Start here: APA 7th edition is a small system with a long tail. The system is four elements and two in-text formats, and you can learn it in twenty minutes. The tail is the source types the manual does not cover — and in a Canadian thesis, four of those account for almost every citation error that reaches an examiner.
This guide does the system first, then the Canadian exceptions, with the actual text you would write.
Step 1: Collect the four elements when you read the source
Every APA reference answers four questions, in this order:
- Author — Who?
- Date — When?
- Title — What?
- Source — Where?
Collect all four the first time you open a source, not the week before deposit. The single most expensive habit in thesis writing is reading forty papers and recording only their titles.
Step 2: Get the author element right
Author formatting causes more machine-generated errors than any other field. The rules that matter:
- One author: Author, A. A.
- Two authors: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B.
- Three to twenty authors: list every one of them, with an ampersand before the last.
- Twenty-one or more authors: list the first nineteen, then an ellipsis, then the final author.
- Editors: Editor, E. E. (Ed.). — or (Eds.) for more than one.
- Group author: the name of the group, written out.
Three exceptions do most of the damage in Canadian theses:
- If the author and the publisher are the same, omit the publisher. This applies to nearly every government document you will cite, because the department that wrote it also published it.
- If the author cannot be determined, move the title into the author position. Do not write “Anonymous” unless the work is actually credited that way.
- Hyphenated and two-part names. For given names, keep the hyphen and add periods without a space: Mary-Jane Smith becomes Smith, M.-J. If the second element is lowercase, treat it as one name: Ella-ann Fonseca becomes Fonseca, E. For surnames, reproduce the name as published, keeping the hyphen or the space — Louis-Dreyfus, J. and Lloyd Webber, A.
Step 3: Get the date right, especially for web sources
For books, use the copyright date from the copyright page. For webpages, make sure the date applies to the page you are citing — copyright dates in a website footer often say nothing about when the content was published, and the “last updated” date is the one to use where it is the relevant one.
The date takes the form the source justifies: year alone for most works; year, month and day for newspapers and other frequently published works; a range where the work spans one. Works with no date take n.d.
Step 4: Write the in-text citation
There are exactly two shapes. In a parenthetical citation the author and year sit in brackets; in a narrative citation the author’s name is part of your sentence.
| Author type | Parenthetical | Narrative |
|---|---|---|
| One author | (Luna, 2020) | Luna (2020) |
| Two authors | (Salas & D’Agostino, 2020) | Salas and D’Agostino (2020) |
| Three or more authors | (Martin et al., 2020) | Martin et al. (2020) |
| Group author, first citation | (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2020) | National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 2020) |
| Group author, later citations | (NIMH, 2020) | NIMH (2020) |
| Group author, no abbreviation | (Stanford University, 2020) | Stanford University (2020) |
Two rules that catch people out. Use only the year in the in-text citation, even when the reference-list entry carries a full date. And “et al.” starts at three authors from the very first citation — there is no APA 7 stage where you write out five names in the body of a chapter.
Step 5: Handle the Canadian exceptions
This is where a general APA guide stops being enough, because the manual was written for a United States readership and four of your most common Canadian sources fall outside it.
Exception 1: Statistics Canada tables
Here is a fact that surprises most graduate students: Statistics Canada auto-generates a suggested citation for all of its tables, and that suggested citation does not conform to APA style. Copying it straight out of the portal produces a non-conforming reference in an otherwise clean list, which is exactly the kind of inconsistency an examiner spots.
Canadian library guidance formats a statistical table as: Author. (Date). Title of table. (Table number/identifier/code if provided) [Format note if needed]. Website name. DOI or URL. A worked example:
Statistics Canada. (2017). Measured adult body mass index (BMI) (World Health Organization classification), by age group and sex, Canada and provinces, Canadian Community Health Survey – Nutrition. (Table 13-10-0794-01). https://doi.org/10.25318/1310079401-eng
In text that is (Statistics Canada, 2017) or Statistics Canada (2017). Note two things: the table number is inside the reference, and the website name has been dropped to avoid repeating the author. If you are working with the underlying files rather than a published table, the identifiers differ by access tier — our guide to Statistics Canada microdata, PUMFs, DLI and the RDCs covers which identifier belongs in which citation.
Exception 2: Canadian statutes and case law
APA 7th edition “only includes examples for legal material from the United States and the United Nations,” and it points readers to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Canadian library guidance therefore adopts the Canadian equivalent: the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 9th edition — universally called the McGill Guide.
The in-text shape stays APA-like and short. Most in-text legal citations consist of the title and the year:
- Statute, parenthetical: (Library Act, 1996) · narrative: Library Act (1996)
- Case law, parenthetical: (R v Kirkland, 2005) · narrative: R v Kirkland (2005) — the style of cause is italicised
APA also allows a URL after the statute year or with a case citation where it aids retrieval; it is optional rather than required. Where the authoritative Canadian versions live, and what you should record while you are there, is set out in our guide to legal research for a Canadian law thesis using official sources.
Exception 3: Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers
Oral teachings from Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers are cited differently from ordinary personal communications: unlike most personal communications, they appear in the reference list as well as in the text.
UBC Library gives the reference format as: Last name, First initial., Nation/Community. Treaty Territory if applicable. Where they live if applicable. Topic/subject of communication if applicable. personal communication. Month Date, Year. Its worked example:
Cardinal, D., Goodfish Lake Cree Nation. Treaty 6. Lives in Edmonton. Oral teaching. personal communication. April 4, 2004.
The formatting is the smaller half of this. The larger half is protocol: if you intend to approach an Elder or Knowledge Keeper for teachings, follow their protocol, and where you do not know what it is, ask ahead of time. Permission to be named is part of that conversation, not an afterthought at the reference-list stage.
Exception 4: Generative AI
An AI chat is cited like a source with a corporate author. Canadian library guidance gives the shape as: AI Company Name. (Year, Month day). Title of chat [description]. Tool Name/Model. URL of chat. For example:
Anthropic. (2025, May 20). Essential grammar topics for high school graduates [Generative AI chat]. Claude Sonnet 4. https://claude.ai/share/329173b2-ec93-4663-ac68-4f65ea4f166d
In text: (Anthropic, 2025). A generated image is cited as AI Company name. (Year). Tool/model name [description]. URL — for instance Microsoft. (2025). Copilot [Large language model]. https://copilot.microsoft.com — and reproduced as a figure with a note.
The citation is not the whole obligation. Canadian guidance also encourages a written acknowledgement of how you used AI, in addition to the formal citation — and in a thesis that acknowledgement is usually mandatory and has to be approved in advance. See what Canadian universities actually permit for AI in a thesis before you rely on a citation to cover you.
Step 6: Know what you do not have to cite
A useful relief valve, straight from the manual: common software and mobile apps mentioned in the text but not paraphrased or quoted do not need citations, and neither do programming languages. The examples given include Microsoft Office, social media apps, survey software, Adobe products, Java, and statistical programs such as R, SPSS and SAS. Give the proper name and version number in the text where it is relevant. Apps with limited access or distribution must still be cited.
“Common” is relative to your field and audience, which is a judgement call — but it means you do not owe a reference-list entry for SPSS. What you do owe is a clear statement of which package and version produced your results; our comparison of SPSS, R, jamovi and Stata for a Canadian thesis covers what that looks like in a methods chapter.
Step 7: Build the list once, not twice
Three habits, in order of payoff:
- Record the four elements at first read. Going back to a source six months later to find a page number costs more than recording it did.
- Check each generated entry as you add it. Identifier present, capitalisation correct, corporate author intact, date matching the version you read. Our comparison of APA citation generators and where each one breaks sets out the four-point check.
- Keep the reference apparatus in one place. A thesis is too long to hold in your head, and inconsistency between chapters is the most visible kind of carelessness.
Write your thesis in Tesify and let the chapter structure and referencing stay consistent while every argument remains 100% written by you.
Frequently asked questions
How many authors before I use “et al.” in APA 7?
Three. From the first in-text citation onward, three or more authors are cited as the first author followed by et al.
How many authors do I list in the reference list?
Up to twenty, all of them. For twenty-one or more, list the first nineteen, then an ellipsis, then the final author.
What if the author and publisher are the same?
Omit the publisher. This is the normal case for government reports and agency publications.
What if there is no author?
Move the title of the work into the author position.
What date do I use for a webpage?
The one that applies to the content you are citing. A footer copyright date usually does not; a “last updated” date often does. Use n.d. when there is genuinely no date.
How do I cite a Statistics Canada table?
Author, date, table title, table number in parentheses, then the DOI or URL — and do not paste the portal’s auto-generated citation, which does not conform to APA style.
Does APA cover Canadian statutes?
No. APA 7 includes only United States and United Nations legal examples and points to The Bluebook; Canadian practice uses the McGill Guide, the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation.
Do I italicise a case name?
Yes, the style of cause is italicised in text, with the year following, as in R v Kirkland (2005).
How do I cite an Elder’s oral teaching?
With a reference-list entry giving the name, Nation or community, treaty territory where applicable, where they live, the topic, “personal communication” and the date — after following protocol and obtaining permission.
Do I need to cite SPSS or R?
Not when they are merely mentioned rather than quoted or paraphrased. Give the name and version in the text. Apps with limited access or distribution do need citations.
How do I cite ChatGPT or another AI tool?
As a corporate-authored source: company, date, title of the chat, a bracketed description, the model name and the URL of the chat. Check your programme’s disclosure requirement separately.
Is a citation enough to disclose AI use in a thesis?
Usually not. Canadian graduate schools generally require prior approval and a described disclosure in the thesis, on top of any citation.
Which APA edition should I use in 2026?
The seventh, unless your school of graduate studies specifies otherwise. Confirm before you configure any tool, since several still default to the sixth.