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American Psychological Association (APA) Formatting Guidelines
American Psychological Association (APA) Formatting Guidelines
Association (APA)
Formatting Guidelines
Basics (Section 8.03)
APA provides the standard guidelines for
the social sciences.
Page Format
New page should
◦ Be continuously paginated with the rest of the
document
◦ Be double spaced
◦ Include the running head
◦ Include the word “ References” centered on the first
line
Reference entries
Individual entries
Must be alphabetized by author’s last name.
◦ If no author is provided, list the source
alphabetically by title: “ Obama’s Views on
Education” would be listed by “ O” ; “ Clinton’s
Health Care Plan” would be listed by “ C.”
Must begin at the left margin and use a “ hanging
indent” for all following lines of that entry. A
“ hanging indent” means that each subsequent line
of the entry is indented 1 tab (5 spaces).
Note: See Section 6.29 for the specific rules for
capitalization of journal, article, and book titles.
Writing style (Section 3.05 ff.)
Avoid the following
“ Wordiness”
“ Colloquialexpressions”
Biased terminology
Avoid singular gender pronouns (he/she)
Use plural
Articles such as “ the”
Replace with “ person,” “ individual,” etc.
Use active instead of passive voice.
Active: The nursing student wrote the paper.
Passive: The paper was written by the nursing student.