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APA Style, 7th ed.: Document Formatting

1. Title Page
a) On the first page of your paper, set your font to Times New Roman 12 pt. double spaced.
(use a font that is accessible to all users and use it throughout the text of the paper; see
section 2.19)
b) The paper’s title should be centered, bold, and written in title case. It should be three or
four lines below the top margin of the page.
c) On the next line, list your name two spaces below the title.
d) On the third line, list your “institutional affiliation” which includes the department
containing the course for which the paper is being written. For you, this will be South
Florida State College. Do not abbreviate!
e) On the fourth line, list the course number and name for which the paper is being written.
f) On the fifth line, list the course instructor’s name and title.
g) On the last line, include the assignment’s due date.

Sample title page:

Full Title of My Paper: With a Subtitle if Applicable

Susie Q. Public
Health Science Department, South Florida State College
NUR 2003: Transition to Professional Nursing
Ms. Sharmin Jones
June 15, 2020

2. References
a) References are always on their own page at the end of your paper.
b) Place the section label “References” in bold at the top of the page, centered.
c) Up to 20 authors should be included in a reference list entry. For sources with more than
20 authors, after the 19th listed author, any additional authors’ names are replaced with an
ellipsis (…) followed by the final listed author’s name. Do not place an ampersand before
the final author’s name.
d) Alphabetize references by the first author’s last name of each source.
e) Make sure to use the hanging indent (0.5 in.) for each citation. This can be found under
the paragraph tools on the Home toolbar. Also double-space the entire reference list.

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License. Updated to 7th ed. by Lena Phelps (2020).
APA 7th EDITION WORKSHEETS 2

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Choose hanging
indent here

f) Digital object identifiers (DOIs) and URLs are both presented as hyperlinks for electronic
sources.
g) The label “DOI:” is no longer used for entries that include a DOI. Use the following
format instead: https://doi.org/xxxxx (“xxxxx” refers to the DOI number). Convert older
DOI formats to newer format.
h) The words “Retrieved from” (preceding the URL or DOI) are only used when the online
source is inherently designed to change or reflect information that changes over time.
i) Do not use a period at the end of the DOI or URL because it may interfere with link
functionality.
j) Database information for works obtained from most academic research databases or
platforms is not included because works in these databases are widely available. If a
database is cited, finish the component of the source element with a period, followed by a
DOI or URL as applicable.

3. Capitalization in References ONLY (see examples on citation worksheets)

For everything except journal titles and publisher names, follow the four rules of
capitalization below:
a) The first word of a sentence or title
b) The first word after a colon (:), even a minor word such as “The”
c) Proper nouns (ex: Department of Defense, George Washington)
d) Abbreviations or acronyms (ex: U.S.A., MADD, ACT, FCAT)

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License. Updated to 7th ed. by Lena Phelps (2020).
APA 7th EDITION WORKSHEETS 3

APA Style: Books

Basic format:

Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher.

Cherny, A. (2008). The candy bombers: The untold story of the Berlin airlift and America’s
finest hour. Berkley-Caliber.

Author’s last name, Initials.

Editor’s last name, Initials (Ed.).
(Date of publication).
Title of book.

(Initials Last name of editor, Ed.).

(Initials Last name of translator, Trans.).

Publisher.

Edited book, no main author

Cart, M. (2002). In the stacks: Short stories about libraries and librarians. The Overlook Press.

Edited book with main author or authors

Rossetti, C. (1970). Selected poems of Christina Rossetti. M. Zarturenska (Ed.). The Macmillan
Company.

A Translation

Dostoevsky, F. (1963). Crime and punishment. (C. Grant, Trans.). Dodd, Mead, and Company.

APA Style: Journal Articles (Online and Print)

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License. Updated to 7th ed. by Lena Phelps (2020).
APA 7th EDITION WORKSHEETS 4

Author, Author Initials.

(Date of publication).

Title of article.
Title of Periodical or Journal,
volume number(issue number),

Page range.
DOI or URL

Article from a print journal

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of
Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages.

Rennard, S. & Thomashow, B. (2013). COPD foundation pocket consultant guide. Lung Health
Professional Magazine, 4(3), 24-26.

Article from an online journal

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Online Periodical,
volume number(issue number). DOI or URL

Slagle, K., Zajac, R., Bruskotter, J., Wilson, R., & Prange, S. (2013). Building tolerance for
bears: A communications experiment. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 77(4), 863–
869. https://www-jstor-org.db27.linccweb.org/stable/23470733

Article from an online journal with DOI assigned

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume
number(issue number), page range. https://doi.org/xxxxx

Doi, H., & Mori, T. (2013). The discovery of species-abundance distribution in an ecological
community. Oikos, 122(2), 179-182. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0706.2012.00068.x

APA Style: Section of a Web Page, Online Document, or

Online Book Chapter

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License. Updated to 7th ed. by Lena Phelps (2020).
APA 7th EDITION WORKSHEETS 5

General Format:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of article. In Title of book or large
document (chapter or section number). Retrieved from
http://www.someaddress.com/full/url/

Author, Initials.

(Date of Publication).

Title of article.

In Title of
Website/document/book.

DOI or URL
Retrieved from DOI or
URL (only if link or
information is designed to
change)

Examples:
Website page:

MacGregor, N. (n.d.). Mummy of Hornedjitef. In A History of the World in 100 Objects.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/sogITE3FSKStlk12qd2W3w

Online book:
Bürger, G. A. (1847). Leonora. Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans.
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007696691
NOTE: Use a chapter or section identifier and provide a URL that links directly to the chapter
section, not the home page of the web site.

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License. Updated to 7th ed. by Lena Phelps (2020).
APA 7th EDITION WORKSHEETS 6

APA Style: Government Documents

Basic Format:
Department of Government. (Date of publication). Report Title. (Document number). Publisher.
DOI or URL
Author’s last name, Initials. (Date of publication). Report Title. (Document number). Publisher.
DOI or URL
Department of Government.
Author’s last name, Initials.

(Date of publication).

Report Title.

(Document number, if present).

Publisher.

DOI or URL

Examples:

Government Document

U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management. (2015). Public Land Use
Statistics. (BLM/OC/ST-15/005+1165 P-108-4). U.S. Government Printing Office.
http://www.blm.gov/public_land_statistics/pls14/pls2014.pdf

Report from a Private Organization

UNICEF USA. (2019). Annual Report for 2019.

https://www.unicefusa.org/about/publications/annual-report-2019

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APA 7th EDITION WORKSHEETS 7

APA Style In-Text Citations

Always include the same two pieces of information: author and year.

Basic format: (Author Last Name, Year)

(Author Last Name,

Year)

As long as you have those two pieces of information, you can choose to list them as a
parenthetical citation or a narrative citation. These are examples of a narrative citation:

According to Jones (1998), "Students often had difficulty using APA style, especially
when it was their first time".

In 1998, Jones found "students often had difficulty using APA style"; what implications
does this have for teachers?

If the author is not named in a signal phrase, place the author's last name and the year of
publication in parentheses after the quotation. This is an example of a parenthetical citation:

She stated, "Students often had difficulty using APA style" (Jones, 1998), but she did not
offer an explanation as to why.

Multiple authors

A work by two authors:

Research by Smith and Jones (2014) supports...

(Smith & Jones, 2014)

A work by three or more authors:

Wallace et al. (2015) report…

(Wallace et al., 2015)

Unknown author: If the work does not have a known author, include the title and year of
publication. If the title is italicized in the reference, also italicize in the in-text citation. If the title
is not italicized in the reference, use double quotation marks around the title in the in-text
citation. If the title is long, shorten it for the in-text citation.

The report emphasized that anonymous respondents reported harassment more often ("Tracking
Harassment," 2015).

Continued on next page

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License. Updated to 7th ed. by Lena Phelps (2020).
APA 7th EDITION WORKSHEETS 8

Note: In the rare case the "Anonymous" is used for the author, treat it as the author's name
(Anonymous, 2011). In the reference list, alphabetize under “Anonymous” as the author.

Organization as an author: If the author is an organization or a government department, treat

the organization or department as the author.

According to the World Health Organization (2005),...

If the organization has an abbreviation which is commonly known, or that you will be using in
the rest of your paper, include the abbreviation in brackets in your first citation. After that, you
may refer to the source by the abbreviation.

First citation: (U.S. Department of Defense [U.S. DOD], 2013)

Second citation: (U.S. DOD, 2013)

This work by Claire A. Miller (2016) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
License. Updated to 7th ed. by Lena Phelps (2020).