APA (7th Edition)

American Psychological Association style, widely used in social sciences, education, and psychology.

Overview

APA style uses an author-date citation system. In-text citations include the author's last name and year of publication, while the reference list provides full publication details. The 7th edition (2019) introduced several updates including simplified formatting rules.

Common Use Cases

Psychology and behavioral sciences research papers
Education and social work academic writing
Business and nursing journal articles

Format Examples

Journal Article

Grady, J. S., Her, M., Moreno, G., Perez, C., & Yelber, J. (2019). Emotions in storybooks: A comparison of storybooks that represent ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 8(3), 207-217. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000185

Book

Jackson, L. M. (2019). The psychology of prejudice: From attitudes to social action (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000168-000

Website

World Health Organization. (2020, March 11). WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19. https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020

Key Elements

Author Names

Last name, First initial. Middle initial. Use & before the last author.

Publication Year

In parentheses after author names. Use (n.d.) if no date.

Title

Sentence case for articles. Italic for books and journals.

DOI/URL

Include DOI as https://doi.org/xxxxx format when available.

Tips for This Format

Use sentence case for article and book titles (only capitalize first word and proper nouns).
Include DOI for all sources that have one - it helps with verification.
For sources with 21+ authors, list the first 19, then ... and the last author.