APA Examples - Getting started - What is APA?

See this example properly formatted in the QUT Cite tool.

APA is a publishing style developed by the American Psychological Association. It is published in the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, which is currently in its 7th edition. It is available at all QUT Libraries.

The Publication manual of the American Psychological Association covers many aspects of layout and publishing, but the portions relevant to referencing are chapters 8 (Works credited in the text), 9 (Reference list), and 10 (Reference examples). It is from these that we have developed the templates and examples in QUT cite|write. We have also referred to the APA Style Blog.

Major changes in APA7 include:

  1. In-text citations with three or more authors now shortened from first citation, e.g. (Foule et al., 2020).
  2. The publisher location is no longer included in a reference.
  3. Surnames and initials for up to 20 authors in reference list (up from 7!).
  4. DOIs now formatted as URLs - straight number not acceptable
  5. Drop the 'retrieved from' before a URL unless a retrieval date is needed.
  6. Include website name in the reference and italicise it.
  7. No longer include the platform in references to ebooks but include the publisher - e.g. Springer.

APA consists of two elements - the In-text citation and the Reference list. Both are required for your referencing to be correct.

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