The American Psychological Association Format

The American Psychological Association Format

Abstract

The style of writing for the journals published by the American Psychological Association is called the APA writing style. This research paper will cover the page and reference formats for using the APA style of writing. This will teach you how to write a proper APA paper from the title page to the reference page.

Author P. Butler

Limestone College

Dr. Cunnings/Introduction to Psychology

February 24, 2005

1

The American Psychological Association Format

The page formats for writing an American Psychological Association (APA) style paper are quite different from other styles of writing. The font the paper should be written in is either Times New Roman or Courier and the size should be 12. The title page should have the title at the top and the abstract beneath it. Then the authors name and date. Everything on the title page should be aligned in the center except for the abstract. The headings for APA style require just a short title and page number aligned on the top right part of the paper. Do not use this heading on the title page. Have the page number on the title page centered at the bottom. The abstract should be no longer than 120 words. Use double spacing for normal text but use single for quotes, references, and the abstract. Footnotes are not used much in APA papers and if they are used they are called an author note. Hyphenation should occur only between words and not at the end of a line. Indents in the paper should be set to one-half inch and are only used for paragraphs, block quotes, and hanging indents. Justification should be left margin only. Margins are to be set at one inch. Word processor features should be used as needed. When using abbreviations explain what it means the first time it is used. Most of the time try to avoid using them. Be sensitive to labels when possible. Call people what they would like to be called. Capitalization is also important (e.g., Dewey, 2003).

The reference