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APA Citation Style Guide: Home

The APA Citation Style Guide provides assistance for citing sources, based on the guidelines set by the American Psychological Association (APA) in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition..

7th Editions Changes

The biggest changes in the 7th edition are:

  1. The publisher location is no longer included in the reference.
    • Covey, S. R. (2013). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Powerful lessons in personal change. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
    • Covey, S. R. (2013). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Powerful lessons in personal change. Simon & Schuster.
  2. The in-text citation for works with three or more authors is now shortened right from the first citation. You only include the first author’s name and “et al.”
    • (Taylor, Kotler, Johnson, & Parker, 2018)
    • (Taylor et al., 2018)
  3. Surnames and initials for up to 20 authors (instead of 7) should be provided in the reference list.
    • Miller, T. C., Brown, M. J., Wilson, G. L., Evans, B. B., Kelly, R. S., Turner, S. T., … Lee, L. H. (2018).
    • Miller, T. C., Brown, M. J., Wilson, G. L., Evans, B. B., Kelly, R. S., Turner, S. T., Lewis, F., Lee, L. H., Cox, G., Harris, H. L., Martin, P., Gonzalez, W. L., Hughes, W., Carter, D., Campbell, C., Baker, A. B., Flores, T., Gray, W. E., Green, G., … Nelson, T. P. (2018).
  4. DOIs are formatted the same as URLs. The label “DOI:” is no longer necessary.
    • doi: 10.1080/02626667.2018.1560449
    • https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2018.1560449
  5. URLs are no longer preceded by “Retrieved from,” unless a retrieval date is needed. The website name is included (unless it’s the same as the author), and web page titles are italicized.
    • Walker, A. (2019, November 14). Germany avoids recession but growth remains weak. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50419127
    • Walker, A. (2019, November 14). Germany avoids recession but growth remains weak. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50419127
  6. For ebooks, the format, platform, or device (e.g. Kindle) is no longer included in the reference, and the publisher is included.
    • Brück, M. (2009). Women in early British and Irish astronomy: Stars and satellites [Kindle version]. https:/doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2473-2
    • Brück, M. (2009). Women in early British and Irish astronomy: Stars and satellites. Springer Nature. https:/doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2473-2
  7. Clear guidelines are provided for including contributors other than authors and editors. For example, when citing a podcast episode, the host of the episode should be included; for a TV series episode, the writer and director of that episode are cited.
  8. Dozens of examples are included for online source types such as podcast episodes, social media posts, and YouTube videos. The use of emojis and hashtags is also explained.

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Publication Manual of the APA

New Citation Notes: Chat GPT and other AI Tools

From the APA Style blog:

The results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers so credit should be given to the author of the algorithm within a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation. "You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper."

Example:

In Text:

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

Reference:

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat