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APA Style, 7th Edition

A guide to using APA Style for writing research papers.

APA provides specific formatting instructions for papers, parenthetical citations, and reference lists.  The boxes located on this page provide further information on APA's formatting instructions with specialized information for Lincoln Christian University students.

Title Pages

All papers must have a separate title page which is described in section 2.3.

  • Title pages must contain the running head, if using, and be numbered as page 1. 
  • Titles, described in section 2.4, should be a concise summary of the main idea of the paper
  • Titles should be typed in upper and lower case letters and appear in the upper half of the page.
  • The author's name should appear after the title with one blank double-spaced line between them. If there is more than one author, list each author on a separate line in the order of their contribution to the paper.
  • Just beneath the author's name, list the department and university name, course name, professor's name, and submission date on separate lines.
  • All text on the title page should be centered and double-spaced except for the running head.

Paper

2.8 Running Head

  • A running head is a shortened version of the title which appears on every page of the paper. 

  • The running head should be 50 characters or less including spaces and punctuation.
  • A running head should be written in all capital letters and be flush left.
  • Running heads are not required for student papers unless the professor requests it.

2.11 Text or Body of Paper

  • Begin the body of the paper on a new page after the title page and after the abstract (if required)
  • On the first line of the paper, center the title in bold font and in title case.
  • If you use headings, do not start a new page when a heading occurs.

2.18 Page Header

  • Every page, including the title page, must include a page number that appears flush right.
  • APA indicates the page-numbering feature in your word processor should be used to to number pages.
  • The title page should be page 1.

2.19 Font

  • APA requires that papers be written in an accessible font and that the same font should be used for the text of a paper.
  • APA suggests that sans serif fonts such as 11 pt Calibri or 11 pt Ariel should be used for online works and serif fonts such as 12 pt Times New Roman should be used fo print works. However, no specific font is required.
  • A different font or font size may be used for figures. The default setting is acceptable for footnotes, if used.

2.21-2.24 Spacing, Margins, and Paragraphs

  • Papers should be double-spaced except for footnotes and a table body or figure image which may be single-spaced.
  • Papers must have a 1-inch margin on all sides.
  • Paragraphs should be left-aligned. 
  • Indent the first line of each paragraph using the tab key.