Skip to Main Content

Guide to APA Style 7th Edition

H/T to Adam Williams at the Boston College Library for use of this guide, as well as contributions from Purdue OWL, APAStyle.apa.org, and the Himmelfarb Medical Library of George Washington University.

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.

The entire cover page should be double-spaced and in the same font as the rest of the paper.

  • Page number right justified top corner on every page
  • The title of your paper, centered and bolded, on upper half of title page. Place an extra double-spaced (blank) line after the title.
  • Your name (as the author), centered
  • Your university affiliation (typically just the University name)
  • Course Number and Name, centered
  • Professors name, centered
  • Assignment due date, centered.

 

Sample Cover page