Citation Styles Guide: American Psychological Association (APA) - 7th ed.

For specific details and examples of how to do in-text citations and create Reference List entries in APA Style, mouse over the "American Psychological Association (APA) - 7th ed." tab above and choose the appropriate sub-pages.

General Formatting Guidelines

• Spacing: Double-spaced.
• Font: 12-point, standard font (Times New Roman, Arial, etc.)
• Margins : 2.54 cm (1 inch) on all sides.
• Numbering: In the top margin of every page (including the Title page, the References section, and any Appendices), justified to the right-hand side of the page, include the page number. Always start the page numbering at "1."
• Running head: The current edition of APA does not require a running head for student papers. It is only required for professional papers seeking publication. That being said, if your teacher requests that you included a running head, follow these rules. In the top margin of every page (including the Title Page, Reference List, and any Appendices), justified to the left-hand side of the page, include the a shortened title of your paper. It should be no more than 50 characters long, including spaces and punctuation. Abbreviations should be avoided, but an "&" symbol can be used in place of "and." It should be typed out in all caps. For example:
   
  TITLE OF YOUR PAPER

Title Page

Unless your teacher instructs you to do otherwise, all APA-style papers must include a title page. Include the following on your title page:

• Double-space your title page, just as you would the rest of your paper.
• In the top margin of the title page, include the page number, justified to the right-hand side of the page (see above for details). As this is the first page of your paper, the number should be "1." If your teacher requests a running head for your paper, include it in the header as well, justified to the left-hand side of the page (see above for details).
• Center the title of your paper 3-4 double-spaced lines from the top margin of your title page. The title should appear in bold and should be capitalized in title case (capitalize the first letter of the first word and the first letter of all other words, except for unimportant words such as "the" or "a"). You can put your main title and your subtitle on separate lines if the combined length of the title is longer than one line. APA instructs that a title should summarize the main idea of a paper simply and engagingly. There is no limit on length, but your encouraged to be focused and succinct, and to avoid words that serve no purpose in describing the work. If necessary, you can include scientific animal names in italics and parentheses after using the common name in your title.
• Leave a blank, double-spaced line after the title.
• On the line after the blank line, type your name in the following format: Given-Name(s)  Middle Initial(s) Family-Name(s). If there are multiple authors for your paper (e.g. for group assignments), place all of their names on the same line, separated by a comma. Place an "and" before the last author's name. You can choose the order for your names, although a good choice for student assignments is alphabetical. For example:
   
  Jill Barber, David Myles, and William J. M. Plaskett

• On the line after the author's name, type your institutional affiliation. In the case of any papers written for classes at the College, the institution name would be the name of the department (e.g. "Social Sciences"), followed by a comma and "Marianopolis College." 
• On the line after the institutional affiliation, type the number and name of the course for which the paper is being submitted. Always place the course number first, then a colon, then the course name. Use Title Case capitalization for the course name. For example:
   
  387-701-MS: Dynamics of Social Change
   
• On the line after the course number and name, include your teacher's name. Check with your teacher as to their preferred form of their name.
• On the line after the instructor's name, include the date you are submitting the paper.
• Teachers may also require additional information, such as your student number. Unless instructed otherwise, place this information on the line after the date. Start a new line for each additional type of information requested.

Body of Your Paper

• Start your paper on a new page immediately after the title page. On the first line of the page, centre the title of your paper in bold and title case (capitalize the first letter of the first word and the first letter of all other words, except for unimportant words such as "the" or "a").
• Begin the first paragraph of your paper on the next line. Left justify your entire paper (do not right justify a paper unless requested by your teacher).
• Paragraphs: Indent the first line of each paragraph 1.27 cm (0.5 inches). Do not insert an extra line between paragraphs.

Quotations

While paraphrasing (putting the information in your own words) is preferred over direct quotations of source texts in APA, it is sometimes necessary to provide an exact quotation from a text. When you need to quote a source, follow the following guidelines:

• Short Quotations (less than 40 words): Incorporate them into the text, surrounded by double quotation marks ("). Provide an in-text reference for the quotation, including page number(s) (see the in-text citation section of this guide for details).
• Block Quotations (40 words or more): Do not place the quotation in quotation marks. Start a new line in your paper and indent the entire quotation by 1.27 cm (0.5 inches). If there is more than one paragraph in the quotation, indent every paragraph after the first by an additional 1.27 cm (0.5 inches). Double-space the quotation, just like the rest of your paper. Provide an in-text reference for the quotation, including page number(s) (see the in-text citation section of this guide for details).
• Do not insert an ellipsis (. . . ) at the beginning or end of a quotation, unless it is in the original source.
• Quotations should be as accurate to the original source as possible. If there is inaccurate spelling in the original source, do not fix it. Instead, insert [sic.] after the word in question. It should be italicized and in square brackets.
• You may change the first letter of the first word of a quotation to an uppercase or lowercase to fit the context of your sentence.
• Change double quotation marks inside a quotation to single quotation marks(').
• You can omit any footnote or endnote number callouts in the original from your quotation. However, it is common practice to include any in-text citations that are present in your original source. Do not include these works in your Reference List.
• Omitting material: If you omit content from the middle of a quotation (with the except of those cases noted above), you should insert an ellipsis (. . .). Add a fourth period to the end of the ellipsis if there is a sentence break within what you have omitted.
• Inserting material: If you need to add anything to a quotation to improve clarity or provide explanation, place your additions in square brackets [ ]. If you wish to add emphasis to a portion of a quotation in order to draw the reader's attention to it, place the portion in italics and insert [emphasis added] immediately after the portion.

Headings

Most student papers do not need to use headings. However, if you need to supply headings for the sections of your paper, the APA provides rules for up to 5 levels of headings. Each section of a paper starts with a Level 1 heading. Level 2 headings are then subsections of Level 1 sections, and so on.

Note that you do not include a heading for an introduction to a paper. This is because the first paragraph(s) of a paper is always conventionally considered to be the introduction until a heading announcing the next section appears (for example: "Method"). Begin the introduction on a new line immediately after the title on the first page of your paper. If you need to include subsections in your introduction, use Level 2 headings for the first level of subsections, and so on.

The APA format for headings is as follows:

Note: The number of levels of heading needed for a paper depends on the length of the paper and its complexity. On average, most professionally-published papers will only need three levels of headings. Also, too many levels of headings in a paper can be distracting. As a result, it is recommended that you use headings sparingly, and only when they are necessary to differentiate between sections of a paper.

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style, 7th edition, published by the American Psychological Association, is the authoritative guide to APA style. It is designed to be used by anyone that uses APA style in their work, from students to researchers. However, there are specific sections in the guide that detail the streamlined formatting that should be used for student work. Copies of the Publication Manual are available at the Reserve Desk in the Library.