APA 7th for Faculty: References

Changes to Reference List and Citation Format

• New DOI & URL format (See below)
• Do not include “retrieved from.” 
• Retrieval date is only included if content is designed to change over time – for example, a Twitter profile, a map generated by Google Maps, etc.​
• Do not include URLs for journal articles from research databases that have no DOI. Treat those as printed works and end the citation after the page numbers.
• Always include the Issue number.
• ​Provide surnames and initials for up to and including 20 authors in the References list.
• You no longer include publisher location for books.
• Links can be live if your References will be read online
• Overly long DOIs and URLs may be shortened. 
  • Use the shortDOI service provided by the International DOI Foundation to create shortDOIs. A work can have only one DOI and only one shortDOI; the shortDOI service will either produce a new shortDOI for a work that has never had one or retrieve an existing shortDOI.
  • Any shortened URL is acceptable in a reference as long as you check the link to ensure that it takes you to the correct location.

DOIs and URLs

• Include a DOI for all works that have a DOI, regardless of whether you used the online version or the print version.
• If an online work has both a DOI and a URL, include only the DOI.
• If an online work has a URL but no DOI, include the URL in the reference as follows:
  1. For works without DOIs from websites (not including academic research databases), provide a URL in the reference (as long as the URL will work for readers).
  2. 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. The reference should be the same as the reference for a print version of the work.
  3. For works from databases that publish original, proprietary material available only in that database (such as the UpToDate database) or for works of limited circulation in databases (such as monographs in the ERIC database), include the name of the database or archive and the URL of the work. If the URL requires a login or is session-specific (meaning it will not resolve for readers), provide the URL of the database or archive home page or login page instead of the URL for the work. (See APA Section 9.30 for more information). 
• If the URL is no longer working or no longer provides readers access to the content you intend to cite, try to find an archived version using the Internet Archive, then use the archived URL. If there is no archived URL, do not use that resource.

Format of DOIs and URLs:

Your DOI should look like this: 

https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040251

Follow these guidelines from the APA Style website.

Citation Examples

American Psychological Association. Example of where to find reference information for a journal article [Infographic]. APA Style Center. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/basic-principles

The APA Style website provides many reference examples, which you can see below: