APA 6th vs 7th Edition: What Changed?
The 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual arrived in October 2019 and is now the standard everywhere — but plenty of older guides, templates, and even instructors still circulate APA 6 rules. If your citations "look right" but keep getting marked down, an outdated rule is probably why. Here is every change that matters.
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Open the Citation GeneratorChanges to references
| Rule | APA 6 (old) | APA 7 (current) |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher location | New York, NY: Publisher | Publisher only — no city |
| Authors listed | Up to 7 (then ellipsis) | Up to 20 (then ellipsis) |
| DOI format | doi:10.xxxx/xxx | https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxx |
| "Retrieved from" before URLs | Always | Only with a retrieval date |
| Database names | Sometimes required | Omitted for academic databases |
| E-book format | [Kindle version] | Not mentioned |
| Website italics | Page titles roman | Standalone page titles italicized |
Changes to in-text citations
The biggest one: et al. from the first citation. APA 6 made you list up to five authors on first mention (Rosenzweig, Breedlove, & Watson, 2005) and abbreviate only afterwards. APA 7 cuts straight to (Rosenzweig et al., 2005) for any source with three or more authors.
Language and writing changes
- Singular "they" is officially endorsed both for people who use it and for generic references.
- Bias-free language guidelines were expanded (age, disability, gender, race, socioeconomic status).
- One space after a period, not two.
Paper format changes
- A separate student title page was introduced — no running head required for student papers.
- More font freedom: Calibri 11, Arial 11, Lucida Sans 10, Times New Roman 12, or Georgia 11.
- New heading formats for levels 3–5 (all headings are now title case and bold).
Which edition should you use in 2026?
APA 7 — unless your instructor explicitly requires APA 6 (rare now, but it happens with older course templates). Our citation generator supports both: just pick the edition in the style dropdown and the formatting adjusts automatically.
Updating an old paper from APA 6 to APA 7
Converting an existing reference list is mostly deletion: remove publisher cities, remove "Retrieved from" before URLs, convert "doi:" prefixes to https://doi.org/ links, and delete database names. Then check in-text citations for three-or-more author sources and shorten them to et al. Finally, if it's a student paper, you can drop the running head. Our generator outputs both editions, so the fastest path is often re-generating each source in APA 7 and pasting the fresh list.