Some rules still found in reference lists were retired years ago. In 2023 an editor at the MLA pressed the cite button in one university library's catalogue and got an entry labelled MLA that still carried "New York" and "Print", two things the MLA stopped asking for in 2016 (Wallace, 2023). Old handouts and generators set to an old edition keep such rules alive.
EdCitation publishes this guide to the retired citation rules you can stop following, each with the edition that retired it and what took its place, read at the style's own publisher (for Cite Them Right, sold by subscription, at university libraries) on 24 September 2026. What could not be confirmed is marked. How each style grew is told in the history of APA Style, the history of MLA style and where Harvard referencing came from.
The simplest way to leave the old rules behind is to stop typing references. EdCitation's free Cite a source builds each entry from the publisher's record in APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago 18 author-date, and in Harvard by Cite Them Right's 12th edition, which still gives the city.
Which citation rules have been retired, and by which edition?
The table lists eleven that the current editions have dropped. The publisher's city went from APA, MLA, Chicago and Cite Them Right between 2016 and 2025; the others went from one style or two.
| Retired rule | Retired by | What to write now |
|---|---|---|
| The publisher's city, as in "New York, NY:" | MLA 8 (2016), APA 7 (2020), Chicago 18 (2024), Cite Them Right 13th (2025) | The publisher's name alone |
| "Retrieved from" before a web address | APA 7 | The address alone; "Retrieved" and a date only for an unarchived page designed to change |
| "doi:" or "DOI:" before the number | APA 7; MLA 9 (2021) | https://doi.org/ and the number |
| "Print" or "Web" at the end of an entry | MLA 8, after MLA 7 (2009) required it | Nothing, unless needed for clarity |
| Underlined titles | MLA 7's examples (2009) | Italics |
| "Author" standing in for the publisher | APA 7 | Leave the publisher out when it is the author |
| "64.1" for volume and issue | MLA 8 | vol. 64, no. 1 |
| An ebook's format, such as Kindle | APA 7 | Nothing (Chicago 18 still names a downloadable format) |
| A long author list cut short with an ellipsis | APA 7 | Every author up to 20 |
| A 3-em dash for a repeated author | Chicago 18 | The name, repeated |
| A chapter's page range in the list | Chicago 18 | Optional; give the page in the text |
APA's rows come from the American Psychological Association (2020), MLA's from the Modern Language Association (n.d., 2009), Chicago's from the University of Chicago Press (n.d.-c). APA's blog told authors listed seventh, eighth or ninth that their names would now appear (McAdoo, 2019). For et al., see when to use et al..
When did styles stop asking for the publisher's city?
Between 2016 and 2025: MLA with its eighth edition, APA with its seventh, Chicago with its 18th and Cite Them Right with its 13th. On any of the four current editions, the publisher's name stands alone.
APA: from famous cities, to every city, to none
APA's fifth edition let certain "major cities" known for publishing stand alone, so Baltimore needed no MD. The sixth, in 2009, dropped that list and put the state after every US city, as in New York, NY; APA's blog could only guess why, noting that the manual now appeared in Korean, Mandarin and other languages (Breitenbach, 2009).
The seventh removed the location altogether. APA's blog explained it with a book whose copyright page named six cities, from New York to Mississauga, leaving the writer to choose (Adams, 2019). The exception is a work tied to a place: a conference presentation or artwork in a museum keeps its location (American Psychological Association, 2025).
MLA, Chicago and Cite Them Right
MLA 8 stopped giving the city for books "except in special situations" (Modern Language Association, n.d.). Chicago's 18th no longer requires a place for any book, with one exception running the other way: a book published before 1900 may be cited by its place instead of its publisher, as in its Moby-Dick sample ending "New York." (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-b). Cite Them Right's 13th dropped the place for most source types, such as books, films and maps (Stanley, 2025); the Atlantic Technological University library's reference to the guide itself now ends "13th edn. Bloomsbury Academic." (McCann, 2025).
Where the city is still required
In the numbered styles. The IEEE's reference guide, version 3.28.2025, still sets a book as "Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 1986" (IEEE, 2025), and the National Library of Medicine's sample book ends "St. Louis: Mosby; 2002" (National Library of Medicine, n.d.). Our guides to IEEE and Vancouver referencing give the full patterns.
What does one book look like before and after?
Shorter by a city in each style, though EdCitation's Harvard still shows it. On 24 September 2026 we gave EdCitation's Cite a source the ISBN of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux edition of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, 9780374275631. It found the book in Open Library's record, reported no retraction, and returned the entries on the right, quoted as given.
| Style | What the old edition added | Current entry, from Cite a source |
|---|---|---|
| APA | APA 6: "New York, NY:" before the publisher | Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
| MLA | MLA 7: "New York:", a shortened publisher's name, and "Print." | Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. |
| Chicago author-date | Chicago 17: "New York:" before the publisher | Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
| Harvard | Nothing yet: this is the 12th edition's form | Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. |
The old forms, written out
Under APA 6 the entry read: Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. APA's own guide shows the change in miniature: "Washington, DC: SAGE." becomes "SAGE." (American Psychological Association, 2020). Chicago's 17th edition sample gave "New York: Simon & Schuster" (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-a), so the book was: Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
For MLA, Wallace (2023) corrects a generated seventh edition entry, "Fitzgerald, F S. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.", to "Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995."
Why the Harvard entry keeps its city
Because Cite a source's Harvard is the 12th edition of Cite Them Right, as its list of styles states, and the 12th asks for the place. For a course on the 13th, delete "New York:": Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The title already uses sentence case, which the 13th requires in the reference list instead of copying a title as printed (Stanley, 2025).
What a check says about the old form
Verify references marked the APA 6 form, city and all, verified: "Title, author and year match a library catalogue record." It checks that the book exists, not which edition the entry follows.
Why did APA drop "Retrieved from" and "doi:"?
Because a DOI or address set out as a working link already leads to the work, and a label before it tells the reader nothing more (American Psychological Association, 2022). APA 7 made the https://doi.org/ link standard and kept "Retrieved" only for entries that need a date (American Psychological Association, 2020).
Where "doi:" came from
From Crossref's own early advice. Founded in 2000, it recommended "doi:" before the number, expecting browsers to learn to open it as they open http:. They never did, and since March 2017 Crossref has asked for a full https://doi.org/ link in place of the prefix (Crossref, n.d.). APA's blog adopted the link that month but still counted doi:10.1037/arc0000014 as correct (McAdoo, 2017). The seventh edition ended the choice: convert old forms, even when the article printed one (American Psychological Association, 2022).
MLA moved an edition later: a 2016 MLA answer ends an entry "doi:10.1632/adfl.43.2.11" (Modern Language Association, 2016), and the ninth edition puts "https://doi.org/" before the same number (Doose, 2022). The IEEE's guide still writes "doi: " and the number (IEEE, 2025). More in what is a DOI.
"Retrieved from" and the retrieval date
APA 6 put "Retrieved from" before a web address, as McAdoo's 2017 post does in its own reference. In APA 7 that report, whose author is also its publisher, loses the two words:
- Before: Crossref. (2016). Annual report 15–16. Retrieved from https://www.crossref.org/pdfs/annual-report-2015-16.pdf
- After: Crossref. (2016). Annual report 15–16. https://www.crossref.org/pdfs/annual-report-2015-16.pdf
The retrieval date survives on narrow terms: APA 7 keeps it only for an unarchived work designed to change, in the form "Retrieved September 30, 2020, from" and the address (American Psychological Association, 2025).
Why did MLA drop "Print", "Web" and underlining?
Because the eighth edition, in 2016, stopped sorting sources by format: every entry is built from the same core elements, and a label naming the medium had nothing left to do.
Print and Web, 2009 to 2016
The medium was compulsory for seven years. Before 2009 print was assumed; the seventh edition recognised no default and asked for a medium in every entry (Modern Language Association, 2009). The eighth dropped it except for clarity, gave publishers' names in full, made the access date optional and gave up placeholders such as n.d. (Modern Language Association, n.d.).
Underlining to italics
Underlining stood in for italics, and in 2003 the MLA still preferred it in papers for grading, since italic type was sometimes too hard to tell apart; a student preferring italics was to check with the instructor (Modern Language Association, 2003). By 2009, MLA 7's examples took italics for granted (Modern Language Association, 2009).
APA's move is less certain. Daniel (2001), reviewing the fifth edition, welcomed its new allowance for italics in manuscripts; we could not read the manual's own wording, so the rule is unconfirmed. We found no dated record for Chicago or Cite Them Right, and make no claim for them. Underlining now survives in links: APA 7 accepts one shown blue and underlined, or as plain text (American Psychological Association, 2022).
What else did Chicago's 18th edition retire?
Three habits besides the city (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-c). EdCitation builds Chicago in author-date form only, never notes and bibliography.
- The 3-em dash. Chicago now prefers repeating an author's name in successive entries (13.72, 13.113). MLA 9 still uses three em dashes or hyphens (Doose, 2022), so the two styles now disagree.
- Chapter page ranges. No longer required for a chapter in an edited book (14.8); a journal article keeps its range.
- Authors. A reference list entry names up to six authors, and with seven or more, the first three and et al.; a text citation names up to two. The 17th listed up to ten and used et al. in text citations from four authors (University of Chicago Press, n.d.-a).
How do I update an old reference list to the current edition?
Rebuild it rather than edit it. The rules change; the author, year, title and publisher do not.
- Find the edition your brief names. EdCitation's free Check your paper makes a checklist from the assignment's instructions, quoting the line each rule rests on. Given a test brief asking for "APA 6th edition style", it listed the citation style as "APA 6". A brief naming a retired edition is worth a question to the tutor.
- Rebuild each entry from its DOI, ISBN or title in Cite a source.
- Strike what the table retired from any entry typed by hand: the city, "Retrieved from", "doi:", "Print" or "Web", an ebook's format.
- For Harvard on the 13th edition, delete the place of publication and put list titles in sentence case.
- Check that every source is real in Verify references, free.
- Check the formatting. Mechanics QA holds the whole file, reference list included, to the APA 7 student paper, from font and margins to the title page and headings; each finding names its rule and its fix.
Which tool keeps references on the current edition?
Cite a source, from EdCitation, is the best tool for this, because every rule retired here is a matter of form, while the facts a reference carries never change. It takes those facts from the publisher's record and sets them in the current edition, where a generator may still be set to an old one (Wallace, 2023) and a chatbot writes references from patterns. Give it a title, a DOI, an ISBN, a PubMed ID or a web address, and it returns the entry in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard (Cite Them Right, 12th edition), IEEE or Vancouver, screened for retraction, at no cost and without an account.
Verify references, free as well, sorts a list into verified, doubtful ("check this") and not found, with retracted papers flagged; an entry it could not check is labelled that way, never as not found. Mechanics QA and References from a file, which pairs every in-text citation with its entry, come with Pro, $8 a month (pricing). None of them writes a word of your paper.
Quick questions
Do I still need the publisher's location in APA 7?
No. APA 7 gives the publisher's name alone; only works tied to a place, such as conference presentations, keep a location.
Is "Retrieved from" still used in APA 7?
Only before a retrieval date, for an unarchived page designed to change. Otherwise the web address stands alone.
Should I write doi: or https://doi.org/?
In APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago 18, https://doi.org/ and the number. IEEE and Vancouver still write "doi:".
Why does my Harvard reference still have a city?
If EdCitation's Cite a source built it, because it sets Harvard by the 12th edition of Cite Them Right, which keeps the place. The 13th, from 2025, dropped it for most sources: delete it if your course is on the 13th.
Which tool builds references in the current editions?
EdCitation's Cite a source builds entries from the publisher's record in the current APA, MLA and Chicago author-date editions, free and without signing in.
References
- Adams, A. (2019, October 8). Book and book chapter references: No location required. APA Style Blog. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/publisher-locations-in-book-references
- American Psychological Association. (2020). Guide to what's new in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, seventh edition [PDF]. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/whats-new-7e-guide.pdf
- American Psychological Association. (2022, July). DOIs and URLs. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/dois-urls
- American Psychological Association. (2025, October). Elements of reference list entries. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/elements-list-entry
- Breitenbach, A. (2009, October 1). Sayonara to the "well-known city" rule in APA Style. APA Style Blog. Archived January 26, 2025, at https://web.archive.org/web/20250126020130/https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/10/sayonara-to-the-wellknown-city-rule-in-apa-style.html
- Crossref. (n.d.). Crossref display guidelines (March 2017). https://doi.org/10.13003/5jchdy
- Daniel, L. G. (2001). Changes in the APA Publication Manual: How the new fifth edition will affect research reporting in the social sciences (ED460154). ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED460154.pdf
- Doose, S. (2022, May 25). A closer look at MLA style. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/closer-look-at-mla-style/
- IEEE. (2025). Reference guide (Version 3.28.2025). IEEE Publication Operations. https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf
- McAdoo, T. (2017, March 1). DOI display guidelines update (March 2017). APA Style Blog. Archived August 26, 2025, at https://web.archive.org/web/20250826012800/https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2017/03/doi-display-guidelines-update-march-2017.html
- McAdoo, T. (2019, November 7). How many names to include in an APA Style reference. APA Style Blog. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/more-than-20-authors
- McCann, S. (2025). Harvard referencing style update. ATU Library News, Atlantic Technological University. https://atlantictu.libguides.com/blogs/library/harvard-referencing-style-update
- Modern Language Association. (n.d.). What's new in the eighth edition. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/whats-new/
- Modern Language Association. (2003, September 9). Should I use underlining or italics? Archived August 30, 2006, at http://web.archive.org/web/20060830035920/http://www.mla.org/publications/style/style_faq/style_faq2
- Modern Language Association. (2009, January 13). What is new in the seventh edition of the MLA Handbook? Archived April 2, 2010, at http://web.archive.org/web/20100402071100/http://www.mla.org/style/handbook_faq/whatsnew_7edhandbook
- Modern Language Association. (2016, August 11). I am citing a paginated journal article that appears online [Ask the MLA]. MLA Style Center. Archived August 20, 2019, at http://web.archive.org/web/20190820204619/https://style.mla.org/page-range-and-doi/
- National Library of Medicine. (n.d.). Samples of formatted references for authors of journal articles. Retrieved September 24, 2026, from https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html
- Stanley, T. (2025, October 8). Referencing made easy: The latest Cite Them Right changes explained. The Open University Library. https://university.open.ac.uk/library/library/news/referencing-made-easy-the-latest-cite-them-right-changes-explained
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-a). Author-date: Sample citations [17th ed.]. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Archived January 6, 2023, at https://web.archive.org/web/20230106232455/https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-b). Author-date: Sample citations. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.-c). What's new in the 18th edition. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/help-tools/what-s-new.html
- Wallace, J. (2023, November 8). Citation generators and MLA style. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/citation-generators-and-mla-style/