APA is the standard in psychology, education, and social sciences, and the 7th edition has been in force since 2019. Students still working from older course handouts often end up citing half in APA 6 and half in APA 7 — and that inconsistency is exactly what examiners notice. This guide covers everything you need to cite correctly in APA 7: in-text references, the reference list, and the edge cases that trip people up.
In-text references: the basic form
In-text references always include author and year, separated by a comma inside the parentheses. For direct quotations, add the page number with p.. This applies to every variant shown below.
Two forms, both correct:
- Narrative: Mueller (2023) shows that …
- Parenthetical: … (Mueller, 2023, p. 42).
Which you use is a matter of style — but try to stick to one form within a paragraph.
One, two, or more authors — the rule everyone forgets
This is the biggest change from APA 6: for three or more authors, you write “et al.” from the very first citation. There is no “Schmidt, Mueller & Weber (2022)” on first mention anymore — it goes straight to “Schmidt et al. (2022)”.
| Number of authors | First citation | Subsequent citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mueller (2023) | Mueller (2023) |
| 2 | Mueller and Weber (2023) | Mueller and Weber (2023) |
| 3+ | Schmidt et al. (2022) | Schmidt et al. (2022) |
Inside parentheses, “and” becomes an ampersand: (Mueller & Weber, 2023, p. 17). In running text it stays “and”: “Mueller and Weber (2023) argue …”.
Direct quotation vs. paraphrase
For a direct quotation you need quotation marks and always a page number:
Learning is “an active, constructive, and cumulative process” (Reinmann, 2021, p. 87).
For a paraphrase, the page number is formally optional — but APA 7 recommends it whenever it helps the reader trace your source. In a thesis, that is almost always the case:
Reinmann (2021, p. 87) describes learning as an active, constructive process.
Quotations longer than 40 words are formatted as a block quotation: indented, no quotation marks, with the source after the closing period.
Organisations, agencies, no date
When no individual author appears, the organisation becomes the author — spelled out in full on the first citation, abbreviated thereafter:
- First mention: (World Health Organization [WHO], 2022)
- Subsequent: (WHO, 2022)
When no publication date is available, write n.d.: (Federal Statistical Office, n.d.).
Secondary sources: use “as cited in” sparingly
If you have not been able to read a source directly and only know it through another work, cite it like this:
Bandura (1977, as cited in Schmidt, 2020, p. 54)
Only Schmidt (2020) goes into the reference list — not Bandura. APA 7 is clear: secondary citations are a workaround. Read the original whenever you can get hold of it — examiners tend to ask follow-up questions specifically about “as cited in” entries.
The reference list — the building blocks
Every cited source appears once in the reference list, in alphabetical order by last name. APA 7 simplified several fields. The most important formats:
Book (monograph)
Reinmann, G. (2021). Teaching in the context of digital media (3rd ed.). Beltz.
Note: The publisher location is dropped in APA 7. Only the publisher name remains. This is one of the biggest changes from APA 6.
Journal article with DOI
Mueller, A., & Weber, T. (2023). Learning strategies at university: A longitudinal study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 37(2), 112–128. https://doi.org/10.1024/1010-0652/a000345
APA 7 DOI rule: if a DOI exists, always include it — as the full URL https://doi.org/…. No “DOI:” prefix any more.
Chapter in an edited volume
Schmidt, K. (2020). Self-efficacy in higher education teaching. In L. Hoffmann & P. Bauer (Eds.), Handbook of higher education didactics (pp. 53–71). Springer.
Website
Federal Statistical Office. (2024, March 15). Educational qualifications 2023. https://www.bfs.admin.ch/…
When the content may change over time (Wikipedia, undated news articles), add a retrieval date: “Retrieved May 12, 2026, from …”.
Dissertation
Weber, L. (2019). Motivational effects of digital learning environments [Doctoral dissertation, University of Zurich]. ZORA. https://doi.org/…
For unpublished dissertations, replace the repository with “[Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of X]”.
APA 6 → APA 7: what changed
| Area | APA 6 | APA 7 |
|---|---|---|
| 3+ authors | List all on first citation, then et al. | “et al.” from the first citation |
| Maximum in reference list | 7 authors, then ellipsis | Up to 20, then ellipsis |
| Publisher location | Required (e.g., “Weinheim: Beltz”) | Dropped — publisher name only |
| DOI prefix | “doi:” or “DOI:” | Full URL https://doi.org/… |
| URLs | “Retrieved from …” | URL only, no preamble |
| Singular “they” | Not officially recognised | Accepted and recommended |
If you are recycling a paper from an early semester, these are the spots where you need to work through systematically.
Multiple sources in one parenthesis
Same author, multiple years: chronological, separated by commas.
(Mueller, 2019, 2021, 2023)
Different authors: alphabetical by last name, separated by semicolons.
(Hoffmann, 2020; Mueller, 2023; Schmidt et al., 2022)
The DGPs variant in brief
The German Psychological Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie, DGPs) publishes its own guidelines, which take APA 7 as a base but adapt it for German-language texts — for example, “und” instead of ”&” even in parentheses, “S.” instead of “p.” for page numbers, and German-style quotation marks. If your department asks for “DGPs style”, load the DGPs citation style in Zotero rather than the standard English APA 7 style. They look similar at first glance but differ in the details.
Pre-submission checklist
- Every in-text reference has a corresponding entry in the reference list — and vice versa.
- Direct quotations always include a page number.
- DOIs are given as full URLs.
- Three or more authors use “et al.” throughout.
- No publisher location for books.
- Alphabetical order, no gaps.
APA 7 checks the form — what the form doesn’t check
APA 7 is a style convention. It tells you how a reference must look so a reader can find the source. What it does not check: whether the claim you attribute to a source is actually there. That is a different kind of error — and the more common one in theses.
That is exactly where Acurio comes in: you upload your thesis along with your source PDFs, and Acurio checks every single reference against the source content. Does the page number match? Does Mueller (2023, p. 42) actually say what you claim? APA 7 helps you cite cleanly. Acurio helps you cite correctly.
APA-correct is not automatically content-correct
Perfect APA formatting is only the form. A flawlessly formatted reference can still misrepresent its source: the page number points to a passage that does not support your claim, the study says something other than what you assert — or the source does not exist at all. Neither a plagiarism checker nor your reference manager catches these errors, because both only compare text matches and metadata, never the actual content.
For a first assessment you do not need to upload anything: the free Quick Check analyses your reference list right in the browser, no sign-up required, and flags problematic entries within seconds — for example sources that cannot be found or entries with inconsistent details.
For the full verification you upload your thesis. It works in three steps:
- Upload: your thesis (PDF or Word) plus the cited source PDFs.
- Automatic check: Acurio compares every reference against the original source at content level — claim against passage, page number included.
- Findings list: you get a concrete finding per reference: matches, deviates, or unsupported.
What Acurio does not do: check your APA formatting. “et al.”, DOI format, block quotations — that part stays with you, and the checklist above has you covered. Acurio covers the part no style guide checks: whether your content and your sources actually line up.
Work through this guide once and run your thesis against the checklist above, and you will be formally in the clear. The substantive part — the blind spot of every style guide — you hand off afterwards to a second pair of eyes or a tool built exactly for that purpose.