APA Format Explained with Real Examples You Can Copy Right Now

What APA Format Actually Requires

APA format is a set of rules published by the American Psychological Association that governs how a paper looks and how it credits sources. The current edition is the 7th, published in 2020, and most colleges now use it. Set one-inch margins, double space throughout, include a title page and numbered pages, cite sources in the form (Author, Year), and end with a reference list.

That covers the structure. The rest of this page goes through each element with the exact text you would type, so you can match your own draft against it.

Every Section Shown in Full

The examples below reflect a standard undergraduate research paper. Use them as a template.

Page setup

Set all margins to one inch. Set line spacing to double throughout, including the reference list. Set the font to Times New Roman 12-point or Calibri 11-point. Insert a page number in the top-right corner of every page, starting at 1 on the title page. Do not add extra space between paragraphs - the double spacing already creates separation.

The title page

The title page uses the same double spacing as the rest of the paper. There is no extra blank line inserted before the title block. Centered, starting roughly in the upper third of the page:

The Relationship Between Sleep Deprivation and Academic Performance

Jordan M. Alvarez
Department of Psychology, Westfield University
PSYC 2210 Research Methods
Professor Sandra Kim
October 14, 2024

The title is in title case and no longer than about twelve words. Your name goes on the line below, then your department and institution on one line, then course name and number, instructor name, and due date, each on its own line. Nothing is bold except the title itself on a professional paper - for student papers, the title is simply title case, not bold, though some instructors ask for bold. Check the syllabus.

The title page post on this blog covers every field on that page in more detail if you need it.

Headings inside the paper

A 1,500-word undergraduate paper typically needs only Level 1 and Level 2 headings.

Level 1 is centered and bold, in title case:

                    Literature Review

Level 2 is left-aligned and bold, in title case:

Effects on Cognitive Function

Level 3 is left-aligned, bold, and italic, in title case:

*Short-Term Memory Impairment*

Do not number headings in a standard paper. Do not put a colon after a heading. The text begins on the next line, not on the same line as the heading.

In-text citations

The parenthetical form goes before the period at the end of the sentence. Four cases come up repeatedly in undergraduate papers.

A paraphrase with one author reads like this.

Students who sleep fewer than six hours a night lose measurable attention the following day (Author, 2019).

When the author’s name appears in the sentence itself, only the year follows it in parentheses.

Author (2019) describes the effect as “a progressive narrowing of attention that the student rarely notices” (p. 47).

Two authors are joined with an ampersand inside the parentheses.

(Author & Author, 2021)

Three or more authors are condensed from the first citation onward.

(Author et al., 2020)

If you cite the same source twice in the same paragraph and no other source appears between the two citations, you can drop the year on the second mention in the same paragraph. The author name still stays.

The reference list

The heading “References” is centered and bold, on a new page. Every entry is double-spaced with a hanging indent. Below are the four types you will use most often, each filled in with a sample entry.

A journal article entry looks like this.

Author, A. A. (2019). Title of the article in sentence case. Name of
    the Journal, 28(4), 112-119. https://doi.org/10.0000/0000000

A book entry follows this pattern.

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (2021). Title of the book in sentence
    case (2nd ed.). Publisher.

A webpage entry includes the retrieval date only when the content is likely to change over time.

Name of the Organization. (2022, March 15). Title of the page.
    https://www.example.org/title-of-the-page

A chapter in an edited book names both the chapter authors and the volume editor.

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (2020). Title of the
    chapter. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of the book (pp. 88-112).
    Publisher.

The hanging indent is the part most students miss. In Word or Google Docs, select the paragraph, go to paragraph settings, and set “Special” to “Hanging” with a 0.5-inch indent. Do not press Tab manually for each line.

Where the Rules Shift

The setup above covers a standard undergraduate paper in psychology, education, or a social science. Several things change depending on your situation.

Professional and published papers differ from student papers in two places. The title page includes an author note and an ORCID, and the running head reappears. If you are writing for a class, you are writing a student paper and neither of those applies.

Some departments in nursing, communications, and business have adopted APA but added house rules on top of it - a required abstract even on short papers, a specific heading structure, or a different title-page layout. Those rules override the defaults. When a syllabus says “follow APA” and then gives you a sample paper, match the sample; it carries more weight than the manual.

Abstracts are required in most research papers of eight pages or more, in literature reviews, and almost always in anything submitted for a journal. A short five-page essay usually does not need one. The abstract, when required, goes on its own page immediately after the title page. The heading “Abstract” appears centered and bold, followed by a single paragraph of 150 to 250 words, not indented, summarizing the paper’s question, method, results, and conclusion. Below the abstract, on a new line, write “Keywords” in italic followed by three to five lowercase terms separated by commas.

If your paper has an appendix, it goes after the reference list. Each appendix gets a letter - Appendix A, Appendix B - and the heading is centered and bold on its own page. Tables and figures inside the body of the paper have their own APA rules. The table number and title go above the table; the figure number and caption go below the figure.

Where Papers Go Wrong

Formatting errors cluster around a handful of habits. Check your own draft against each of these before you submit.

The reference list and the in-text citations do not match. Every source cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and every entry in the reference list must appear at least once in the text. A quick way to check is to go through each in-text citation and search the reference list for that author, then go through the reference list and search the text for each name.

The DOI or URL is missing from journal articles. APA 7 requires a DOI whenever one exists, formatted as a full hyperlink starting with https://doi.org/. If no DOI exists and the article was found online, include the URL. If it was found in print only, no URL is needed.

Page numbers are missing from direct quotes. Any time you copy an author’s exact words, the citation must include p. followed by the page number (or pp. for a range). Forgetting this is the most common in-text citation error on undergraduate papers.

The title page is treated as page zero. Page 1 is the title page. The page number appears in the top-right corner on every page including the title page.

Paragraphs are not indented. Every paragraph in the body of the paper starts with a 0.5-inch first-line indent. The abstract is the one exception - it runs flush left.

The reference list has extra space between entries. The entire reference list is double-spaced with no additional blank lines inserted between entries. Many students who type each entry as a separate paragraph find that their word processor adds space after each one. Turn that off by setting “Space After” to 0pt and relying on double line spacing alone.

Getting Through the Rest of Your Draft

Open the sections above in a separate window and move through your paper one element at a time. Page setup first, title page second, then headings, then a pass through every in-text citation, then the reference list last. Fixing one layer at a time is faster than trying to catch everything in a single read.

If your assignment involves building a research paper from the ground up and you want a walkthrough of the outline stage, the research paper outline guide covers that structure in the same level of detail.

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