How to Use the APA format

The APA format is a style of writing a paper frequently used in the fields of psychology, social sciences, and education. It was first established in 1929 by the American Psychological Association as a set of guidelines to help writers structure their paper accordingly for uniformity, formality, and ease of reading. While the APA format rules are quite extensive, here is an overview of how to properly format your paper using the APA style: • The entire document should have double spacing and have 1-inch margins on each side. Times New Roman is the recommended font with the font size set to either 10 or 12. • Your paper should have a title page where you should place the running head, the title of the paper, your full name, and the institution you are affiliated with. The first line should contain the title, the second one contains the author’s name, and the last one is the institution. All of these should be vertically and horizontally centered. • Place a header in the title page containing the term “Running Head:” followed by the paper’s title in capital letters. • Every page of the document should have a header containing the title of the paper and the page number. • The abstract is the section that follows the title page. It is the summary of your paper’s content including the methods, research findings, and conclusions. It is recommended to be between 150 – 250 words in length. • For the body paragraphs, the first line should always be indented. Also, there should be two spaces after each period. • Always use in-text citations to provide documentation and avoid plagiarism. The citations should be in parenthesis and include the author’s last name and the publication date. For example, if the work cited was by Nicholas Sparks and the date of publication was 2009, the in-text citation should be (Sparks, 2009). If the author’s name is mentioned within the text, it is no longer necessary to include it within the parenthetical citation. • The reference page should be where you will list all the details regarding the sources you cited. It should begin on a new page and have the title “References” at the center of the first line. • The list of works cited should be in alphabetical order according to the author’s last name. Details usually included in each source are the author’s name, title of the article, publication date, and other publication details. • If the listed source goes past the first line, a hanging indent should be used on the second line by pressing the TAB key. • All the cited sources should appear both within the text as in-text citations and in the reference section. rnFor a more in-depth guide to using the APA format, you can check out the APA Publication Manual on their website. There are also tutorials and samples of the format found within. There are also numerous other websites that provide guides and examples for writers who are looking to learn more about using this format.