APA 7th — what changed from APA 6th, and why it matters in 2024

APA 7th edition has been the official standard since October 2019, which makes it the dominant style across the social sciences, business, education, and psychology programs at UAE universities. Four and a half years on, UAE student work still routinely mixes APA 6th and APA 7th formatting. Reference managers configured years ago still default to 6th. Template documents inherited from earlier cohorts carry 6th conventions. Online citation generators are inconsistent.

This is the working summary of what changed between editions, and where the most common formatting mistakes happen in UAE student work.

In-text citation changes

Three significant in-text changes in 7th edition:

1. Et al. used from the first citation when there are three or more authors. APA 6th required listing the first author’s name plus et al. only from the second citation onwards (after first listing all authors up to five). APA 7th uses et al. from the first citation onwards whenever there are three or more authors. (Patel, Singh, & Hassan, 2023) in 6th becomes (Patel et al., 2023) in 7th from the first citation.

2. Et al. used for two authors disambiguation. APA 7th allows expanding to more author names only to disambiguate two same-year sources that would otherwise look identical with et al. — and the expansion goes only far enough to make the citation distinguishable.

3. The ampersand vs and rule simplified. APA 7th still uses & in parenthetical citations and and in narrative — but the rule is more consistently applied and there are fewer exceptions than under 6th.

Reference list changes

Five significant reference list changes:

1. Up to 20 authors listed. APA 6th required et al. after seven authors. APA 7th lists up to 20 authors in the reference. For 21 or more authors, list the first 19 then ellipsis then the last author.

2. No publisher location. APA 6th required New York, NY: Penguin. APA 7th drops the location: just Penguin. This is the most commonly-missed update — UAE student work still routinely includes the location.

3. DOI format changed to URL. APA 6th wrote DOIs as doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.6.1054. APA 7th writes them as https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.131.6.1054. Both work technically; APA 7th is the current standard.

4. Italicising in-text journal volume number. APA 7th italicises the volume number along with the journal title in the reference list. Journal of Applied Psychology, 15(3), 247–259. Both italicised.

5. DOI required when available; URL required otherwise. APA 7th is more explicit than 6th about including DOIs whenever they exist, and treating retrieval-date inclusion as conditional rather than required for stable URLs.

What APA 7th allows that APA 6th didn’t

Three notable additions in 7th:

1. Singular “they” is explicitly accepted. APA 7th endorses the singular they for gender-neutral writing, removing the requirement to use he or she.

2. Bias-free language guidelines are more elaborated. APA 7th expands the bias-free language guidance, particularly around disability terminology, gender identity, sexual orientation, and racial/ethnic terms.

3. Web-based source types are more comprehensively covered. Social media posts, podcasts, YouTube videos, mobile apps — APA 7th provides explicit formatting rules where APA 6th treated them as edge cases.

Where UAE students still mix editions

Five recurring mistakes in UAE student work that we see at the studio:

1. Including publisher location. London: Penguin still appears in undergraduate work. Drop the location.

2. DOI written as “doi:” rather than as URL. APA 7th uses URL format.

3. Listing all authors up to seven before et al. This was the 6th rule. 7th uses et al. from three onwards.

4. Reference manager set to 6th style. Zotero and Mendeley default to whatever style was installed; many UAE students still have the 6th preset active years after upgrading. Check the style and update.

5. Citation generators inconsistent. Many online APA citation generators silently mix 6th and 7th. If you use them, verify against the APA 7th publication manual or the Purdue OWL APA 7 guide.

A representative APA 7th journal reference

What a correct journal article reference looks like:

Patel, R., Singh, A., & Hassan, F. (2023). Early ambulation following cardiac surgery: A systematic review. Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery, 15(3), 247–259. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.131.6.1054

Notice:

• All three authors listed with surname-and-initial format.
• Year in parentheses, no comma after author list before year.
• Article title in sentence case (not Title Case).
• Journal title italicised, in Title Case.
• Volume italicised along with the journal title.
• Issue in parentheses, not italicised.
• Page range with en-dash.
• DOI as URL, no “doi:” prefix.

When The Essay Atelier writes APA 7th-formatted briefs

Every The Essay Atelier editor uses APA 7th by default for any business, psychology, education, nursing, or communication brief that calls for APA. The reference manager outputs are checked manually against the 7th publication manual before delivery — auto-generation has a small but persistent error rate that manual review catches.

If you’re sitting on a draft and want a second opinion on whether your APA formatting is genuinely 7th rather than mixed 6th/7th, send the editors the reference list. Five-minute review, marks protected.