APA Check List

By kknight April 26, 2007 Teaching

The following is meant as a quick reference guide for APA formatting. For more detailed information, consult your writing handbook.

In the Body of your Paper

  • Author names: last name only. Always followed by the year of publication in parentheses. Example: Freud (1925) argued…
  • Verb tense: past tense when referring to writing, arguing, etc. Present tense for results of studies. Example: Phillips (2006) discussed the ways in which the OFC affects confabulation.
  • Book titles: used rarely. Capitalize the first letter of titles and subtitles only. Italicize. Example: How we became posthuman: Virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics.
  • Essay titles: used rarely. Do not use quotation marks. Capitalize the first letter of titles and subtitles only. Example: Everyday fairytales: Once upon a time if you believed your own fantastical stories it was a sure sign you were away with the fairies.
  • Journal titles: used rarely. Capitalize all words except prepositions and articles. Italicize. Example: New Scientist
  • Citation page numbers: required for quotations only. Lower case p followed by a period, then a space and the number. Use paragraph numbers or the name of section headings when page numbers are unavailable. Examples: (p. 4) (para. 4) (discussion)
  • Headings: should be short and descriptive. Center them (not required for our wiki)
  • Line spacing: double (not required for our wiki, although please do double space between paragraphs).
  • Title page: not required for our wiki. Full title of the paper centered on page. Student name, course name/number, Professor’s name, and date, each on its own line, centered at the bottom of the page. Title is repeated on the first page of the paper.
  • Page numbering: not required for our wiki. Short title and page number in upper right hand side of page (use the “header” function in your word processing program). Use page “i” for the title page and page “ii” for an abstract page.

References Page

  • Order: Arrange entries alphabetically, according to the last name of the author. If you have more than one book by one author, list the oldest first.
  • Hanging Indent: first line is aligned with left margin. Subsequent lines are indented fives spaces.
  • Line spacing: double space throughout (not required for our wiki, although please do double space between each entry).
  • Titles: all titles follow the conventions listed above.
  • Book: LastName, F. (year). Book title. Place of Publication: Publisher.
    Example: Hayles, K. (1999). How we became posthuman: Virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
  • Essay in a book: LastName, F. (year). Essay title. In F. EditorLastName (Ed.), Title of book (pp. ##-##). Place of Publication: Publisher.
    Example: Stein, S. (2002). A cyberroom of one’s own. In M. Flanagan and A. Booth (Eds.), Reload: Rethinking women and cyberculture (pp. 148-157). Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Journal article: LastName, F. (year). Article title. Journal Title, Vol#(Issue#), ##-##.
    Example: Sharot, T., Delgado, M., Phelps, E. (2004). How emotion enhances the feeling of remembering. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 1376-1380. *note that the example does not have an issue number.
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