APA requires specific guidelines to be followed on the formatting of papers. Margins must be one inch on all sides and text should be double-spaced. Times New Roman is the standard font type; the standard font size is 12-point. After any punctuation, APA requires only one space. The title of the paper appears as a running header on each page aligned to the left, and page numbers appear at the top right hand side of every page. APA asks for the use of active voice rather than passive. Pages are ordered as follows: title page, abstract, body, references, footnotes, tables, figures, and appendixes.
The title page is given the page number of one. The title page must include the paper's title, the name of the author or authors, the institutional affiliation and an author's note. The information should be presented in that order with each item on its own line. Lines should be centered on the page.
An abstract is a one-paragraph summary of the key elements contained in the paper. Abstracts generally run from 150 to 250 words. The abstract will begin on page two. The abstract has the heading "Abstract" centered on the page.
The body of the paper begins on page three and continues until the end of the paper. Subsections of the paper do not begin on new pages; so do not insert page breaks before beginning subsections. The body of the paper begins with an introduction that is not labeled. Primary subsections of the body have headings that are centered on the line and secondary subsections have headings that are aligned to the left.
In-text citations are a requirement of APA formatting. If the name of the author of a source is part of the sentence, list the year the source was published in parentheses after the name. If the name of the author is not part of the sentence, the author and the year are listed in parentheses at the end of the sentence before the period. If no date is provided on a source, such as is the case with some Web documents, "n.d." appears in place of the date.
Any source used in the paper must be cited in the paper and in the reference section of the paper. The reference section begins on its own page. Title the page "References." References are listed in alphabetical order by author last name. Lines are formatted using a hanging indent. For example, for a book citation, provide the author's name, last name first, then first initial. Write the year of publication in parentheses. Include the title of the work, then the publisher's location and a colon followed by the name of the publisher. Specific information for each reference with differ depending on the medium and type of reference.