Selecting Sources

APA 7th Edition Quick Guide

The American Psychological Association recently updated its publication manual for its 7th edition. There are some new and updated content regarding paper elements and format, bias-free language guidelines, in-text citations, and more than 100 examples of APA Style references including templates for every reference category. Here’s an overview of some of the changes.

Elements & Format (Sections 2.3-2.25)

Recommended Fonts: (Use the same font throughout the text of the paper) 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10- point Lucida Sans Unicode; 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal 10-point Computer Modern (default font for LaTeX). Header: For student papers, include the short title of the paper in all caps. No “Running head” required. Student Title Page: Include the title, author names, author affiliation, course number and name, instructor name, assignment due date, and page number.

Writing Style & Grammar (Sections 4.16-4.21)

The singular “they” is endorsed, consistent with inclusive usage. Always use a person’s self-identified pronoun, including when a person uses the singular “they” as their pronoun. Also use “they” as a generic third-person singular pronoun to refer to a person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant to the context of the usage. Do not use “he” or “she” alone as generic third-person singular pronouns. Use combination forms such as “he or she” and “she or he” only if you know that these pronouns match the people being described. Do not use combination forms such as “(s)he” and “s/he.” If you do not know the pronouns of the person being described, reword the sentence to avoid a pronoun or use the pronoun “they.”

By Francesca Gacho, Graduate Writing Coach Annenberg School of Communication http://cmgtwriting.uscannenberg.org [email protected]

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Levels of Heading (Section 2.27)

References (Sections 9.1-9.2; 9.16; 9.23-9.37)

DOIs and URLs should be hyperlinks. The label “DOI:” is no longer used. The words “Retrieved from” are only used when a retrieval date is also needed. For online sources, include the URL at the end of the reference. Do not use “Retrieved from” Resources obtained from most academic research databases (EBSCO, CINAHL, Films on Demand): Do not include a database name and do not include a url. Do include a DOI if there is one. Individual Author Names: Provide last names and initials for up to and including 20 authors. When there are two to 20 authors, use an ampersand before the final author’s name. Group Author Names: When numerous layers of government agencies are listed as the author of a work, use the most specific agency as the author in the reference. The names of parent agencies appear after the title as the publisher.

Publisher location is no longer included in book citations.

Ex. Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. (2019, January 8). Heart failure fact sheet. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Centers for Disease Control.   https://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fs_heart_failure.htm

Appropriate Level of Citation (Section 8.1)

According to the APA: “Avoid both undercitation and overcitation. Undercitation can lead to plagiarism and/or self- plagiarism. Overcitation can be distracting and is unnecessary. For example, it is considered overcitation to repeat the same citation in every sentence when the source and topic have not changed. Instead, when paraphrasing a key point in more than one sentence within a paragraph, cite the source in the first sentence in which it is relevant and do not repeat the citation in subsequent sentences as long as the source remains clear and unchanged.”

Example of an Appropriate Level of Citation (Figure 8.1 from the Manual)

Humor plays an important role in everyday life, from interacting with strangers to attracting mates (Bressler & Balshine, 2006; Earleywine, 2010; Tornquist & Chiappe, 2015). Some people, however, come up with funny and witty ideas much more easily than do others. In this study, we examined the role of cognitive abilities in humor production, a topic with a long past (e.g., Feingold & Mazzella, 1991; Galloway, 1994) that has recently attracted more attention (Greengross & Miller, 2011; Kellner & Benedek, 2016). Humor production ability is measured with open-ended tasks (Earleywine, 2010), the most common of which involves asking participants to write captions for single-panel cartoons (for review, see Nusbaum & Silvia, 2017).

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APA 7th Edition Quick Guide

For samples and templates, visit APA Style at https://apastyle.apa.org/ For graduate writing support in CMGT, Communication, Global Comm, Public Diplomacy, Communication Data Science, and DSM contact [email protected]

In-text Citations (Sections 8.10-8.22)

For a work with one or two authors, include the author name(s) in every citation. For a work with three or more authors, include the name of only the first author plus “et al.” in every citation (even the first citation).