APA format guidelines - basics everyone should know

If you’re reading soft sciences in college, it’s never too late to make sense of APA formatting. You’ll encounter it in most classes, so you should be aware of the basic requirements and know the major mistakes to avoid getting on your professors’ bad side. We’re here to help you understand the core APA formatting and citation rules.

What is APA format?

APA stands for American Psychological Association. APA style format is a set of formatting requirements for academic papers in the humanities. Many professors in social sciences, nursing, and business prefer this style.

Basic APA format guidelines

The latest edition of the APA Manual of Style is over 400 pages long. To make things easier for you, we’ll only focus on the core requirements. If you ever want to dive deeper into the specifics, you can always talk to your campus librarian.

General requirements

After you’re done editing and proofreading the paper, use these general APA format guidelines to format the bulk of the assignment.

Headings

According to APA formatting, you can use up to five levels of headings. But you have to format them correctly:

Headings don’t use numbers or letters, and there’s no heading for the introduction. All the other mandatory sections required under the format of a research paper (Method, Results, Discussion) are Level-1 headings.

Tables and Figures

If you believe tables or figures will enhance readability for your reader, you can include them within the paper text. Each entry should have:

• Table or figure number, flush left, bold: Table 1 or Figure 3
• Table or figure name, flush left, italic
• Body of the table or image
• Note, flush left, italic, ending with a period, in-line with the note text.

Citation

APA is an Author-Date formatting style. So, for in-text citations, you’ll need to include the author’s name, publication year, and page number in parentheses after your quotation or paraphrased passage. For example (Smith, 2020, p.157).

The APA format reference list includes an alphabetized list of all cited works with a hanging indent (the second and following lines of each entry are indented 0.5 inch). Here are a few examples of formatting requirements, but you can always check the APA Manual if you need more guidance.

Common APA formatting mistakes

According to professors who prefer the APA paper format, these are the most common mistakes students make.

• Wrong in-text citation for sources by multiple authors (missing & or et al.)
• Missing hanging indents in the reference list
• No DOI for sources
• “Running head:” in student papers under APA 7th edition
• Misspelling of numbers (under ten should be spelled out)
• Underused title case for book titles and headings
• Adding a second space after a period
• Using space bar instead of Tab for first-line idents
• Non-italicized book titles or periodical names

These are just a few tiny tweaks you can make, but correcting these mistakes will earn you extra points.

APA format checklist (Quick guide)

If you want a quick refresher on how to format an APA research paper, here’s a short checklist:

• Use 1-inch margins all around and a 0.5-inch indent
• Choose a legible 10 pt to 12 pt font, like Arial or Times New Roman
• Include all relevant information about the paper, your class, and professor on the title page
• Apply standard formatting for 5 levels of headings
• Use Author-Date format for in-text citations
• Alphabetize the reference list, add DOIs, and remember hanging indent

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