By the time you begin your master’s thesis or PhD dissertation , you’ve already spent years doing coursework to get the foundations of your field of study down pat—including research writing and editing style. So, for those of you who have recently embarked on your thesis or dissertation studies, you’ve undoubtedly learned that the gold standard-setters of research writing and formatting, the American Psychological Association (APA), released an updated 7th edition that most programs requiring APA editing have now adopted. And just when you had APA 6 memorized, right? Ugh…

The good news is that most of the writing and style guidelines in the APA manual are unchanged in the 7th edition; however, there are some differences in the new edition that you’ll definitely want to know about as you work on writing and editing your thesis or dissertation manuscript. If you don’t feel like reading the 400 or so pages of the 7th edition of the APA manual to learn of these changes, we’re here to help! We’ll recap those for you here to save you the headache and boredom. Do note that these are just the “big” changes that you’ll need to know to demonstrate familiarity with the style to meet your committee’s initial expectations. However, there are many, many minor changes that most writers simply leave to their APA editors, and we won’t spend time on those here.

Section Headings

As you probably know, APA uses a system of progressive headings that visually communicate the structure of papers to readers. As you move from a main section to a subsection, you use a heading that is one level below the main section’s heading level to signify the transition to a subsection. For example, the heading above, “Section Headings,” is a level 2 heading, which indicates to the reader that what you are currently reading is a subsection of the previous main section, which is introduced using a level 1 heading. If you are familiar with APA editing and formatting per the 6th edition, you will note that our levels 1 and 2 headings remain the same in format under APA 7; however, levels 3, 4, and 5 have changed in format. As you write your dissertation or thesis, it may help to keep two main points in mind regarding these changes are that (a) all levels of headings require bold font, and (b) all levels require use of title case. Additional details follow.

Example of Level 3 Heading

When you break out subsections of a main section headed with a level 2 heading in your dissertation, you will need to use level 3 headings for those subsections. The example above will help you to visualize how the new level 3 formatting looks. To achieve this style, use bold font and title case, as required with all headings now under APA 7, and: (a) place the heading flush left, (b) italicize the heading, and (c) start the first sentence on the line following the heading. Next we’ll have a look at a level 4 heading.

Example of Level 4 Heading. For subsections of a main section headed with a level 3 heading in a thesis or dissertation, use level 4 headings for the subsections. Again, the example shown is intended to help with visualizing the new level 3 formatting, which requires bold font and title case.  Also: (a) indent the heading, (b) end the heading with a period, and (c) begin the first sentence on the same line as the heading. Finally, we’ll see how a level 5 heading looks under APA 7.

Example of Level 5 Heading. Finally, we have the new look of the level 5 heading, which yet again uses bold font and title case. Additionally: (a) indent the heading, (b) end the heading with a period, (c) italicize the heading, and (d) begin the first sentence on the same line as the heading.

Bias-Free Language

We often work with clients who are conducting dissertation or thesis research involving marginalized groups—in particular, our clients often use qualitative research and analysis to develop better understanding of marginalized groups’ experiences. A skilled dissertation editor knows that language usage can communicate implicit assumptions and judgments about people of different groups or categories and that it is important to select terminology that is free of biases that might be hurtful or offensive to others. The APA 7th edition manual provides an updated chapter on bias-free language to assist with writing and editing toward this end, and we will go over a handful of examples from the chapter. If you are conducting your thesis or dissertation research involving populations who have experienced discrimination historically, however, reviewing the chapter in detail will help you to fully grasp the particular nuances of language and terminology specific to your population of interest.

Older Adults

When writing or editing a dissertation or thesis manuscript that pertains to older adults, be careful to avoid using language that evokes stigmatized attitudes and stereotypes about aging. For example, labels that set older adults apart from broader society evoke negative stereotypes about these individuals and should be avoided. Instead of using terms like “the aged,” “seniors,” or “the elderly,” it is more accurate and respectful to use terms like “older individuals” or “older persons.” You should also avoid any terms that suggest that aging is an affliction or “an obstacle to overcome” (APA, 2020, p. 136). When writing about individuals with dementia, avoid use of the term “senile,” as it is outdated and derogatory.

Persons with Disabilities

We often provide dissertation assistance to clients who are conducting research related to people who experience disabilities, and an important editing tip we suggest is to learn how people with particular disabilities prefer to refer to themselves. This preference should guide your own terminology choices throughout your dissertation or thesis writing, as this demonstrates respect for the individuals of interest in your work. Disability is commonly conveyed through terms that are “person-first” or “identity-first,” and we’ll discuss the difference between the two. 

Person-first language puts emphasis on the individual and signifies that the disability is a simply an attribute. This type of disability reference reflects recognition that the individual is a human being first and that the disability does not wholly define the person’s identity and experience. When writing or editing your dissertation or thesis, choose language that neutrally conveys that a person experiences the disability, avoiding language that suggests that the disability is an affliction or defect. Examples of person-first language include “an adult with Down syndrome” rather than “a Down syndrome sufferer,” and “a child who uses a wheelchair” rather than “a child who is confined to a wheelchair.”

Conversely, current APA editing standards note that some individuals with disabilities prefer identity-first language, as it is their way of communicating that they embrace their disabilities and do not feel stigmatized by the disability label. For example, some individuals with autism prefer to be called “autistic,” and some who have deafness prefer to be referred to as a “Deaf” person. Per the 7th edition of the APA manual, using a mixture of person-first and identity-first terms in your dissertation or thesis writing is acceptable, unless you are writing about a group who has a known preference (then of course, stick to that in your writing). Always avoid terms that are insulting or derogatory, though, such as “cripple,” “mental patient,” or “drug addict.”

Gender and Sex

When writing about gender and sex in your thesis or dissertation, it will help to keep in mind the distinction between the two: Gender is a social construct, and sex refers to biological assignment of sex. Current APA editing standards on gender are particularly detailed, and so if you are writing about a population for whom sex and/or gender are of particular relevance, it is highly recommended that you review the full subsection on this topic in the APA 7th edition manual. However, a key point to keep in mind is that your language choices should not imply beliefs about what is “normal” or “deviant” in terms of gender or sex. Terms such as “policeman” convey a male standard that may be marginalizing for female readers. Similarly, terms such as “the opposite sex” convey an implicit recognition of only two sexes, which may be marginalizing for individuals with gender identities that are not included in this dichotomized schema.

Citations and References

The updated APA editing and formatting requirements on citations and references are definitely worth noting, as you will need to apply them on just about every page of your study. Drawing from sources is essential to dissertation or thesis writing because it allows you to contextualize your proposed research and also to discuss and interpret your own findings as they relate to existing literature once you have finished your study. As your committee reviewers will certainly make clear, assertions that are left uncited might as well be your own opinion, which of course is not appropriate for use in your review of the research literature on your topic. 

Hence, the importance of citing your sources in your writing and creating a full list of those sources in your references section. Our dissertation consultants often provide guidance on when and how to cite sources, while our expert APA editors know the tricks for getting every detail of style just right. Although the style rules for formatting citations and references are largely the same in the 7th edition of the APA manual, there are a few changes since the 6th edition that it will help to note as you develop your thesis or dissertation.

Formatting Citations

Whether you complete your own dissertation editing or hire a professional APA editor, getting the specifics of citation formatting correct is an essential step toward final approval of your study. For sources with one author or two authors, APA 7 rules are the same as APA 6 rules. That is, you provide the author’s last name with the publication year for sources with one author, and you provide both authors’ last names with publication year for sources with two authors. Examples are:

Parenthetical: (Anderson, 2019)

Narrative: Anderson (2019)

Parenthetical: (Brighton & Cooper, 2018)

Narrative: Brighton and Cooper (2018)

For sources with three or more authors, however, APA 7 provides updated rules for formatting that actually make this chore somewhat less difficult. The prior rule, per APA 6, was to list all authors for sources with three to five authors the first time you cite the source but then to only list the first author with “et al.” for all subsequent citations of a source. This could get a bit tricky after repeatedly editing and revising a thesis or dissertation chapter, as this often involves reorganizing and restructuring the work. Now, instead of having to run a final edit to hunt down formatting errors for this group of sources, we have a simple rule that applies to all sources with three or more authors from the very first citation. That is, we list only the first author with “et al.” and the publication year. An example:

Parenthetical: (Delgado et al., 2020)

Narrative: Delgado et al. (2020)

The only exception to the rule for sources with three or more authors applies when you have different sources with the same first author that might be confused with one another in this citation format. Let’s imagine that you have a source by Ellis, Fuentes, Goldman, Hemphill, and Ibsen (2020) and in the same paper, you have a source by Ellis, Fuentes, Jones, Kingsley, and Laredo (2020). If you applied the first author “et al.” format to these sources, they would appear the same: Ellis et al. (2020). To alleviate confusion, the 7th edition of the APA editing and formatting manual requires that we list a sufficient number of authors to differentiate the two sources, placing “et al.” in place of any remaining authors. So, these sources would look like:

Parenthetical, source 1: (Ellis, Fuentes, Goldman, et al., 2020)

Parenthetical, source 2: (Ellis, Fuentes, Jones, et al., 2020)

Narrative, source 1: Ellis, Fuentes, Goldman, et al. (2020)

Narrative, source 2: Ellis, Fuentes, Jones, et al. (2020)

As with APA 6, the 7th edition of the manual has formatting rules that apply to citations that are provided parenthetically or as a part of the actual text of your dissertation or thesis, as indicated above by “parenthetical” and “narrative,” respectively. To help illustrate how this should look in your thesis or dissertation, here is a short, fictitious example:

Dissertation candidates reported that their committees were more likely to criticize their manuscripts on points related to citations and references than any other editing or formatting issues (Anderson, 2019). Similarly, Brighton and Cooper (2018) found that dissertation and thesis committees were very concerned with citation and reference formatting and often recommended dissertation editing to help with such aspects of the work. In contrast, other researchers found that dissertation and thesis committees were primarily concerned with the logical structure of the work but that they were less concerned with issues of formatting (Delgado et al., 2020; Ellis, Fuentes, Jones, et al., 2020).

Formatting References List

For every source you cite in the body of your thesis or dissertation, you must add a corresponding entry to the references list at the end of your work. Whether you choose to hire a dissertation editor or handle this chore yourself, it will help you to know that thesis and dissertation committees require a cross-check of citations against the references list to make sure that all sources cited are included in the references list and that all sources on the references list are cited at least once in the work. 

This cross-check—or reference audit, as well term it—is tedious and time-consuming, and so if you’d like one of our APA editors to take that off your hands as you polish your thesis or dissertation, we are happy to help! In addition to this basic requirement, APA has very specific rules for the formatting of the references list, which go all the way down to minor editing details such as spacing, commas, and italics. Fortunately for those of us who know the APA 6 references formatting rules by heart, APA 7 introduces only a few minor changes to guidelines regarding references. 

The first change we’ll discuss relates to the number of authors you list for those sources with many authors. Under APA 6, we were allowed to list a maximum of seven authors, which meant that we were replacing some authors’ names with an ellipsis for those sources with more than seven contributors. Now, under the updated 7th edition rules, we can list up to 20 authors, which means that very few sources you use for your dissertation or thesis will need to be trimmed of authors to avoid exceeding this upper limit. When editing out authors for a source with more than 20 authors, do the following: List the first 19 authors, then use an ellipsis in place of the 20th through second-to-last author, and then list the last author. An example from the APA editing and formatting (2020, p. 317) manual:

Kalnay, E., Kanamitsu, M., Kistler, R., Collins, W., Deaven, D., Gandin, L., Iredell, M., Saha, S., White, G., Woollen, J., Zhu, Y., Chelliah, M., Ebisuzaki, W., Higgins, W., Janowiak, J., Mo, K. C., Ropelewski, C., Wang, J., Leetmaa, A., . . . Joseph, D. (1996). The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 77(3), 437–471. http://doi.org/fg6rf9

Another aspect of references formatting that has changed since the days of APA 6 concerns how we notate book publishers. Previously, we were required to note the name of the publisher along with the publisher’s location for books. Now, under the new APA 7 rules, we need only note the publisher, which takes a tiny bit of work off our plate for book references. An example:

Pearlson, K. E., Saunders, C. S., & Galletta, D. F. (2020). Managing and using information systems: A strategic approach (7th ed.). Wiley.

Finally, APA 7 presents modified rules for the formatting of DOI or URL information for sources. If you have an eagle eye for APA editing and formatting details, you might have already noticed the difference in the formatting of the DOI number in the above example using the Kalnay et al. (1996) source. Those who are familiar with APA 6 undoubtedly recall that the DOI number needed to be formatted without its hyperlink context (e.g., “doi:10.1037/0000”), but under APA 7, you will need to present the DOI information as hyperlinks (i.e., beginning with “http://doi.org/” or “https://doi.org/”). As before, sources without DOI numbers that can be accessed online need to have a URL listed in place of the DOI, but under the new APA editing and formatting rules, we no longer need to precede the URL with “Retrieved from.” Note that any URLs included must be accessible by those who read your thesis or dissertation, and for articles without DOIs that are available on most academic research databases, no URL is required. However, for sources drawn from databases that offer exclusive access to articles, such as ERIC, you should list the URL.

Use of “They” as a Singular Pronoun

Use of “they” as a singular pronoun? Perish the thought! Dissertation editors everywhere shuddered at reading the new guidelines on this point in the 7th edition APA manual, as we have been long trained to never, ever, ever use “they” to reference a singular antecedent. But, as times change, so does language usage, and the rationale for this change in usage is a reflection of more inclusive attitudes toward human diversity. The 7th edition manual notes that “the use of the singular ‘they’ is inclusive of all people, helps writers avoid making assumptions about gender, and is part of APA style” (APA, 2020, p. 121).  

Rather than using “he,” “she,” or a combination such as “he/she,” current APA editing standards are to use “they” to refer back to singular antecedents when gender is unclear. Individuals may also specify that they use “they” as their pronoun. Use of “he” or “she” is permissible, but we only do so when we know the individual’s pronoun of choice. Variants of the singular “they” include “their,” “theirs,” “them,” and “themselves.” You may also use “themself,” but the manual notes that “themselves” is more commonly used as a variant of the singular “they.” These examples should help to clarify how this should look in your dissertation:

Each student submitted their completed self-evaluation.

After a participant signed the informed consent form, they began the survey.

Blake shared their perspectives on living as transgender during high school years.

In cases where you find yourself using the singular “they” because gender is unclear—but not when an individual chooses “they” as their pronoun—you still have the option of revising the sentence to avoid using the singular “they” if you choose. Changing the antecedent to plural is a tried-and-true solution we know well. The first two sentences above could be revised as follows: 

All students submitted their completed self-evaluations.

After participants signed informed consent forms, they began the survey.

Conclusion

Although the updated APA 7 manual contains a variety of updates and additions, our thesis and dissertation editors find that the changes discussed above are the ones that have affected their work mostly frequently. We hope that this helps you to move through your dissertation or thesis writing process more effectively, and our APA editors are always here to help with the finishing touches when you need them!

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000