APA Style has a rule (or set of rules) for just about any aspect of a paper you care to name. This is a brief overview of the most important points, which should get you started, but it is not an exhaustive guide. You may need to look up rules for more obscure points of formatting, grammar and references. For more help, the Purdue Online Writing Lab has this great APA guide.
General Format
Here are the basic parameters for a paper written in APA style. For specific reference list formatting, see the Reference List tab .
Margins One inch all the way around. (This is the "Normal" setting in Word.)
Font Face: Times New Roman.
Font Size: 12 pt.
Spacing: The entire document, including the reference list, is double spaced. Do not insert extra space between paragraphs. (Word likes to do this as a default, so you will probably need to override it.)
Justification: Ragged right. If the text block is even along the right margin, it's not correct.
Running Head
On title page: "Running head: ALL CAPS SHORT TITLE 50 CHARACTERS OR LESS".
On all subsequent pages: "ALL CAPS SHORT TITLE 50 CHARACTERS OR LESS".
Note the verbiage and the capitalization carefully.
Page Numbers:
Use arabic numerals.
Start with the the title page.
Numbers should be at least 1" from the left side of the page.
Numbers should appear above the first line of the text.
Section Headings
Use 12 pt Times New Roman for headings.
Use the full title, not bold, as the heading for the introduction.
Level 1 headings are centered and bold, with the first letter of each word (only) capitalized.
Level 2 headings are flush left, italicized and bold, with the first letter of each word (only) capitalized.
Level 3 headings are indented one half inch from the left margin and bold, with the first letter of the first word (only) capitalized.
References Heading: The references should be labeled "References" in 12 point, Times New Roman type, centered and NOT underlined, bold or in all caps. The references list should not be labeled "Works Cited," "Sources," "Cited Sources" or anything other than "References."
Abstract: Appears on its own page with no indentation.
Paragraph Indentation: One half inch, except the Abstract, which has no indentation.
Alternatively, you could download an APA template that already has the proper formatting in place.
