Review the basic APA formatting rules for the type of reference you're using. You won't cite a college text book the same way you would cite a literary journal or website, so determine exactly what type of reference you're using and format your citation accordingly.
Indent the second line of every citation. With the amount of information required for each citation (including authors names, the title of the book, the name of the publisher, and more) often a citation will take up more than one line on a page. In accordance with APA formatting guidelines, every line after your first needs to be indented 0.5 inches from the margin on the left side of your page.
Understand when you should and should not use italics and underlines. APA formatting guidelines have very specific requirements for the use of these formatting styles. For example, the titles of literary journals should not be in italics. However, the titles of books and longer titles do need to be italicized.
Organize the references on your reference page in alphabetical order by the last name of the first listed author, not in the order in which you used them in your paper. Authors names are listed by their last name followed by their first name. Go through your list and organize your entries in alphabetical order using this procedure.