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A Guide to APA Style 7th Edition

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Formatting Basics

This guide will introduce you to the basics of APA Style, and will point you to additional tools that will help you master this style.

Margins, Fonts and Spacing

  • Use one inch margins
  • Use any font that is accessible to readers, at an appropriate size
    • sans serif: 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode
    • serif font: 12-point times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or 10-point Computer Modern
  • Double-space your paper and reference page.

Common Sections and Headings

Center and bold the main sections of your paper. Below are common headings for research papers. The headings you use may differ depending on the type of paper you write. You can use additional heading levels as detailed on the APA Style website

  • Title
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion/Conclusion
  • References
  • Footnotes
  • Tables or Figures
  • Appendix

Title Page

Student papers contain the following elements. For more information on professional papers or student papers see the Sample Papers page on the APA Style website.

  • Page number right justified on every page
  • The title of your paper, centered and bolded
  • Your name, centered
  • Course Name/Number, centered
  • Professors name, centered
  • Your institution and school (Boston College), centered.