APA referencing guide
for UK students —
7th edition 2026.

APA (American Psychological Association) 7th edition is the referencing standard for psychology at most UK universities, and is also used across health sciences, nursing, social work, and education programmes. If your module requires APA and you've been using Harvard, the two styles look similar enough to cause confusion — and the differences are consistent enough that markers notice errors immediately.

This guide covers everything you need for a correctly formatted APA 7th edition submission.

APA vs Harvard — key differences

The two styles share the Author-Date format for in-text citations, but differ in several important ways:

• Multiple authors in-text: APA uses & inside brackets — (Smith & Jones, 2021) — while Harvard uses "and": (Smith and Jones, 2021)
• Three or more authors: APA always uses "et al." from the first citation — (Smith et al., 2021). Harvard traditionally listed all authors on first mention.
• Journal articles: APA requires the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) where available. Harvard does not.
• Book edition: APA places edition after the title in brackets — e.g. (3rd ed.). Harvard includes it differently.
• Reference list title: APA calls it "References" not "Reference List" or "Bibliography"
• Hanging indent: APA reference lists use a 0.5-inch hanging indent on all entries. Harvard typically does not.

In-text citations — all the formats

Reference list format and rules

• The section is titled References (centred, bold, on a new page)
• All entries are in alphabetical order by first author's surname
• Use a hanging indent — the second and subsequent lines of each entry are indented 0.5 inches
• Author names: Surname, Initial(s). — e.g. Bandura, A.
• For two to twenty authors: list all author names. For 21 or more: list the first 19, then ellipsis, then the final author
• Use sentence case for article and book titles (only the first word, proper nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalised)
• Journal titles are in Title Case (every major word capitalised) and in italics
• Include the DOI where available — formatted as a URL: https://doi.org/xxxxx

Format by source type

The most common APA mistakes UK students make

• Using "and" instead of & in brackets — always use & in parenthetical citations: (Smith & Jones, 2021). Use "and" only when the authors' names are part of the sentence: Smith and Jones (2021) argued...
• Not using et al. for three or more authors — APA 7th uses et al. from the first citation for three or more authors. APA 6th (the previous edition) had a different rule — check you're using 7th.
• Missing or incorrectly formatted DOIs — DOIs must be formatted as URLs: https://doi.org/xxxxx. Not "DOI: 10.xxxx" or just the number.
• Using title case for article titles — article and book titles use sentence case in APA. Only journal names use title case. This is the opposite of some other styles.
• Not using hanging indent — APA reference lists require a hanging indent on every entry. In Word: Format → Paragraph → Indentation → Special → Hanging.
• Listing sources not cited in the text — APA references only include sources you cited. It is not a general bibliography.

How SafeGrade checks APA citations

SafeGrade's citation checker runs automatically on every scan. For students in psychology, health sciences, and nursing, the system defaults to APA 7th edition checking based on your subject area profile. You can also manually switch to APA from the results page on any individual scan.

The checker validates:

• Every in-text citation against the reference list — confirming each appears in both
• Orphaned references — sources in the list not cited in the text
• Author name format in the reference list
• Alphabetical ordering
• Year placement

For specific APA formatting questions the checker can't answer automatically — like how to cite a parliamentary debate or a translated work — the Essay Coach handles these. Free users get 5 messages per month; Pro gets 500.