APA Style Format

General Format
Summary: APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition, second printing.
Contributors:Joshua M. Paiz, Elizabeth Angeli, Jodi Wagner, Elena Lawrick, Kristen Moore, Michael Anderson, Lars Soderlund, Allen Brizee, Russell Keck
Last Edited: 2012-05-30 12:19:58
Please use the example at the bottom of this page to cite the Purdue OWL in APA.
To see a side-by-side comparison of the three most widely used citation styles, including a chart of all APA citation guidelines, see the Citation Style Chart.
You can also watch our APA vidcast series on the Purdue OWL YouTube Channel.
General APA Guidelines
Your essay should be typed, double-spaced on standard-sized paper (8.5" x 11") with 1" margins on all sides. You should use a clear font that is highly readable. APA recommends using 12 pt. Times New Roman font.
Include a page header (also known as the "running head") at the top of every page. To create a page header/running head, insert page numbers flush right. Then type "TITLE OF YOUR PAPER" in the header flush left using all capital letters. The running head is a shortened version of your paper 's title and cannot exceed 50 characters including spacing and punctuation.
Major Paper Sections
Your essay should include four major sections: the Title Page, Abstract, Main Body, andReferences.
Title Page
The title page should contain the title of the paper, the author 's name, and theinstitutional affiliation. Include the page header (described above) flush left with the page number flush right at the top of the page. Please note that on the title page, your page

Citations: Research by Wegener and Petty (1994) supports... (Wegener & Petty, 1994) A Work by Three to Five Authors: List all the authors in the signal phrase or in parentheses the first time you cite the source. (Kernis, Cornell, Sun, Berry, & Harlow, 1993) In subsequent citations, only use the first author 's last name followed by "et al." in the signal phrase or in parentheses. (Kernis et al., 1993) In et al., et should not be followed by a period. Harris et al. (2001) argued... (Harris et al., 2001) Unknown Author: If the work does not have an author, cite the source by its title in the signal phrase or use the first word or two in the parentheses A similar study was done of students learning to format research papers ("Using APA," 2001). Note: In the rare case the "Anonymous" is used for the author, treat it as the author 's name (Anonymous, 2001). In the reference list, use the name Anonymous as the author. According to the American Psychological Association (2000),... First citation: (Mothers Against Drunk Driving [MADD], 2000) Second citation: (MADD, 2000) (Berndt, 2002; Harlow, 1983) Authors With the Same Last Name: To prevent confusion, use first initials with the last names. (E. Johnson, 2001; L. Johnson, 1998) Two or More Works by the Same Author in the Same Year: If you have two sources by the same author in the same year, use lower-case letters (a, b, c) with the year to order the entries in the reference list Research by Berndt (1981a) illustrated that... (Funk & Kolln, 1992) Personal Communication: For interviews, letters, e-mails, and other person-to-person communication, cite the communicator 's name, the fact that it was personal communication, and the date of the communication (E. Robbins, personal communication, January 4, 2001). A. P. Smith also claimed that many of her students had difficulties with APA style (personal communication, November 3, 2002). Johnson argued that...(as cited in Smith, 2003, p. 102). Kenneth (2000) explained... According to Smith (1997), ... (Mind over Matter section, para. 6).