APA requires all text to be double spaced, typed in an easily legible 12-inch font, aligned to the left side of the page, with one-inch margins on all sides. Indent each paragraph 5 spaces and use a single space (not 2) after periods, colons, commas, question marks, and semicolons. Page headers should be offset 1/2 inch from the top of page. Pagination begins with the cover sheet.
Quoted material (always enclosed in "scare quotes") of less than 40 words should be weaved into the body of the text. Material exceeding 40 words should be offset from surrounding text. Double space and indent five spaces from the left-hand margin to indicate this separation.
Include the author's last name and year of publication (enclosed in parentheses) after every quotation. Direct quotes require an exact page number. If the author's name appears in the text, the year of publication will suffice, and vice versa. For example, a sentence citing a work with two authors would end like this: (Javid & Boorn, 2003). For works with 3 to 5 authors, list all names in the first instance. Use "et al." for subsequent citations. Similarly, for a work with 6 or more authors use "et al.," as in "(Woolridge et al., 2009).
Referencing varies by source type. An article in a scholarly journal, for instance, would like this: "Wolf, E. (1990). Distinguished lecture: Facing power. American Anthropologist, 92, 586-596."
An average academic book, on the other hand, is referenced as follows: "Anderson, F. J. (1977). An illustrated history of the herbals. New York: Columbia University Press." Notice that a period follows each bit of information -- author, date, title, city of publication/publisher. If the book is edited, insert "(Ed.)" after the editors' name. If the work involves 2 or more editors, use "(Eds.)." If the work is translated, give in parentheses the name of the translator and "Trans." after the work's title.
For Internet-related sources, follow a similar format, but be sure to record the date the article was retrieved or the web site was accessed. So, for example, an article in a journal published on the Internet would take this form: "Mercer, K. R. (2001). The matter at hand: Chaos is nothing. Atomic Psychology, 6, Article056a. Retrieved January 21, 2001, from ftp://www.atomic psychology.edu/mercer"; whereas a stand-alone web page with no author or date would be listed like this: "TechNo's adolescent quotient questionnaire. (n.d.). Retrieved August 5, 2002, from http://www.asnu.edu /TechNo/AQQ.htm" (see Resources). Note that "(n.d.)" stands for "no date."
As a general rule of thumb, give credit where credit is due. For instance, much of the material for this encapsulation of APA formatting has been derived from "APA Style Basics" (see Resources).
APA style distinguishes between a bibliography, which may contain works not directly cited in your paper, and an alphabetical list of every actual reference. In terms of formatting, this list should be titled "References" and double spaced. APA also requires a hanging indent (or several spaces) to offset all lines succeeding the first. Here, for instance, is an article in journal that pages issues separately: "Dacey, J. (1998). Management participation in corporate buy-outs. Management Perspectives, 7(4), 20-31." Note that the title of the journal and the volume number are both italicized, whereas the issue number in parentheses (4) is not. The hanging indent begins at the start of the second line. Observe, too, that APA differs from MLA and Chicago in placing the date of publication immediately after the author's name (see Resources).