| Rule or Example That Has Changed | 7th ed. Page/Section # | If in 6th ed., Page/Section # |
Summary of Change |
| Student title page | pp. 30-33, sections 2.3 and 2.4 | p. 41, Figure 2.1 |
Include course, instructor, and due date. Do not use a running head or author note for student papers (only for professional papers). Title |
| Title | pp. 31-32, section 2.4 | p. 23, Section 2.01 | Title on title page should be bolded. |
| Author bylines and affiliations | pp. 33-35, sections 2.5 and 2.6 | p. 23, section 2.02 | Superscript numerals for author affiliations for two authors with different affiliations and three or more authors with shared or different affiliations. Change to be more consistent with how other publishers format title page. |
| Running head | p. 37, section 2.8 | p. 41, Figure 2.1 | Do not include the label "Running head" to identify the running head on any page. |
| Font | p. 44, section 2.19 | p. 228, section 8.03 | A variety of font choices are permitted in APA style, such as a sans serif font (e.g., 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode) or a serif font (e.g., 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal (10-point) Computer Modern. APA 6 only allowed 12-point Times New Roman. |
| Rule or Example That Has Changed | 7th ed. Page/Section # | If in 6th ed., Page/Section # |
Summary of Change |
| *Level 1 heading | p. 48, Table 2.3 | p. 62, Table 3.1 |
Centered, Bold, Title Case Heading Test begins indented as a new paragraph. |
| *Level 2 heading | p. 48, Table 2.3 | p. 62, Table 3.1 |
Flush Left, Bold, Title Case Heading Text begins indented as a new paragraph. |
| Level 3 heading | p. 48, Table 2.3 | p. 62, Table 3.1 | Flush Left, Bold Italic, Title Case Heading (vs. Indented, boldface, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.) Text begins as a new paragraph. |
| Level 4 heading | p. 48, Table 2.3 | p. 62, Table 3.1 | Indented, Bold, Title Case Heading, Ending With a Period. (vs. Indented, boldface, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.) Text begins on the same line and continues as a regular paragraph. |
| Level 5 heading | p. 48, Table 2.3 | p. 62, Table 3.1 | Indented, Bold Italic, Title Case Heading, Ending With a Period. (vs. Indented, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.) Text begins on the same line and continues as a regular paragraph. |
*Rules for heading levels 1 and 2 remain the same from APA 6.
| Rule or Example That Has Changed | 7th ed. Page/Section # | If in 6th ed., Page/Section # |
Summary of Change |
| Singular "they" | p. 120, section 4.18 | pp. 79-80, section 3.20 | Use the singular "they" for people who use this pronoun or when the gender of the person is unknown or irrelevant to the context. |
| Clear punctuation guidance | pp. 154-155, sections 6.1 and 6.2 | pp, 87-88, section 4.01 | Use one space after a period, as opposed to two spaces. |
| Broader use of quotation marks rather than italics | pp. 157-159, section 6.7 | p. 92, section 4.08 | Use double quotation marks to refer to a letter, word, phrase, or sentence as itself, or to present "stimulus words." |
| New examples of preferred spellings | pp. 161-162, section 6.11 | pp. 96-97, section 4.12 | The correct spellings for some common technology words in APA Style papers are as follows: email, data set, Wi-Fi, home page, ebook, smartphone, website, username, ereader, internet, webpage, login page (but "log in" when used as a verb), database, intranet, the web, emoji (for the plural, either "emoji" or "emojis") |
| Rule or Example That Has Changed | 7th ed. Page/Section # | If in 6th ed., Page/Section # |
Summary of Change |
| Standardized format for tables and figures | Table 7.1 and Figure 7.1 | p. 127, section 5.04 | Both have numbers, titles, and notes. Identical formatting of most components. |
|
Table number |
p. 199, section 7.9 | p.129, section 5.08 | Table # (vs. Table #) |
| Figure number and title | p. 227, sections 7.24 and 7.25 | p. 159, section 5.23 | Figure # (bold and flush left) above figure, title below figure number in italic title case, all double-spaced (vs. "Figure #. Title" below figure) |
| Rule or Example That Has Changed | 7th ed. Page/Section # | If in 6th ed., Page/Section # |
Summary of Change |
| In-text citation for three or more authors | p. 266, section 8.17 | p. 175, section 6.12 | With three or more authors, abbreviate "et al." the first time you present the work, as opposed to writing all author names the first time you present three to five authors and writing "et al." subsequent times. |
| General mentions of websites | p. 268, section 8.22 | p. 88, section 4.02 | No reference list entry or in-text citation is needed for a general mention of a website. |
| Quotations to other works | p. 276, section 8.32 | p. 178, section 6.17 | Do not include secondary works in reference list unless you cite them as primary sources elsewhere in your paper. Include the secondary source in parenthetical citations without adding "as cited in" (APA 6th ed.), but APA 7 manual recommends that you read the secondary source and then use it as a primary source. |
| Rule or Example That Has Changed | 7th ed. Page/Section # | If in 6th ed., Page/Section # |
Summary of Change |
| Spell out up to 20 author names | p. 317, section 10.1, example 4 | p. 198, section 7.01, example 2 |
Write out 20 authors, as opposed to 7 authors max in 6th edition. At 21 authors or more, use an ellipsis to substitute the second to last author. |
| Updated periodicals reference category | p. 317, sections 10.2 and 10.3 | p. 198, section 7.01 | Issue number included in all journal article references. Journal articles without DOIs from databases treated as print works (i.e. no URL or database name). |
| Article numbers | p. 294, section 9.27 | Not specified | For articles with article numbers (e.g., eLocators), write the word "Article" and then provide the article number instead of the page range. Example: PLOS ONE, 11(7), Article 30158474. |
| Works with specific locations | p. 297, section 9.31 | p. 186, section 6.30 | For works associated with a specific location, such as conference presentations, include the location in the source element of the reference to help with retrieval. Provide the city; state, province, or territory as applicable; AND country (vs. only city and state). Examples: New York, NY, United States Vancouver, BC, Canada Lima, Peru London, England |
| Updated book reference category | p. 321, section 10.2 | pp. 186-187, section 6.30 | Publisher location no longer required. Books from research databases without DOIs treated the same as print works. |
| Annotated bibliographies | p. 307, section 9.51 | Not specified | Follow instructor's rules. If not specified by instructor, each annotation should be indented as a new paragraph below its reference entry. |
| Publisher name | p. 324, example 32 | p. 187, section 6.30 |
When the publisher and author are the same, use the publisher as the author name and omit the publisher name at the end of the citation, as opposed to writing Author to indicate the publisher in APA 6. |
| Rule or Example That Has Changed | 7th ed. Page/Section # | If in 6th ed., Page/Section # |
Summary of Change |
| Social media or website sources | p. 298, sections 9.32 and 9.33 | Not specified | Use social media as a source only when the content was originally published there. Provide social media or website name in title case without italics (e.g., Twitter) in source element. Include a period after name, followed by the URL. No "Retrieved from" wording. |
| When to include DOIs and URLs | p. 298-299, section 9.34 | p. 191, section 6.32 p. 199, section 7.01, example 3 |
For works without DOIs from most academic research databases, do NOT include a URL or database information in the reference because these works are widely available. |
| Format of DOIs and URLs | pp. 299-300, section 9.35 | pp. 187-189, Section 6.31 | Present both DOIs and URLs as hyperlinks (https://doi.org/xxxxx). Do not insert "Retrieved from" before a working hyperlink. It is acceptable to use either the default display settings for hyperlinks or plain text that is not underlined. Links should be live if the work is to be published or read online. |
| DOI or URL shorteners | p. 300, section 9.36 | Not specified | When a DOI or URL is long or complex, you may use shortDOIs or shortened URLs. Create a shortDOI at http://shortdoi.org/. The shortDOI service will either produce a new shortDOI or retrieve an existing shortDOI. |
| New guidance on citing classroom or intranet resources | p. 259, section 8.8 & p. 347, example 102 | pp. 185-186, section 6.29 | Title of PowerPoint in italics, type of resource in brackets. If writing for an audience with access to resource, provide name of site and its URL. Example: Mack, R., & Spake, G. (2018). Citing open source images and formatting references for presentations [PowerPoint slides]. Canvas@FNU. httips://fnu.onelogin.com/login |
