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APA - How to cite sources in American Psychological Association Format

This guide is designed to help you with your APA questions.

Formatting your Paper in APA

APA 7th Edition Citation Guide

Formatting Your Paper

Using a consistent format enables your readers to focus on your content, instead of the presentation of your paper. 

 

APA formatted student essays typically contain the following elements in the order listed:

Title Page

 A separate page containing a page number (in the top right), the title of the essay (centered and in bold), the author's name (two lines down and centered), the name of the university, the class number and class title, the instructor's name, and the assignment's due date.

Body

 The content of the essay. Margins are 1" on every side, the font is consistent and legible, the text is double spaced, and headings are used to separate sections. In-text citations are used and have matching citations on the reference page. 

References Page

 A page containing references for all sources used in the paper. References are double-spaced and use hanging indents.

Individual instructors may require other elements not listed above, such as an abstract, table of contents, tables, or appendices. If you are unsure of which elements to include in your essay, read your assignment's guidelines or ask your instructor. 

APA allows the following fonts and sizes for your text:

  • sans serif fonts such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode
  • serif fonts such as 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal (10-point) Computer Modern (APA, 2022)

Templates

Below are several templates to help get you started, including a basic template and a sample paper with more detailed instructions.

Please remember these are examples and may contain the name of another university on the draft. You will always put Beal University on your title page.

Title Page

For more detailed information on how to format your title page, see this guide from APA. You can also use a template from above.

Body

The body of your paper begins with the title (centered and bolded). No need for an 'Introduction' heading. Level 2 sub-headings can be used to further separate and organize the first section.

For more detailed information on formatting headings, see this guide from APA.

Reference List

For more detailed information on formatting reference lists, see this guide from APA.

Special thanks to our friends at Concordia University.