A Quick Guide to APA
Formatting
1’’ margins
Times New Roman size 12 font, make sure to change the default font from Calibri
Double-spaced
Left-aligned running head at the top of every page in all caps
On title page: Running head: TITLE OR SHORTENED TITLE (Your title should be no longer than 12 words and should not exceed 50 characters, including the words “Running head”, all letters, punctuation, and spaces between words. See pp. 23 and 229 respectively.)
On subsequent pages: TITLE OR SHORTENED TITLE (without the words Running head)
Style
Use active voice
Be specific and concise
Avoid poetic or figurative language, scientific writing is the most appropriate for APA
Use past or present perfect tense (researchers have shown) for a lit review and description. Use past tense when referring to results and experiments previously conducted. (see pp. 65-66)
Title Page
Running head and page number in a header
To properly insert the Running head, insert the header, click ‘different first page,’ and then insert page number (the first option is fine). Type ‘Running head’ and your title and then tab the page number over to its proper position on the right. Close the header. On the next page, you may now click inside the header and add JUST the title and page number. At this point, your pages should be properly numbered (1, 2, etc.) (See p. 41 and 42 of the APA manual for a sample paper.)

The following information will be centered in the upper-middle of the page:
Title of Paper (in title case)
Your name
Name of institution
Abstract
Second page of document, should contain running head and page number in header
The word ‘Abstract’ should be centered on the first line
150-250 words long
Brief, comprehensive summary of the paper
Do not indent the first line of the abstract
The abstract is not an introduction to the paper and will not contain any citations
See pp. 25-27 of the APA manual for what types of information to include in an abstract
Main Body
Headings
APA uses headings to separate paper sections and establish a hierarchy of information
Always use headings in order, beginning with level 1 (Note: Your title is no longer considered a level 1 heading.)
For each section, include at least two subsection headings or none at all. This follows the same principle as an outline (section one would be divided into sections A and B. A does not stand alone). (see p. 62)

1 Centered, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading
2 Left-aligned, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading
3 Indented, boldface, lowercase heading with a period. Begin body text after period.
4 Indented, boldface, italicized, lowercase heading with a period. Begin body text after period.
5 Indented, italicized, lowercase heading with a period. Begin body text after period.

In-Text Citations
An in-text citation is used whenever another author’s work is directly quoted or paraphrased
Citations use an author, date format: (Author, Publication Year)
The citation for a direct quote should also include the page number: (Author, Year, Page #)
Any quotation longer than 40 words should be made into a freestanding block of text, and the quotation marks removed (see p. 171)
If no author is given, use a shortened version of the title in the citation
If the publication date is unknown, use “n.d.” in its place
If you are using an electronic source that does not include page numbers, use paragraph numbers in place of page numbers. (See pp.171-172 for further clarification.)
For works with 3 or more authors, list up to 5 in