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APA Style 7th Edition

Professional Paper Title Page & Format

 

Formatting a Professional Paper
in Microsoft Word
 
Professional Paper in Microsoft Word
Template
 
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All Pages

 

Margins
  • Top - 1 inch
  • Bottom - 1 inch
  • Left - 1 inch
  • Right - 1 inch
Spacing
  • Double spacing on Title Page, Text, and References (exceptions are made for Tables, Figures, Footnotes, and Equations - see the Publication Manual 2.21 (p. 45) for additional information.
Font Requirements
  • Use the same font throughout the paper.
  • Font must be accessible to all users; this means that is must be highly legible and widely available.
Recommended Fonts
  • Times New Roman - 12 point
  • Calibri - 11 point
  • Arial - 11 point
  • Lucida Sans Unicode - 10 point
  • Georgia - 11 point
  • Computer Modern - 10 point
Title Page

 

Running Head - in Header, left justified, all caps, no more than 50 characters in length
Page Number - in Header, right justified
Title of Paper - centered, bolded, located about 2 inches down on the page (1 inch margin + 2 inches space)
Blank Double-Spaced Line - between Title of Paper and Author
Author Name - centered
Author Affiliation - centered
Author Note (if needed) - Press Enter to move the cursor down from author affiliation line a few to several lines; Center and Bold and type Author Note; press Enter again, change to left justified and un-bold; each new paragraph should be indented; list author names and their ORCID IDs (each on a new line); funding and/or conflict of interest statements; provide contact information - mailing address and email - for corresponding author, etc. For additional formatting and content information regarding author notes, see Publication Manual Section 2.7 (pp.35-37) and Figure 2.1, p.31)
Page Break

 

Abstract

 

Running Head - in Header, left justified, all caps, no more than 50 characters in length
Page Number - in Header, right justified
Heading - centered, bolded, on the first line of a new page
Abstract - an abstract is concise summary of the paper and may or not be structured; generally an abstract is 250 words or less and is presented as a single paragraph; do NOT indent the first line.
Page Break

 

Text of Paper

 

Page Number - in Header, right justified (this will likely appear automatically, depending on the word processing program you use)
Title of Paper - centered, bolded, located on the first page of the page
Indent - the first paragraph and all additional paragraphs
Page Break

Headings - If Headings are required for your paper or simply make sense for the length and flow of your paper, see Headings for format and level instructions. 

 

References

 

Page Number - in Header, right justified (this will likely appear automatically, depending on the word processing program you use)
References - centered and bolded on the first line of the page
Reference Citations - left justified with a hanging indent and ordered alphabetically by the the first author's last name or by group authors' first word
Order of Reference Citations - alphabetize reference list entries by the surname of the first author followed by the initials of the author's first and middle names