Checklist of essentials...

When submitting/writing an APA style paper, keep the following essentials in mind:

PAPER TYPE

• 8.5 x 11 inch (letter size) good quality white paper

FONT STYLE

• 12-pt Times Roman or 12-pt Courier

JUSTIFICATION

• The text will be left justified - text will appear square on left-hand side and jagged on the right-hand side.

SPACING

• Double space throughout the essay.
• Triple and quadruple spacing is allowable around graphics and tables.

MARGINS

• 1 inch margins
• WARNING: Microsoft Word defaults to a 1.25 inch margin on the left and right-hand side.

INDENTATION

• Each paragraph should be indented .5 inch (or 5-7 spaces for the typewriter generation).

PUNCTUATION

• Only one space is required after all punctuation marks.

ORDER OF PAPER

• title page
• abstract
• text
• references
• appendices (optional element)

PAGE HEADERS

• This is the only element on the page that will be outside the normal 1 inch margins.
• Appears first on the title page and on every subsequent page - it will be right justified.
• The header is .5 inch from the top of the page and 1 inch from the right margin.
• The header is typically the first 2-3 words from the title and followed by the page number - there are 5 spaces between the abbreviated title and the number.

REFERENCES

• All in-text reference citations will have a corresponding reference page citation.

GRAPHICS & TABLES

• Any graphs, photographs, and tables will be be accompanied by a label (either: Figure or Table), a number corresponding the order in which the figure/table is presented/mentioned in the paper, and a title that concisely describes the graphic element.