If you’re interested in learning about what changes are happening to APA and how the new version differs from the previous version, you can find helpful information below. 

Here are some of the most important changes we believe were made to APA format:

Citation and reference list updates: 

• The term “DOI:” is no longer required in online resource/website citations, and DOIs can now be represented as URLS (htttps://doi.org)
• When making an in-text citation for a work with three or more authors/contributors, only write the first author’s name and then include the abbreviation “et al.” for the rest. 
  • Example: (Smith et al., 2019)
• The term “Retrieved from” is no longer needed before URLs in website citations.
• You no longer need to include the location of a source’s publisher in the reference. 
  • Example: “New York: Houghton Mifflin” would just become “Houghton Mifflin.”
• The type of ebook reader or device (i.e. “Kindle”) is no longer needed in references.

Paper formatting and overall writing guideline updates: 

• The phrase “Running head” is no longer needed on the title page. Instead, only include the page number and the abbreviated version of the paper title at the top.
• APA 7 endorses the use of the singular “they” as an option for a gender neutral pronoun.

For more on the newest version of APA format, see the official announcement from the American Psychological Association here. 

Please note that while CitationMachine.net offers APA format as a style option, it is not affiliated with the American Psychological Association.