RHAM Library Learning Commons

APA Formatting

Information compiled from Purdue Online Writing Lab

Introduction

APA stands for American Psychological Association and is the most common style used across the social sciences. This current edition of APA formatting was adopted in October 2019.

General Rules

Your paper or essay should be typed double spaced on 8.5" by 11" paper with a 1" margin on all sides. You will include a header known as a running head on the top of every page. For a professional paper you need to include the title and page numbers, but for a student paper only page numbers are needed. If a title is included, it should be a shortened title and not be longer than fifty characters including spaces and punctuation. While the APA Manual does not specify a single font or set of fonts for professional writing, it does recommend a few fonts that are widely available. These include sans serif fonts such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, and 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode as well as serif fonts such as 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, 10-point Computer Modern.

Sections

APA style has four main sections. They are the Title Page, Abstract, Main Body, and References.

Title Page

The title page should contain the title of the paper, the author's name, and the institutional affiliation. A professional paper should also include the author note. A student paper should also include the course number and name, instructor name, and assignment due date.

Type your title in upper and lowercase letters centered in the upper half of the page. The title should be centered and written in boldface. APA recommends that your title be focused and succinct and that it should not contain abbreviations or words that serve no purpose. Your title may take up one or two lines. All text on the title page, and throughout your paper, should be double-spaced.

The title page running head should be flush left and look like this: Running Head: TITLE OF PAPER. The page number should be flush right.

Any pages after the title page will have a running head that looks like this: TITLE OF PAPER. This should be flush right with the page number being flush left.

Beneath the title, type the author's name: first name, middle initial(s), and last name.

Abstract

Begin a new page. Your abstract page should already include the page header (described above). On the first line of the abstract page, center and bold the word “Abstract” (no italics, underlining, or quotation marks).

Beginning with the next line, write a concise summary of the key points of your research. (Do not indent.) Your abstract should contain at least your research topic, research questions, participants, methods, results, data analysis, and conclusions. You may also include possible implications of your research and future work you see connected with your findings. Your abstract should be a single paragraph, double-spaced. Your abstract should typically be no more than 250 words.

You may also want to list keywords from your paper in your abstract. To do this, indent as you would if you were starting a new paragraph, type Keywords: (italicized), and then list your keywords. Listing your keywords will help researchers find your work in databases.

References

The reference page should include all sources that were used in your paper or essay.

Cited from Purdue Owl

Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). General Writing FAQs. Purdue Online Writing Lab. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/general_writing_faqs.html

Please see this link and choose from the APA Formatting and Style Guide on the left sidebar to learn how to make in-text citations, reference list citations, and more.

Helpful Videos

References Part I

References Part II

In-Text Citations

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