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APA Formatting and Style Guide

This resource was written by David Neyhart and Erin Karper. Additional material by Kristen Seas & Tony Russell..
Last full revision by Jodi Wagner, Kristen Seas, and Tony Russell..
Last edited by Allen Brizee on December 8th 2008 at 7:08PM

Summary: APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 5th edition of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. Please use the example at the bottom of this page to cite the Purdue OWL in APA.

Jump to listing of all of this resource's sections

General Format

General APA Guidelines

Your essay should be typed, double-spaced on standard-sized paper (8.5" x 11") with 1" margins on all sides. You should use 10-12 pt. Times New Roman font or a similar font.

Include a page header in the upper right-hand of every page. To create a page header, type the first 2-3 words of the title of the paper, insert five spaces, then give the page number.

Major Paper Sections

Your essay should include four major sections: the Title Page, Abstract, Main Body, and References.

Title Page

Your title page should already include the page header (described above). On the first line of the title page flush-left, add a running head. Begin the running head with the words “Running Head” followed by a colon. Then give an abbreviated title of your paper in 50 characters or less in all caps. Note: Remember that the page header will appear on every page of your paper, whereas the running head will only appear on your title page.

In the upper half of the title page, type your full title, your byline (name[s]), and affiliation (university, etc.) centered on separate lines. Your title may take up one or two lines as in the example below:

This is a sample title page that adheres to the APA style guide. The paper title is in the top right corner, followed by the page number. A running head should be placed below the page number line, with the first three words from the paper title in all caps. Then, the paper's title, author and university information should be centered roughly 10 spaces below the running head.

Image Caption: APA Title Page

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 the word “Abstract” (otherwise unformatted, no bold, italics, underlining, or quotation marks).

Beginning with the next line, write a concise summary of the key points of your research. (Do not indent.) The abstract should be a single paragraph double-spaced of less than 120 words.

This is a sample of an APA abstract. The paper title and page number should be placed in the upper right-hand corner of the page. The word abstract should be centered on the first line of the page, followed by the abstract's written contents.

Image Caption: Sample APA Abstract

Please see our Additional Resources page for examples of APA papers.

Cite the Purdue OWL in APA:

Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) (Last edited date available in the gray box at the top of the resource). Title of resource. Retrieved month day, year, from http://Web address for OWL resource.

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