Can I still use Cite Them Right 12th edition this year?

Short answer: possibly, but the ground has shifted twice since the 13th edition came out, and both shifts point the same way.

The publisher has already decided

Cite Them Right Online moved to the 13th edition in 2025, and Bloomsbury removed the 12th edition from the site at the same time. It is not tucked away behind a menu. It is gone.

This matters more than it sounds. If you access Cite Them Right through your university’s subscription, which is how most students use it, you can no longer look up 12th edition guidance at all. Whatever your department will accept, the official reference you were told to check now only describes the 13th edition.

The print book is a different matter. If you bought the 12th edition it still sits on your desk and still works. But you are now referencing from a source the publisher has withdrawn, and any discrepancy between your book and the website will be resolved in the website’s favour.

Your department is the one that actually decides

This is the part no blog post can answer for you, including this one.

Universities set their own marking policy, and they have handled the transition differently. Some ran a grace period. The University of the Highlands and Islands, for example, told students that academics would accept either edition throughout 2025/26, that nobody would be penalised for following either one, and that from 2026/27 onwards all students would be expected to use the 13th.

That deadline has now passed. If your institution ran a similar arrangement, this is the year it ends.

Others have taken a softer line, and several university libraries have said publicly that what matters most is referencing that is clear, accurate and consistent, rather than which edition produced it. That is a genuine position held by professional librarians, not a loophole.

So: ask. Your module handbook, your assessment brief, or your subject librarian. It takes five minutes and it is the only answer that counts for your marks.

If you started under the 12th edition

The awkward case is a dissertation or thesis begun under one edition and submitted under another. If you have been typing your references by hand, that is a genuinely painful prospect, and consistency is a reasonable argument for finishing as you started. Say so in an email to your supervisor rather than assuming.

If you use a reference manager, though, this is close to a non-problem, and it is the single best argument for using one.

Your references are stored as structured data, not as formatted text. The style is applied at the moment the document is generated. So switching editions means installing the new style, opening Document Preferences in Word, selecting it and clicking OK. Every in-text citation and the entire bibliography re-render in the new format, whether you have forty references or four hundred. Nothing is retyped and nothing is lost.

Worth knowing before you spend an evening editing references by hand, and worth knowing at the start of your next project rather than the end of this one.

How to tell which edition you are currently producing

Look at any reference to a book in your bibliography.

If it names a city before the publisher, you are producing 12th edition output. The 13th edition dropped the place of publication and uses the publisher’s name alone. It is the quickest single check, and for most people it is the first sign that their reference manager is behind.

That check only catches one of the changes, though. Read what else changed between the 12th and 13th editions.

What this means if you use Zotero

There is still no 13th edition Cite Them Right style in the Zotero style repository. If you installed your style from there, it is a 12th edition style, and it will keep producing 12th edition references no matter what your department has decided.

For most people it comes down to two routes.

Stay on the 12th edition. Reasonable if your department has confirmed it will accept it, and if you are close to submission.

Move to a maintained 13th edition style. Install it, change the style in Document Preferences, and your existing work re-renders.

The short version

Your university/department decides, so ask them. But the publisher has withdrawn the 12th edition, the grace periods that were put in place are expiring, and the direction of travel is one way. If you are starting a new piece of work this year, start it on the 13th.