APA Style Guide - 7th Edition: Formatting Your Paper

Start writing your paper by using one of ECPI's Student Sample Paper templates below.

A Student Sample Paper template is also available from the APA Publication Manual 

Additional Resources

Format your paper from scratch using this formatting tutorial.

Want to watch on youtube.com? Click here

Your title page should include:

• Title of the paper
• Name of each author of the paper
• Affiliation for each author
• Course number and name 
• Instructor name
• Assignment due date
• Page number at the top right

Remember to double space your entire paper, including the title page!

The main body of your paper should:

• Have your title centered on the first line of the page and bold the title
• Aside from the title, text should be left-oriented
• Paragraphs should be indented and text is double spaced
• Each page should contain a page number

Your reference page should:

• Begin on a new page immediately following the end of your paper
• Have the word "References" centered on the first line of the page. Bold the word "References"
• Have all citations listed in alphabetical order by the first word of the citation
• Include a hanging indent for all citations (Click here for directions on creating a hanging indent in Word)
• Contain only sources used in your paper

Need more help with your citations? Check out the Reference Page tab!

Consistency in the order, structure, and format of a paper allows readers to focus on a paper’s content rather than its presentation.

Click here for Paper Format guidance from APA Style

Your APA style paper should be:

• Typed and double-spaced with one inch margins on all sides.
• Use the same font throughout the text of the paper. Options include:
  • a serif font such as 12-point Times New Roman or 11-point Georgia.
  • a sans serif font such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode.
• Each page should include a page number at the top right of the page.
• NOTE - Your instructor may request different formatting and assignments may have different requirements.

Formatting a presentation on platforms such as Powerpoint or Prezi

There is not a formal APA style for presentation slides but you are still required to properly cite sources using APA style. You should also properly cite brochures and posters, ask your instructor how they want this information provided.

Properly citing sources includes:

• Citing all images, statistics, tables, quotations, etc. with an in-text citation and on your references slide.

• In-text citations should appear on the same slide you use information from that source.

• If more than one in-text citation is on the same slide, you should be clear about what information came from each source.

• Include a reference slide at the end for your reference citations.

• Reference citations are structured and formatted in the same way they would be in a paper.