APA Document Formatting Checklist

Format
 All text is typed
 All text is double-spaced
 All documents are printed on standard-sized paper (8.5" x 11")
 All pages have 1” margins on all sides.
 All text (including title) is 12 pt. Times New Roman font or a similar font.

Cover/Title Page
 On your computer, choose Different First Page Header
 Insert page number on the right
 Type Running head: YOUR ABBREVIATED TITLE on the left
 In the upper half of the center of the page, center the following
 The title of the paper
 Your name
 The institution name (Ivy Tech Community College)
Body Pages
 In the header, insert page number on the right
 Type YOUR ABBREVIATED TITLE on the right
 Primary headers (like the title of your paper) should be centered and bolded
 Secondary headers (like section titles) should be aligned with the left margin and bolded
 The final page should include your references and the word References should be
centered at the top.

Running Head: SAMPLE PAPER SAMPLE PAPER

1 2

Sample Paper: Guide to APA Formatting

Introduction

And so I begin my story of acquiring

Sample Paper: Guide to APA Formatting
literacy….blah blah blah blah and so on and so
My Name
on…………..
Ivy Tech Community College

 Periods and commas should go inside of quotation marks; semi-colons and colons should
go outside of quotation marks. EXCEPT: When an in-text citation is used in a sentence,
then the rules vary:
o At the end of a sentence, a question mark or exclamation point goes within the
quotation mark, a period after the citation. Thus:
 Stanley Tomkiel (2004) explained that SSI “provides payments for
the aged and the disabled” (p. 21).
o In the middle of a sentence, a comma appears after the citation. Thus,
 “Many people confuse SSI with Social Security” (Tomkiel, 2004, p.
21), but the two are quite different.
 In-text citations (like those seen above) occur when information from a source appears in
one’s text (whether the actual words of another author, or his or her ideas appearing in
the form of a summary or paraphrase). If an author is not named, a word or two from the
article title should be used with the year because the reference will begin with the article
title—for example (“Hill’s Social Security,” 2006).
 References pages are formatted using hanging indentation (first line flush left, subsequent
lines indented ½”.) The citations on the page are listed alphabetically.
 The title of a longer work, like a book, is referred to in one’s text with Italics. The title of a
shorter work, like a book chapter or an essay, is referred to with "Quotation Marks."