APA 7th Edition Basics
APA 7th Edition Update. The video below discusses the changes between the 6th edition and the 7th edition. Please note that this is intended for graduate students/faculty and focuses on the professional paper. If a student, please utilize the student sample paper.
APA in-text citations
One of the main quirks of APA style concerns how you format in-text citations based on the number of authors for that resource (journal, book, website, etc.). The table below provides a quick summary of the main formatting variations.
In-text citations:
| # of authors | First citation in paper | Subsequent citations in paper |
| 1-2 authors: | Smith (2016) | Smith (2016) |
| 3 or more authors: | Jones et al. (2016) | Jones et al. (2016) |
APA has specific rules for formatting student papers.
In the 7th Edition APA Manual, you will find a sample student paper and a sample professional paper. For most college classes, you will use the student paper sample model unless otherwise specified by your professor. You can find sample papers on APA's style page here or in the APA 7th Edition Manual on page 50.
