Documents should have one-inch margins on all sides. Double-space everything and use 12-point Times New Roman font. Text should be justified on the left side of the page. Every paper requires a header. On the left side of the header, enter an abbreviated title. On the right, place the page number. Modern word processors have tools to make headers and pager numbers very easy to insert.
The abstract is a short summary of the paper, usually less than 250 words. It should be the only element on page 2 of the paper. The paper itself should begin on page 3. Every paper needs a full title directly above the introduction. Put two spaces after sentences, but only one space after colons and semicolons. APA style also recommends active voice rather than passive.
APA uses the author and publication year for in-text citations. At the end of a sentence or paragraph where you have used another person's ideas, put the author and publication year in parentheses like this: (Jones 2006). If the name of the author appears within the sentence, then you don't need to include it in the parentheses. Most social science publications have more than one author, and there are specific rules on how to cite different numbers of authors.
The references section starts on the first new page after the conclusion of the paper. The purpose of the references section is to enable the readers to locate all of the material used in constructing the paper they have just read. References are arranged alphabetically by the author's last name. Within each entry, author names are followed by publication year, then title of work and finally publication information. The title should be in italics if it's a book. Only capitalize the first word of titles.