Writing Center APA Paper Formatting: APA Paper Formatting

Paper Guidelines

• Use 1-inch margins.
• Double-space the entire document
• Use one of the following fonts, in black, consistently throughout your paper:
  • 12-point Times New Roman
  • 11-point Georgia
  • 11-point Calibri
  • 11-point Arial
  • 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode
• The title of the paper should be the first line of the page after the title page. The title should be centered and bolded, with major words capitalized.
• Indent all paragraphs. Make sure there are no extra line between paragraphs.

Paper Sections

Papers written in APA style typically include a title page, the body of your essay, and a references page. Depending on your assignment, you may also need to include an abstract and appendices. These sections should appear in the following order:

• Title page
• Abstract*
• Body of the essay
• References
• Appendices*

*Only include these if required by your instructor or the assignment.

Title Page

• The first page of your document should be the title page.
• Insert page numbers at the top of every page in the header. Page numbers should be aligned with the right margin.
• Your title page should contain the following information, on separate lines:
  • Paper Title
    • The title should be bolded, and all major words should be capitalized.
    • The title should be on its own line. There should be a blank line between the title of your paper and your name.
  • Student Name
  • Colorado State University Global
  • Course Code: Course Name
  • Instructor
  • Due Date

Abstract

An abstract should only be included in your essay if it is required in the assignment guidelines or by your instructor.

An abstract is a brief summary (typically 150-250 words) that appears at the beginning of an academic journal article. Sometimes, an abstract is required in more complex graduate-level writing, like research papers. Abstracts are intended to provide a quick overview of a text so that a reader can skim the abstract and determine right away if the source/text is relevant to their research. If you need to include an abstract in your assignment, write the abstract after you finish writing your essay because it’s easier to summarize your ideas once you’ve already written them.

To format the abstract:

• The abstract should appear on its own page, after the title page and before the beginning of your essay.
• The word “Abstract” should be centered at the top of the page, without any additional formatting.
• Make sure that your abstract is double-spaced and in the same font and font size as the rest of the paper.
• Do not indent the first line of your abstract; it should be aligned with the left margin.

Headings

For more information, see our Header document.

References

• Use a page break to create a new page. The word References should be centered at the top.
• List your references in alphabetical order.
• Each reference should be double-spaced.
• The first line of each reference should be aligned with the left margin. Each subsequent line of the reference should have a hanging indent.

Appendices

An appendix or appendices should only be included in your essay if it is required in the assignment guidelines or by your instructor. An appendix is information that is not essential to your paper but is included for your reader to reference if desired. As such, the appendix goes at the end of your essay after the references page.

Depending on how many items you want to include, you might need more than one appendix. Each appendix will go on its own page. For example, if you have 3 charts, each chart would go on its own page: the first would be Appendix A, the second would be Appendix B, etc.

To format the appendix:

• Appendices should come after the references page.
• Each item you want to include as an appendix should be on its own page:
• If you only have one item to include in the appendix:
  • The appendix should be on its own page after the references. The word “Appendix” will be bolded and centered at the top of the page.
  • On the line after the appendix label, include a descriptive title for the appendix (ex: Quarterly Profits for ABC Company). The title should be bolded and centered.
  • The image, chart, text, etc. should be below the title for the appendix.

Any outside source material included in your appendix should have a corresponding reference on your references page. All appendices must be mentioned in the body of your essay. When referring to the appendix in the body of your essay, write the phrase “see Appendix A” in parentheses. For example: To better understand the financial situation of ABC Company, it is worth examining the increase in profits between 2016 and 2019 (see Appendix A).