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Basic Rules

Reference Page:

  • References are listed on a separate page
  • The page is labelled References at the top, centered and in bold
  • Works are listed in alphabetical order, by the first word of the reference list entry
  • References are double spaced with a hanging indent for second lines
  • Sample reference lists are found below

Authors:

  • Author entries are in alphabetical order by the surname
  • For multiple works by the same author, they should be arranged by year:
    • Brown, S. (n.d.).
    • Brown, S. (2020a).
    • Brown, S. (2020b).
    • Brown, S. (2021).

Titles:

  • When alphabetizing by title, disregard the following words: A, An and The
  • In the citation, use italics and capitalize all major words for a journal title:
    • Nutrition Today
    • Journal of Child and Family Studies
  • Capitalize the first word of article titles and subtitles along with proper nouns only:
    • Nutrition: A functional approach
    • The changing landscape of Canada: From coast to coast

URL:

  • DOI and URLs are hyperlinked beginning with http
  • Do not add a period at the end so the link remains live

More information:

With more frequency, the typical URL in a reference is replaced by a DOI. A DOI is an assigned alphanumeric sequence given to a journal article to help identify it, thereby making it easily searchable on the internet. Example: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys1170

Missing element, solution, template, reference list entry, in-text citation

Formatting Rules

APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition - Order of pages is covered in Section 2.17

Arrange the pages of an APA Style paper in the following order: 

  • title page
  • abstract
  • text
  • references
  • footnotes
  • tables
  • figures
  • appendices

APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition - Title page setup is covered in Section 2.3

The student title page includes the paper title, author names (the byline), author affiliation, course number and name for which the paper is being submitted, instructor name, assignment due date, and page number, as shown in the example.

APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition - Font is covered in Section 2.19

Font options include the following:

  • sans serif fonts such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode
  • serif fonts such as 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal (10-point) Computer Modern (the default font for LaTeX)

APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition - Page headers are covered in Section 2.18

The page header appears within the top margin of every page of the paper.

  • For student papers, the page header consists of the page number only.
  • For professional papers, the page header consists of the page number and running head.

APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition - Line spacing is covered in Section 2.21

APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition - Margins are covered in Section 2.22

APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition - Paragraph alignment and indentation are covered in Sections 2.23 and 2.24

APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition - Headings are covered in Sections 2.26 and 2.27

APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition - Headings are covered in Chapter 7.

Appendices allow you to include detailed information in your paper that would be distracting in the main body of the paper. See Sample Paper for examples of an Appendix.

Sample Papers

A Student Paper is written for credit in a course.


Sample of Title Page