Skip to Main Content

APA Writing Guide : Formatting and Citations

The American Psychological Association (APA) updated its style manual in the fall of 2019. The seventh edition of the APA Publication Manual contains a number of updates and additions designed to make APA style more useful for students, teachers, and other educational stakeholders. 

Formatting & Style 

  • In the 7th edition, the answer to the hotly contested question: How many spaces do you use after a sentence? In APA 7th edition- just one. 
  • APA 7th edition includes two sets of formatting guidelines- one for students and another for professionals seeking publication. The guidance for student papers no longer includes the running head in the header of the title page.  
  • Heading fonts have been updated, and the list of allowable fonts has been extended. 
  • The 7th edition includes a new chapter on using bias free language. These recommendations include endorsing the singular they pronoun, describing groups of people instead of using adjectives, and using specific rather than broad categories.  

In the videos linked below, tutorials are provided on how to format your papers for student papers for school and what you need to do if you want to get your report published.  Both are easy to follow videos which help you along your way through apa formatting.. 

Publishing guide

Citations

Websites

When you cite websites, you no longer need to include the words “Retrieved from” before the URL unless you also need to include a retrieval date. You should now also include the website name, unless it’s the same as the author, and web page titles are italicized. 

Website Sample Citations

Tunca, D. (n. d.). Biography. The Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Website. http://www.cerep.ulg.ac.be/adichie/cnabio.html 

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2019). Depression. https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/depression/index.asp 

Print Books

Print book citations no longer need to include the publisher location.  

Print Book Sample Citation

Adichie, C. N. (2014). Americanah. Anchor.  

eBooks

When you cite eBooks, you no longer need to indicate the type of eBook.  

eBook Sample Citation

Adichie, C. N. (2017). We should all be feminists. Anchor. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L0F01NK/ 

DOIs

Journal DOIs should be formatted as DOI URLs, instead of with the DOI: prefix 

Authors

The rules around how many authors to include in a citation have been simplified. Now, up to twenty authors are included in reference list entries before you resort to using ellipses.  

In-Text Citations

In-text citations with more than three authors can be shortened to the first author’s name followed by et al. 

New to the 7th Edition

There is now guidance about citing sources that have gained in popularity since the publication of the previous manual, including social media posts, videos, and other electronic sources.  

These tips were available plus more useful information through Southern New Hampshire University Shapiro Library's APA Libguide with credit given to Tessa Withorn - the creator of the libguide. 

Available below is a printable quick guide to citations from California State University - Dominguez Hills Library's APA Libguide