APA 7 Formatting Checklist

Page setup

• Margins: 1 inch on all four sides
• One approved font throughout — Times New Roman 12, Calibri 11, Arial 11, Georgia 11, or Lucida Sans Unicode 10
• Double-spaced everywhere, including the title page and references
• Paragraph “Space Before/After” set to 0 pt (the #1 silent error — Word adds space after paragraphs by default)
• First line of every body paragraph indented 0.5″
• Body text left-aligned with a ragged right edge (do not justify)

Title page (student version)

• Title bold, centered, in the upper half of the page, in title case
• Below it (each centered, double-spaced): your name, institution, course number & name, instructor, and due date
• Student papers need no running head and no abstract (unless your instructor requires them)

Header & page numbers

• Page number in the top-right of every page, starting at 1 (the only thing in a student header)

Headings

chosen by level, used in order — never skip a level

• Level 1: Centered, Bold, Title Case
• Level 2: Flush Left, Bold, Title Case
• Level 3: Flush Left, Bold Italic, Title Case
• Level 4–5: indented, bold (Level 5 bold italic), ending with a period, text runs on the same line
• The paper title is not a Level 1 heading

In-text citations

• Author–date format: (Smith, 2020) or Smith (2020)
• Direct quotes add a page number: (Smith, 2020, p. 14)
• Three or more authors → first author + “et al.” from the very first citation
• Every in-text citation has a matching References entry (and vice versa)

References page

• Starts on a new page; the word References bold and centered
• Entries alphabetized by the first author’s last name
• Hanging indent on every entry — first line flush left, the rest indented 0.5″ (the most-missed rule; it looks fine until an entry wraps)
• Double-spaced, with no extra blank lines between entries
• Sentence case for article/book titles; title case for journal names; italicize book & journal titles
• DOI/URL as a full link — no period after it