APA 7th Ed. Changes Tracking


1	Created by the Janis P. Bellack Library
2	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
3	Rule or Example That Has Changed	Page # and section #	If in 6th ed, page/section #	Summary of change

4	Format and Structure
5	Student title page	pp. 30-33, sections 2.3 and 2.4	p. 41, Figure 2.1	Include course, instructor, and due date. NO running head or author note for student papers (only for professional papers). Example: Title Name Affiliation Course Instructor Due date
6	Title	pp. 31-32, section 2.4	p. 23, Section 2.01	Title on title page should be bolded
7	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.
8	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
9	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.
10	Heading Levels
11	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.
12	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.
13	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.
14	Punctuation and Grammar
15	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.
16	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.
17	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 a linguistic exampleor to present stimuli in the text.
18	New examples of preferred spellings	pp. 161-162, section 6.11	pp. 96-97, section 4.12	Use the following spellings for some common technology words in APA Style papers: 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")
19	Tables and Figures
20	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.
21	Table number	p. 199, section 7.9	p.129, section 5.08	Table # (vs. Table #)
22	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)
23	In-Text Citations
24	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 authors the first time and writing "et al." subsequent times.
25	General mentions of websites	p. 268, section 8.22	p. 88, section 4.02	For a general mention of a website with no indication of particiular information or a specific page from that site, no reference list entry or in-text citation is needed.
26	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 manual recommends that you read the secondary source and then use it as a primary source.
27	Reference List
28	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. Use ellipses for 21 or more authors.
29	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).
30	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.
31	Works with specific locations	p. 297, section 9.31	p. 186, section 6.30	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
32	Order of works with same author and same date	p. 305, section 9.47	p. 182, section 6.25	References with only a year precede those with more specific dates, and specific dates are placed in chronological order. Example: Azikiwe, H., & Bello, A. (2020a). Azikiwe, H., & Bello, A. (2020b, March 26). Azikiwe, H., & Bello, A. (2020c, April 2).
33	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.
34	Annotated bibliographies	p. 307, section 9.51	not specified	Follow instructor's rules. If not specified by instructor, each annotation should be a new paragraph below its reference entry. Indent the entire annotation 0.5 in. from the left margin, the same as you would a block quotation. Do not indent the first line of the annotation. If the annotation spans multiple paragraphs, indent the first line of the second and any subsequent paragraphs an additiona 0.5 in., the same as you would a block quotation with multiple paragraphs.
35	DOIs and Internet Sources
36	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.
37	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.
38	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 in your word-processing program or plain text that is not underlined. Links should be live if the work is to be published or read online.
39	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 if desired. Create a shortDOI at http://shortdoi.org/. The shortDOI service will either produce a new shortDOI for a work that has never had one or retrieve an existing shortDOI.
40	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
41	New APA Style website			https://apastyle.apa.org