Formatting an Essay
Formatting an Essay
The essay or assignment follows the title page. APA Style provides specific instructions for formatting an essay, including spacing and margins, font style and size, and text alignment.
Students should always follow the guidelines from their instructor for formatting their essay or assignment. If students are not provided with any direction, they may follow the instructions here. This example follows the guidelines laid out in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (the Publication Manual).
Order of Pages (2.17)
In APA Style, the pages of an essay or assignment are organized in the following order (2.17):
- Title page (page 1)
- Text (starting on a new page after the title page)
- References (starting on a new page after the end of the text)
There are other sections that might be requested by the instructor, including footnotes, appendices, and tables and figures. You can learn more about these sections and where they appear in an essay or assignment later in this chapter.
What is the text or body of an essay or assignment? (2.11)
The text, or the body, is the largest part of an essay or assignment. It contains the main ideas, information, and research put together by the writer.
How is the body formatted? (2.11)
The body starts on a new page after the title page. In addition to appearing on the title page, the title of the essay or assignment is also included at the top of the page where the body begins. It should be in title case, centered, and in bold font (2.4, 2.11).
How should the text be organized? (2.11)
In APA Style, the body of an essay or assignment can be organized in different ways. The way an essay or assignment is organized depends on the kind of essay or assignment being completed. (You can learn more about the different types of assignments in Chapter 2 of this text.) Students should always review their assignment and marking rubric to make sure that they are formatting their work correctly.
Fonts (2.19)
Please Note!
New in the 7th edition of the Publication Manual, “APA Style papers should be written in a font that is accessible to all users” (p. 44). This may mean using a font other than Times New Roman, which is usually the standard. APA Style permits certain fonts that are more effective with screen reader software, or for writers or readers with print disabilities. The Publication Manual makes the following recommendations for fonts:
- The same size and style of font should be used throughout the essay or assignment, including on the title page. Exceptions include image descriptions and footnotes, which are described below.
- Recommended fonts include a sans serif font such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode, or a serif font such as 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or 10-point Computer Modern.
- For figures with images, use a sans serif font in a size between 8 and 14 points.
- For computer code, use a monospace font, like 10-point Lucida Console or 10-point Courier New.
- For footnotes, use a 10-point single spaced font. Most word processing programs have this size and type of font as the default for footnotes, so no adjustments should be required.
- Special characters include accented letters, Greek letters, mathematical signs, and other symbols. APA Style recommends using the special character function in the word processing program (2.20).
How do I change fonts?
To change the font style and size in Microsoft Word, click Home. Then, choose the required font and size from the dropdown menus.
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Spacing and Margins
Spacing (2.21)
All essays are double-spaced, including the body, headings, block quotations, reference lists, table and figure notes, and appendices (2.21). There are some exceptions to this rule in APA Style:
- Title Page (2.21)
The title page is double spaced, with the text centered, and placed on the upper half of the title page, three to four lines down from the top margin. At least one additional double-spaced blank line appears between the title and the author(s) name(s). - Text with Tables and Images (2.21)
Text with tables or images is single spaced. - Footnotes (2.21)
Footnotes are single spaced.
Spacing After Punctuation (6.1)
Only one space is used following a period or other punctuation at the end of sentence. A single space is also used following commas, colons, semicolons, and periods following initials in names (i.e.: J. Doe). Spaces are not used after periods in abbreviations (i.e.: e.g., U.S.), after periods in labels for study participants (i.e.: E.F.), or between colons used in ratios (i.e.: 1:5). More information on punctuation marks and their correct uses can be found starting in section 6.2 of the Publication Manual.
Margins (2.22)
There are 1-inch (2.54 cm) margins on all sides of the title page and the body of the essay or assignment. This is the default in most word processing programs.
How do I adjust margins?
To adjust the margins in Microsoft Word, click Layout. Then, choose Margins and choose Normal; this will change the margins to 1-inch (2.54 cm) on all sides.
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Paragraph Alignment (2.23)
To align the page correctly in Microsoft Word, click the Home tab, and then choose the Left Justified icon.
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Text is aligned to the left side of the page, and the right margin is left uneven, or “ragged”. Do not use full justification. Words should not be manually divided at the end of a line, and words should not be hyphenated at the end of a line; if the word is too long to appear on that line, let it carry over to the next line. Do not manually add line breaks in digital object identifiers (DOIs) or in URLs. Line breaks created automatically by the word processing program are permitted.
Paragraph Indentation (2.24)
The first line of every paragraph is indented 0.5 inches; use the Tab key to indent. The remaining lines in the paragraph are left-aligned. There are exceptions to this in APA Style:
- On the title page (2.3), the title, in bold, the author(s) name(s), affiliation, course code, instructor name, and date are centered.
- When adding a block quotation, the whole quotation is indented from the left margin 0.5 inches (8.27cm)
- Level one headings appear in bold and centered. Level two and three headings are left-aligned and in either bold or bold-italic (2.27). You can learn more about headings later in this chapter
- Reference list entries have a hanging indent of 0.5 inches (2.12).
These are the most common exceptions that students can expect to see when writing essays or assignments. For more exceptions, see section 2.24 in the Publication Manual.
How do I adjust paragraph alignment and indentation?
To adjust paragraph alignment and indentation in Microsoft word, choose Layout and then Paragraph. All of the options to adjust the alignment, indentation and spacing will appear.
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Hint! To create a hanging indent in Microsoft Word, select or highlight the line you want to indent and then hold down the Ctrl and T keys.
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Length and Word Count (2.25)
The length of an essay or assignment is determined by the instructor. Students should check assignments and marking rubrics, or follow up with instructors to make sure they are meeting the assignment criteria. Instructors may specify either a word count or a page count.
Headings (2.27)
In APA Style, there are five possible levels for headings:
- Level 1 headings are used for top-level or main sections.
- Level 2 headings are subsections of level 1 headings.
- Level 3 headings are subsections of level 2 headings.
- Level 4 headings are subsections of level 3 headings.
- Level 5 headings are subsections of level 4 headings.
The Publication Manual makes the following recommendations for headings:
- Each section starts with the highest level of heading.
- The essay or assignment title at the top of the first page of text acts as a Level 1 heading.
- The number of subheadings a student will use varies depending on the kind of essay or assignment and the information in the essay or assignment. APA Style recommends using only the number of headings required to differentiate the different sections of the essay or assignment. If only one level of heading is needed, use Level 1. If two levels of heading are needed, use Level 1 and Level 2, and so on.
- Headings are not labelled with letters or numbers.
- The Publication Manual states that the heading “Introduction” is not needed, because the first paragraph of an essay or assignment is understood to be introductory.
This table, from section 2.27 of the Publication Manual, shows how to correctly format each level of heading:
| Level | Format |
| 1 | Centered, Bold, Title Case Heading Text begins as a new paragraph. |
| 2 | Flush Left, Bold, Title Case Heading Text begins as a new paragraph. |
| 3 | Flush Left, Bold Italic, Title Case Heading Text begins as a new paragraph. |
| 4 | Indented, Bold, Title Case Heading, Ending with a Period. Text begins on the same line and continues as a regular paragraph. |
| 5 | Indented, Bold, Italic, Title Case Heading, Ending with a Period. Text begins on the same line and continues as a regular paragraph. |
What’s Next?
The next section explains how to create and use footnotes.
Sources
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style. (7th ed.).
In APA Style, the title page is the first page of a paper or other assignment. It contains the title of the paper, the author’s name, and the institutional affiliation. A student title page also includes the course number and name, instructor name, and assignment due date.
APA Style is set of guidelines created by the American Psychological Association (the APA). These guidelines help writers, including students, to format written work and citations in a consistent way.
A reference is a group of details about one specific resource, arranged in a consistent way. These are sometimes called citations, but this is not correct.
A footnote appears on the bottom of the page that contains the sentence to which it refers. Footnotes provide additional information or context. Most student APA Style papers do not require footnotes.
An appendix comes after the reference list of an essay or assignment, and it contains any additional information such as raw data or interview transcripts. The information in the appendices is relevant but is too long or too detailed to include in the main body of the essay or assignment.
To quote means to copy “word for word” from a resource, including original spelling and punctuation. Direct quotations appear in quotation marks and end with an in-text citation.
DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier. A DOI is a string of numbers, letters and symbols used to permanently identify an article or document, and to link to it online. A DOI will help to easily locate a document from a reference list. The DOI will always refer to the same article, and only that article. DOIs can usually be found on the article itself, either on the first page, or in the header or footer of the article.
URLs are persistent links to information on the Internet. URLs can be found in the address bar of the web browser.
