BRIDGEWATER COLLEGE WRITING CENTER

Overview of APA (American Psychological Association) Format

Title Page, Heading, and Header

Title page: Information on the title page includes the title, along with a shortened version of the title (known as a running head), the writer's name, the course name/number, the professor's name, and the date. The title page should be numbered with a Roman numeral. See a Sample Title Page.

Sections and Subtitling

Abstract:The first part of your paper is a summary of your entire paper, called an abstract. It should be titled Abstract. It is also numbers with a Roman numeral.

Dormitory Living ii            Abstract

Title of the paper: The first page of the full text of your paper begins with the full title of your paper, followed by the text. It is the first page of the paper numbered with an Arabic number.

Dormitory Living 1            A Study of Adjustment to Dormitory Living by First-Year College Students Research into first-year residential students' adjustment to college has highlighted the importance of adjustment to independent living away from home, especially in the dormitory setting. In  order to test the applicability of this research to Bridgewater College, we studied a representative sample

Sections of the paper: A report in the social sciences often includes subtitles, or headings, for sections. Each subtitle is centered, and the first word and all major words are capitalized. It is not underlined or italicized or distinguished from the rest of the text with any change in font.

Second-level headings: If a section of the paper is further subdivided, a descriptive subheading marks the beginning of the subsection. Second-level headings are underlined and aligned with the left margin, rather than centered.

In-text Citations

In APA format, author's last name and date are included in the citation. If you name the author in the text, include only the date in parentheses, immediately after the author's name. As in MLA format, the period comes after the citation.

Bernstein (2001) described college students' increased use of dorm room networking capacities.

When the author's name is not mentioned in your text, include it in the citation, followed by the date, with a comma between the two items in the citation.

One college student used the campus network to find out whether a washing machine was available before carrying his dirty clothes to the machines (Bernstein, 2001).

When you include a quotation from your source, the parenthetical citation must include the author's name, the date of publication, and the page number. Use p. before the page number.

"The Laundry Server [laundry.mit.edu], as it's been dubbed, has been running off and on since 1998" (Bernstein, 2001, p. 102).

If you've identified the author and date in the text of your paper, include only the page number in the parenthetical citation.

Bernstein (2001) reported that "The Laundry Server [laundry.mit.edu], as it's been dubbed, has been running off and on since 1998" (p. 102).

Indenting Long Quotations

If a quotation is longer than 40 words, indent it. In general, however, avoid including long quotations in reports written in the social sciences.

Bernstein (2001) reported:

Bibliographical Format

The bibliography is called References. It is doublespaced throughout; that is, doublespace each entry and doublespace between entries. Note these points:

• The References page uses the "hanging indent" style; that is, the first line of each entry is at the margin, with successive lines of the entry indented.
• The sources are listed alphabetically by author’s last name, and initials are used in lieu of the author's first name (and middle name, if available). Thus, Rob Bernstein's name is entered as Bernstein, R.
• The date of publication is enclosed in parentheses and immediately follows the author's name. When citing a monthly or weekly magazine, the month or month and date, follow the year in parentheses.
• Only the first word in the title of the article or book is capitalized. If there is a subtitle, the first word of the subtitle is also capitalized.
• Quotation marks are not used around article titles.
• All major words are capitalized in the name of periodicals (e.g., The New York Times).
• Italicize titles of periodicals or books.
• Italicize the volume number of a periodical reference, but do not italicize the issue number.
• Place the issue number in parentheses.
• Include page numbers that a periodical article appears on, without the abbreviation pp.
• If you have retrieved the article from an electronic database, include that information after the original publication information.

Bridgewater College Writing Center