Having trouble understanding all the specifics of APA? We've got you covered!
Click the tabs in the left-hand menu to visit any of the next few pages, where we cover everything APA:
APA
Links to an APA Sample Paper to help you structure your own paper, plus links explaining how to format in-text citations, how to cite electronic sources, and helpful videos.
Format database citations
Have you found an article in our databases and copied the citation for it from the database—only to paste it into your own Word document and find that the font and formatting doesn’t match at all? We’ll show you how to fix this!
Format a Word doc in APA
Find out how to put in the running head and page numbers, format your title page, and more!
Want to see APA style guides and basic formatting rules? Just look below!
Purdue OWL is one of the best places to find comprehensive citation style guides!
Below you will find links to their style guides for both APA editions. After clicking on either link, look for the table of contents menu running down the left side of the page for directions on how to cite articles, books, websites, and almost anything else you can think of.
Depending on whether your instructor is following APA guidelines for the 6th or 7th edition, here are the general formatting rules to follow:
| APA 6th edition | APA 7th edition |
|
Font: Times New Roman (12 point size) |
Font: Times New Roman (12 point size) Other acceptable fonts: Calibri or Arial (11 point), Georgia (11 point), |
|
Margins & Spacing: 1" margins (this is the default size in Word) and double-spaced |
Margins & Spacing: ← Same as 6th edition |
|
Running head: Needed in the header section on every page of your paper. The title page will have: Running head: TITLE OF YOUR PAPER And every page after that will just have: TITLE OF YOUR PAPER |
Running head: Not required - unless your instructor states otherwise |