Getting a citation wrong in APA format can cost you marks, undermine your credibility, or — in a professional research context — lead to a retraction notice. The 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 2020) overhauled the rules significantly: running heads disappeared from student papers, the author limit for in-text citations dropped, and social media sources finally got their own templates. If you learned APA in 2014 and haven't revisited it since, much of what you know is now outdated.
This guide walks you through every major source type, shows you the exact format templates, and highlights the mistakes that trip up even experienced researchers.
Every APA citation works in pairs. You place a brief in-text citation at the point where you use a source, and a corresponding full reference list entry at the end of your document. The in-text citation leads your reader to the reference list; the reference list gives them everything they need to locate the source themselves.
Key principle: Every source that appears in your reference list must be cited in the text, and every in-text citation must have a matching reference list entry — no exceptions.
APA 7 uses two citation styles in the body of your text. Both include the author's surname and the publication year.
The author and year appear inside parentheses at the end of the sentence, before the full stop.
A recent meta-analysis found a significant effect (Garcia & Liu, 2022).
When quoting directly, add the page number:
"Replication failures have reshaped how the field interprets effect sizes" (Ioannidis, 2021, p. 44).
The author's name is woven into the sentence, with only the year in parentheses.
Garcia and Liu (2022) found a significant effect across all cohorts.
| Number of authors | In-text format |
|---|---|
| 1 | (Smith, 2020) |
| 2 | (Smith & Jones, 2020) |
| 3 or more | (Smith et al., 2020) |
| Group author (first citation) | (American Psychological Association [APA], 2020) |
| Group author (subsequent) | (APA, 2020) |
APA 7 change: The previous edition used "et al." only after six or more authors. APA 7 applies it from three authors onward — a significant simplification.
The reference list starts on a new page, centered heading References (not bold, not in quotes), double-spaced throughout, with a hanging indent of 0.5 inches for each entry.
Order: Alphabetical by the first author's surname. If an author has multiple works, order them chronologically (oldest first). If an author has multiple works from the same year, add a letter suffix: (2021a), (2021b).
Author names: Last name first, followed by initials only — never full first names.
Titles: Sentence case for article and book titles (only the first word, proper nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized). Journal names use title case and are italicized.
DOIs and URLs: Always include a DOI when one exists. Format as a hyperlink: https://doi.org/xxxxx. No period after a DOI or URL that ends the entry.
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article in sentence case.
Name of Journal in Title Case, Volume(Issue), page–page.
https://doi.org/xxxxx
Example:
Hernandez, M. T., & Okafor, J. (2023). Cognitive load and digital annotation
in undergraduate reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology,
115(3), 412–428. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000789
If the article has a DOI, always include it — even if you accessed a print copy. If there is no DOI and the article is from an online database, include the journal homepage URL, not the database URL.
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work: Capital letter after colon. Publisher.
https://doi.org/xxxxx
Example:
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the
American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
For a book with an editor rather than an author:
Nguyen, P. (Ed.). (2021). Handbook of qualitative research methods in
education (3rd ed.). Academic Press.
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of book
(pp. page–page). Publisher. https://doi.org/xxxxx
Example:
Kim, S. Y., & Patel, R. (2022). Stereotype threat in STEM classrooms.
In D. Walters (Ed.), Equity and inclusion in higher education (pp. 88–114).
Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780000012345-6
Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name.
https://www.example.com/page
Example:
World Health Organization. (2024, January 15). Mental health action plan 2013–2030.
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240031029
If no individual author is listed, the organization name moves to the author position. If no date is available, use (n.d.) in place of the year.
Common trap: Do not list the access date for websites unless the content is designed to change over time (e.g., a wiki or a live data dashboard). APA 7 removed the "Retrieved from" prefix for most URLs.
APA 7 introduced dedicated formats for social media — a recognition that these sources are now routinely cited in research.
X (formerly Twitter):
Author, A. [@username]. (Year, Month Day). First 20 words of post [Post type].
Platform. https://www.url.com
Example:
American Psychological Association [@APAStyle]. (2024, March 3). New guidance
on citing generative AI tools is now available on the APA Style blog [Post].
X. https://x.com/APAStyle/status/1234567890
Instagram:
Author, A. [@username]. (Year, Month Day). First 20 words of caption [Photograph].
Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/xxxxx
YouTube:
Channel Name. (Year, Month Day). Title of video [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxx
Emails, phone calls, letters, text messages, and interviews that the reader cannot access are cited in-text only — they do not appear in the reference list.
In-text format:
(J. A. Torres, personal communication, February 12, 2025)
Or in narrative form:
J. A. Torres (personal communication, February 12, 2025) confirmed that
the dataset had not been previously published.
APA uses sentence case for most titles. "The effects of sleep deprivation on working memory" is correct. "The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Working Memory" is not (unless this is a journal name).
Many researchers omit the DOI, especially for older articles. APA 7 requires it whenever one exists. Most databases display the DOI prominently; if it isn't visible, search doi.org by article title.
Under APA 7, a work by three or more authors is always cited as (First Author et al., Year) — even on its first appearance. The full author list only appears in the reference list.
Every line of a reference list entry after the first is indented 0.5 inches. Many writers mistakenly use a first-line indent (the opposite of what is required) or apply no indent at all.
Use & inside parentheses and in the reference list. Use "and" when authors' names appear in your running text (narrative citation). Mixing these up is one of the most frequent APA errors seen in submitted manuscripts.
APA 6 required a running head on every page of student papers. APA 7 removed this requirement for student papers entirely — though professional manuscripts submitted for publication still need them.
After the first full citation, group authors with a standard abbreviation are shortened: (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2023) becomes (CDC, 2023). Without a recognized abbreviation, spell the full name every time.
The definitive source for APA 7 rules is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), published in 2020 (APA, 2020). For free online reference, the official APA Style website at apastyle.apa.org publishes the complete reference format library, a blog addressing edge cases, and a bias-free language guide. The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) at owl.purdue.edu is another reliable, freely accessible guide that is updated when APA releases new guidance.
When in doubt, go to the source. Third-party citation generators vary widely in accuracy — always verify their output against the official APA Style website or the Publication Manual itself.
Even with a thorough understanding of the rules, manually formatting dozens or hundreds of references for a thesis, systematic review, or research report is tedious and error-prone. DEEPNOTIS automates this process: import your sources, and the platform generates correctly formatted APA 7 references instantly — handling author count rules, DOI formatting, sentence case conversion, and hanging indents for you.
You can also use citation labels to organize references by theme, chapter, or relevance before exporting — making it straightforward to manage large reference lists without losing track of which sources belong where.
Whether you are writing a seminar paper or managing a multi-author research project, getting the citations right matters. Knowing the rules is the first step; having a tool that applies them consistently is what makes the process scalable.
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). APA formatting and style guide (7th edition). Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html
APA Style. (n.d.). Reference examples. American Psychological Association. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples