GCU APA format and style guide: citing at Grand Canyon University

Grand Canyon University uses APA 7th edition for most of its courses. GCU publishes its own APA 7th Edition Style Guide and two Word templates in the Writing Center of its Student Success Center, and its library keeps a longer guide, Citing Sources in APA 7th Edition. Both follow APA's Publication Manual, with a few choices of GCU's own: one font, a title page that names your college, no database links, and a format for material in Halo, the online classroom.

EdCitation is not affiliated with Grand Canyon University; this follows its public library guide, checked on 2 October 2026. Every rule below was read that day in GCU's own pages, linked under References. EdCitation publishes this guide, and its last section quotes word for word what the free Cite a source and Verify references returned on GCU's own examples, faults included.

Which citation style does Grand Canyon University use?

APA 7th edition, unless your assignment names another. The Writing Center's list (Grand Canyon University, 2026) sets APA 7 for 100- to 400-level courses, campus and online, and for 500- to 900-level courses, then lists the exceptions. Grand Canyon University Library (2025) adds that doctoral learners on versions 9 and 10 of the dissertation templates use APA 7 too. Both say your assignment names the style, and the assignment wins.

EdCitation builds APA 7 and MLA 9, which covers most GCU courses. It does not build AP style, and its Chicago is the 18th edition's author-date form, so GCU's Turabian papers, which need footnotes and a bibliography (Grand Canyon University, 2024), are written by hand from GCU's guide. See our Chicago and Turabian paper guide.

Is the GCU style guide a separate citation style?

No. It is an APA guide. Grand Canyon University (2022) tells students to follow the Publication Manual "except where otherwise noted", and says GCU's templates and resources mean most students need not buy the manual. Older search results can mislead: a 2010 GCU news story announced a "GCU Style", a modified APA for lower-division courses. The Writing Center's list today names no GCU Style.

The style guide also warns that the syllabus, lectures and resources GCU writes for its classrooms use an altered APA, and are not examples to copy. Copy the style guide, the templates or APA's sample student paper.

What are GCU's own APA rules?

Most of GCU's guidance is plain APA 7. These are the rules where GCU chooses, adds detail, or covers a source only its students cite.

The title page and the paper

GCU fixes the font. The Publication Manual allows several, but Grand Canyon University Library (2026a) says GCU has chosen Times New Roman at 12 points for student work. Margins are 1 inch, everything is double-spaced, and page numbers start at 1 on the title page, top right. The title page is centred:

1. The title, three lines down, bold, in title case.
2. One blank line, then each author's name.
3. Your college and Grand Canyon University, separated by a comma, neither abbreviated.
4. The course number and name, as in GCU's example "CWV-101: Christian Worldview".
5. The instructor's name, then the due date.

An abstract appears only when the assignment asks: page 2, one paragraph, at most 250 words. The body opens with the title in bold, and "Introduction" is never a heading. Capstones and dissertations have their own templates, and GCU requires the doctoral ones. Our APA 7 paper format guide covers the rest.

The references and the in-text rules

Grand Canyon University Library (2026c) counts lecture notes, PowerPoints, manuals and class documents found only inside the classroom as course material; a textbook from another publisher, or anything on the open web or in the library, is cited as what it is. Your instructor and classmates can reach Halo, so ordinary assignments give course material a full reference. Dissertations and nursing capstones have a wider audience, so they treat it as non-recoverable: an in-text citation in the personal communication form, with no entry in the list.

Where do GCU's own pages disagree?

In three places.

• Title case. The style guide defines it as capitalising words "over four letters", yet GCU's heading samples read "Ending With a Period", with four-letter "With" raised. APA raises every word of four letters or more, as our title case guide shows, and GCU's samples follow it.
• Twenty-one or more authors. The style guide's sentence says the first 20 names, an ellipsis and the last; the example on both GCU pages gives 19 before the ellipsis, which is APA's form (see when to use et al.). Follow the example.
• Its own samples. The style guide pairs the in-text "Silva (2018)" with a reference to "Silvia, P. J.". GCU's rules keep "Jr." after the initials, yet its sample for Good Arguments drops the Jr. that the book's record gives Richard A. Holland. Copy GCU's patterns, not its sample entries.

What does a GCU reference page look like?

Here is a short reference page in exactly GCU's form: an undated web page, a journal article with an article number, a Halo class document, a library ebook without a DOI (so the entry stops at the publisher), and an online Bible. Each entry takes a 0.5-inch hanging indent.

American Nurses Association. (n.d.). Scope of practice in nursing. https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/scope-of-practice/

Castillo-Manzano, J. I., González-Fernández-Villavicencio, N., Lopez-Valpuesta, L., & Pozo-Barajas, R. (2020). When the road to academic success goes through the library: A case study at the University of Seville. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 46(4), Article 102162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102162

Grand Canyon University. (2015). UNV-104 topic 1 resource [Class document]. Halo. https://halo.gcu.edu

Holland, R. A., Jr., & Forrest, B. K. (2017). Good arguments: Making your case in writing and public speaking. Baker Academic.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. (2016). Bible Gateway. https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/English-Standard-Version-ESV-Bible/#copy (Original work published 2001)

The citations in the text that match them:

• (American Nurses Association [ANA], n.d.) the first time, then (ANA, n.d.).
• (Castillo-Manzano et al., 2020), from the first citation, because there are three or more authors.
• (Grand Canyon University [GCU], 2015), then (GCU, 2015).
• Holland and Forrest (2017) in a sentence; (Holland & Forrest, 2017) in parentheses.
• (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, 2001/2016, Psalm 23:1).

The class document and the Bible are GCU's own examples. GCU's sample for the association's page has the title "Scope of practice"; the page's heading now reads "Scope of Practice in Nursing", so use the heading shown on the day you read it.

How do you build a GCU reference page, step by step?

1. Read the assignment for the style and whether an abstract is needed, then download the matching GCU template from the Writing Center. EdCitation's free Check your paper reads assignment instructions into a checklist, each rule with the sentence it came from.
2. Find sources in the GCU Library or in Find sources, which searches about 300 million published works.
3. Build each entry from its DOI, ISBN or web address in Cite a source. A library link with "lopes.idm.oclc" in it can be pasted as it is.
4. Correct by hand what a record cannot know: capitals, a missing subtitle, a web page's author and date, and the "Retrieved" line on an ordinary page.
5. Write course material and Bible entries from GCU's patterns.
6. Paste the list into Verify references and resolve every "check this".

What did EdCitation return on GCU's own examples?

EdCitation is the best free tool for a GCU reference list, because it looks every entry up in the publisher's record and never writes one, which no chatbot can promise. GCU's library warns that database citation tools are computer-generated, never checked by a person, and must be corrected against the style guide (Grand Canyon University Library, 2026d); the runs below show exactly what to correct. Cite a source builds APA 7, MLA 9 and four other styles from a DOI, title, PubMed ID, ISBN or web address, and screens each source for retraction. Verify references checks a whole list. Both are free, with no account. EdCitation writes no part of anyone's paper: every sentence stays the student's own. We ran both on 2 October 2026; outputs are plain text, and the page sets the italics.

Cite a source on five real sources

GCU's DOI section shows a library link to be fixed, https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102162. Pasted into Cite a source as it stands, the link gave the Castillo-Manzano entry printed above, word for word: proxy gone, DOI as a link, and the article number GCU asks for. A Lancet nursing study, 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62631-8, came back with all 18 authors named, within GCU's limit of 20.

For 10.1353/lib.2013.0018, the article GCU's library uses as its model, it returned:

Copeland, T., Henderson, B., Mayer, B., & Nicholson, S. (2013). Three different paths for Tabletop gaming in school libraries. Library Trends, 61(4), 825–835. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2013.0018

That matches GCU's model in every element but one word: "Tabletop" kept its capital in two runs, in APA and in Vancouver. Lower it by hand.

For the ISBN 9780801097799, read from Open Library:

Holland, R. A., Jr., & Forrest, B. K. (2017). Good arguments. Baker Academic.

The Jr. is right by GCU's rule. The record lacks the subtitle, so add ": Making your case in writing and public speaking" by hand.

For the association's page, the details read from it came back as "Nursing scope of practice. (2017, October 14). ANA." and the address: no author, and a date from the page's code that the page does not show. We corrected them in the form (the association as an organisation, the heading, no date), and APA gave:

American Nurses Association. (n.d.). Scope of practice in nursing. Retrieved October 2, 2026, from https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/scope-of-practice/

For GCU, delete "Retrieved October 2, 2026, from": GCU keeps retrieval dates for pages built to change often.

Verify references on GCU's sample entries

We pasted six of GCU's own sample entries, in GCU's form. Verify references returned:

• Copeland et al., with its DOI: verified, "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
• Holland and Forrest, without the Jr.: verified, "Title, author and year match a library catalogue record."
• Silvia, dated 2018 as GCU gives it: "check this", "The work was published in 2019, not 2018; the record has no date in 2018." The record it matched is the second edition, DOI 10.1037/0000109-000. Check your copy's copyright page, and add the edition and DOI if they match.
• Nazzal et al., which GCU gives without a DOI: verified, "Title, year and first author match a published record." That record carries a DOI, 10.58680/tetyc202130585, and GCU's rule says to include it.
• The association's page: verified, "The page is at this address, and its title matches."
• The Halo class document: "could not check", with "The page at this address gave no title to compare. Open it and check it is the page meant." Halo sits behind a login, and EdCitation never reports such an entry as "not found".

All of that is free. For a whole paper, Pro at $8 a month adds References from a file, which checks every reference and matches every in-text citation to the list, and Mechanics QA, which checks formatting against the APA 7 student paper. Max at $24 a month adds Theoretics QA, which judges a paper against its own assignment and rewrites nothing. See pricing. None of it promises a grade.

Quick questions

Does Grand Canyon University use APA 7?

Yes. GCU's Writing Center sets APA 7th edition for 100- to 900-level courses unless the assignment names another style; upper-level English uses MLA 9, and some theology and history courses use Turabian 9.

What font does GCU require for APA papers?

Times New Roman at 12 points. APA's manual allows several fonts, but GCU has chosen this one for student work.

How do I cite a Halo course document at GCU?

Name Grand Canyon University as author unless your instructor made it, then the year, the title in italics, a bracketed description, Halo and https://halo.gcu.edu.

Can EdCitation build Turabian references for GCU theology or history courses?

No. GCU's Turabian courses use footnotes and a bibliography, and EdCitation's Cite a source builds Chicago 18 in author-date form only.

Should a GCU APA reference include the library database link?

No. GCU cites a library source without a DOI as if it were print, with no link, and gives the DOI as https://doi.org/ whenever one exists.

References

• Grand Canyon University. (2022). APA 7th edition style guide [Word document]. Student Success Center. https://www.gcumedia.com/lms-resources/student-success-center-content/documents/tools/apa/Writing%20Center_Style_APA_7th_Edition_Style_Guide.docx
• Grand Canyon University. (2024). Turabian style guide for writing [PDF]. Student Success Center. https://aws-files.gcu.edu/ssc/writing-center/Turabian-Style-Guide-9th-Edition-Fall-2024.pdf
• Grand Canyon University. (2026). Writing Center. Student Success Center. https://ssc.gcu.edu/#/page/writing-center
• Grand Canyon University Library. (2025). Style guides: Citing sources. https://libguides.gcu.edu/CitingSources
• Grand Canyon University Library. (2026a). Citing sources in APA 7th edition: Formatting in APA. https://libguides.gcu.edu/APA/Formatting
• Grand Canyon University Library. (2026b). Citing sources in APA 7th edition: Getting started. https://libguides.gcu.edu/APA
• Grand Canyon University Library. (2026c). Citing sources in APA 7th edition: In-text citations. https://libguides.gcu.edu/APA/In-textCitations
• Grand Canyon University Library. (2026d). Citing sources in APA 7th edition: Locating citation information. https://libguides.gcu.edu/APA/CitationTools
• Grand Canyon University Library. (2026e). Citing sources in APA 7th edition: Reference examples. https://libguides.gcu.edu/APA/ReferenceExamples