What Is APA Essay Format?

apa essay format

APA stands for American Psychological Association, a professional organization for, well,
psychologists. However, the organizations official style guide, which is called the Publication Manual of
the American Psychological Association, is used by students and professionals in a number of disciplines.

If your teachers ask you to use APA essay format, then they simply mean to use the formatting
guidelines laid out in this manual. The manual tells you how to handle everything from the width of your
essays margins to the citations for your sources.

Chances are, your library has a copy of the full Publication Manual for your perusal, which can be really
handy when you have a very specific question.

But if you just want to quickly learn the basics and turn in a tidy, well-formatted essay, keep reading!

What Are the Most Important Elements of APA Essay Format?

apa essay format

General page setup

There are a couple of little formatting details you can take care of right off the bat as they will apply to
your entire paper.

First, be sure you set your margins to 1 inch all the way around your document.
Secondly, be sure to choose a font that is clear and readable. The APA recommends 12-pt Times New
Roman, but you could also go wild and use Helvetica, Georgia, Arial, or Calibri.

Last but not least, the entire documentfrom the cover page to the reference listshould be double-
spaced with paragraphs indented 1/2 an inch.

Running head and page numbers

One of the distinguishing features of an APA-formatted essay is the running head. This is a short version
of your titlefewer than 50 charactersthat appears in the header of your document, justified with the
left margin.

APA essay format

On the first page of your essay, usually the cover page, the running head is preceded by the words
Running head followed by a colon. On subsequent pages, though, the running head is just the title.

APA essay format

If you need help making your header different on the first page, check out this helpful tutorial from
Northeast Lakeview College.

APA essay format

Dont you feel better just thinking about snuggling with it?
Pro tip: Make sure that your running head is descriptive enough to give the reader some idea of the
content. If the title of your paper is Never Too Old: The Calming Effects of Blankies for College
Students, for instance, your running head should be something like EFFECTS OF BLANKIES FOR
COLLEGE STUDENTS rather than NEVER TOO OLD or just BLANKIES.

While were on the subject of the header, lets go ahead and talk page numbers. In APA style, you
include the page number in the header of every page. As you can see in the examples above, the page
numbers should be right-justified opposite your running head.

Cover page

Another key element of APA essay format is the cover page. While the use of a cover page is not unique
to APA, the manual does specify a preferred layout, which includes not only the aforementioned running
head, but also the following elements:

The full title of your paper

Your name

The name of your school (or wherever you are doing your research/writing).

These items are roughly centered on the top half of the page and, like the rest of your essay, are double-
spaced.

APA essay format

Abstract

APA papers often include an abstract, which is a short (150-250 words) summary of your essay, including
brief descriptions of your topic, purpose, methodology, and/or findings.
The point of an abstract is to inform potential readers of your essays topic and purpose so that they can
determine whether the essay is useful or relevant to their own research.

Whether you need to include an abstract depends partially on the whims of your instructor, so if you
arent sure, just ask!

Assuming that you need to write one, lets talk formatting.

You should center the word Abstract (no quotes, not bold or italicized) at the top of the page. Your
abstract should be double-spaced with the first line justified with the left margin (usually, an abstract is
a single paragraph, so theres no need to indent).

While its not required, its not a bad idea to include keywords beneath your abstract if theres a chance
it will be included in a database as keywords make it easier to locate. Simply type Keywords below the
abstractindenting as though youre starting a new paragraphand then include a few relevant
keywords, separated by commas.

Check out this example:

APA essay format

Main body

The title and intro

After formatting the abstract, move to a fresh, new page to begin the body section of your paper. Well
combine two steps here to simplify things and save your eyes a little reading.
First, you need to restate the title of your paper. This serves as a label to signify the start of the actual
paper.

I know, it seems sort of silly with the running head right there for all the world to see. But silliness aside,
it is an APA requirement, so well comply.

Then, its time to set up the introduction.

Intr

Nope. Stop.

APA essay format

Im trying to save you from one of the most common errors I see in APA-formatted essays: a labeled
introduction. You see, the folks at the APA assume that readers are smart enough to know that the first
section of a paper is the introduction. (And really, arent they right?)

Nothing will implode if you label it. Even professors mistakenly tell you to do so on occasion. But now,
even if that happens, you can feel that swell of smug pride that comes with knowing how its supposed
to be done.

Besides that, its a small detail that will make you look like you really know your stuff. Heres how the
first page of the body of your paper should look:

APA essay format

Headings
After your introduction, though, theres a good chance that you will want to use headings for specific
sections of your paper. Lets look at how you should handle those.

In APA, there are five levels of headings. A level 1 heading is a main heading, such as Literature
Review or Methodology. Level 2 headings are subheadings of level 1 headings, and level 3 headings
are subheadings of level 2 headings, and so forth.

Each heading has its own specific format, as you can see in the table below.

APA essay format

Block quotations (40+ words in length)

Sometimes, youll find a particularly meaty quote that you cannot resist adding to your paper. Just
remember that, if the quotation is more than 40 words in length, you need to create a block quotation.

In APA style, this means that you start the quotation on a fresh line, indenting the entire quotation by
inch. You do not include quotation marks around it, either.

The closing punctuation also goes immediately after the text of the quote, and no period goes after the
parenthetical citation. Check out these examples from the APA blog to see block quotes in action.

Reference list

Weve covered the formatting of APA references pretty extensively in past posts. Read APA Citation
Made Simple (it includes a handy infographic!) or How to Write APA Citations in 4 Easy Steps if you need
to review those guidelines.
However, there are a few formatting details to note for the overall page:

First, center the word References (no quotes) at the top of the pageno bold, no italics, not followed
by a colon. (I see all of these variations pretty frequently.) Let me reiterate:

References

Next, be sure that you list your entries in alphabetical order according to the authors last name (or
whatever comes first in the entry).

Double-space the list, but do not leave an extra space between entries. Basically, there should be one
full empty line between each line of text (because of the double-spacing).

Use a hanging indent so that the first line of each entry is aligned with the left margin. Second and
subsequent lines are indented inch.