Education: Citations & Bibliographic Software (Zotero)

The once familiar APA 6th style has been replaced, as of 2020, with a 7th edition [Emergency temporary access available for this title]. The new style manual includes some significant changes to formatting papers and has attempted to make language more inclusive and bias free. Among some of the new changes:

• DOIs are now formatted as URLs
• Authors no longer need to include the phrase "Retrieved from" before a URL
• The singular "they" is now endorsed by APA as a gender-neutral pronoun
• The running head on the title page no longer includes the phrase "RUNNING HEAD" and is no longer needed in student papers at all
• Use only one space after a period at the end of a sentence
• For more, see APA Guide: Summary of Changes from the University of Texas Arlington libraries
• Also consult the online Concise APA Handbook (2021) by Lida, Reugg, and de Boer

The cheat sheet from Purdue now reflects APA 7 but the Harvard guide still refers to APA 6. Also take a look at:

• APA Style Website
• APA Style: 7th Edition Quick Reference Guide
• Style Guidelines by Topic
• APA Manual  7th Edition: 17 Most Notable Changes [via Scribbr video on YouTube]
• APA Style Blog --  searchable by topic and contains weekly posts by APA experts .
• Tutorials and Webinars -- more quick guides from APA (temp access)
• Academic Writer Tutorial: Basics of Seventh Edition APA Style  (temp access)

Also helpful may be the following manuals which are available as ebooks:

• Reporting qualitative research in psychology : how to meet APA style journal article reporting standards / Levitt (APA, 2020)
• Reporting quantitative research in psychology : how to meet APA style journal article reporting standards / Cooper  (APA, 2020)

Go to http://www.zotero.org

1. Register/Login
2. Download Zotero 5.0 (for Windows, macOS, Linux)
3. Install Browser Connector (for any browser - Firefox, IE, Chrome, etc.)
4. Sync your account (Preferences > Sync with username/password - see Step 1)

Pro-tip: Use Zotero Standalone which means you have to download the software to your computer.

1. Doing your research using Zotero
   • Set preferences
     • automatically attach PDFs (Preferences > General)
     • automatically retrieve metadata for PDFs (Preferences > General)
     • etc.
   • Create folders (called "Collections")
   • Add items from a database
   • Make notes
   • Upload PDFs to your Zotero account
2. Write your research paper (using Word or Google Docs)
   • Add footnotes, endnotes or in-text citations
   • Create a bibliography