Professors, like many of us, are not always direct when expressing their wants. Nowhere is this more true than when a professor tells you that your paper should adhere to APA formatting/style guidelines.

An image of the cover of the 7th Edition APA Publication Manual

“My professor wants my paper to be in APA style…”

When your professor says that your paper has to adhere to APA style, all they mean is that you need to follow the guidelines established by the American Psychological Association for what a paper should “look” like and “read” like. It is just a set of instructions–what is difficult is knowing whether or not there’s an instruction for the specific thing that you are trying to do.

If you’ve never seen a physical copy of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, it is 427 pages (including the index) covering everything from the principles of scholarly writing and publishing to the way that citations and references should be handled for dozens of different source-types. That’s a lot to remember for everything that you write. But not every professor you work with will care equally about all parts of the APA manual. Some professors use “APA style” as a kind of shorthand for the things they really care about; but don’t take that to mean that their demands are the be-all-end-all requirements of an APA paper. Likewise, not every journal that follows the APA guidelines follows all of them: for classrooms and journals, house style rules.

There is no such thing as a perfect paper, and people who have done this for their entire careers still make mistakes. So, when your professor tells you they want your paper “in APA,” do your best, but also expect that you’ll always have room to improve.

That being said, here’s what I think you should focus on in order of importance:

Citations and references
Conciseness and clarity
General formatting (headings, sub-headings, etc.)
Specific formatting (tables, figures, etc.)

(To be honest, points 2 and 3 are probably interchangeable in terms of importance. I think clarity is more important than formatting, but I’m not grading your papers. Your mileage may vary.)

But first…

I’m familiar with another formatting style (MLA, Chicago, etc.). Is APA the same thing?

Sort of. All of these other style/formatting guidelines contain basically the same kinds of information. That is not to say that they want you to do the same thing, though. The specific rules of different systems of academic formatting reflect the kinds of disciplines that use those systems. APA style, for instance, being that it comes from the American Psychological Association, has been organized to better meet the needs of people writing within the discipline of psychology and adjacent disciplines. MLA style, on the other hand, is a product of the Modern Language Association, and has been designed by people working in the literature and language fields. You can see how and why they differ by looking at the way they cite things in text.

Both APA and MLA use in-text and parenthetical citations (as opposed to footnotes) to reference outside materials. MLA uses an author-page system; APA uses an author-date system:

MLA: “Christofer, whose story comprises the first significant narrative of Laurus, rationalizes leaving his family in a series of notes written on birch bark: ‘After all, they are already adults. After all, their child is already one year old. I am of the opinion they will be better off without me’” (Vodolazkin 14).

APA: “Habermas’ notions of engagement in the public sphere dictate a set of unwritten rules for those who have adopted a religious point of view as the basis for their pubic participation. This process demands that religious actors let the institutionalized sciences control truth-claims related to the mundane aspects of life. (Habermas, 2011).

It might not seem like a big thing (especially if you are a well-adjusted member of society), but the difference between these two systems signals what they specialize in and focus on. Scholars using MLA (esp. literary scholars) are likely to cite multiple passages from the same work and therefore it makes sense that they highlight the pages that they are quoting from. Scholars using APA are likely to compare many different articles/works in order to develop some argument about the state of the conversation that they are entering. They also tend to prefer paraphrasing over direct quoting; therefore, the date of publication is highlighted in the citation.

Of course, there is overlap (if you quote in APA, for instance, you still use the page number), but this at least demonstrates that you can sometimes figure out what a formatting style “wants from you” if you think about what most of the people who use that formatting style care about. Here’s a good overview of what APA wants from you when it comes to citing materials in text.

1. Citations and References

Citation is one of the aspects of APA formatting that is paint-by-numbers. The APA manual outlines specific guidelines for how to cite almost any kind of source that you will come across. The thing to remember about attribution in APA style is that there are two parts: the in-text citation and the corresponding reference entry. Every in-text citation must match with a reference entry; multiple in-text citations may match with the same reference entry.

So, for example, in your paper you might write something like:

Mikanovich (2020) argues that overreliance on established citation styles can hinder the professional development of graduate student writers. In particular, he claims that by learning to follow specific formatting rules rather than learning to understand how they mean to serve conversation in an academic community, students will only ever see attribution systems as an arbitrary system of instructions.

Here, the “(2020)” after the name “Mikanovich” indicates to the reader that you are citing material from something written in 2020 by an author whose last name is “Mikanovich,” and that they will be able to find a full reference entry for that material in the references section of your paper. That might look like this:

Mikanovich, T. (2020). Attribution and pedagogy: Notes from thee underground. Journal of Fictitious Writing Studies, 14(2), 10-27. https://doi.org/10.1234/5678

That reference entry is for an article titled “Attribution and Pedagogy” that was published on pages 10-27 of the Journal of Fictitious Writing Studies, Volume 14, issue 2. Though different kinds of materials (journal articles, full manuscripts, individual chapters, newspaper articles, etc.) have different citation formats, they are (mostly) outlined in the APA manual.

In your in-text citations and parenthetical citations, you only need to include a page number if you are directly quoting something. If there is not a page number (like for a website), APA 7 encourages using a paragraph number (though I don’t see that being widely adopted except in professional publications). Here’s what that might look like

In this case, the citation tells the reader that the quote came from page ten of the Mikanovich (2020) article that they can find in the references.

Importantly, even if you do not use a direct quotation from some source (and therefore won’t be using a page number in your author-date citation), you might have to include a page range in the accompanying reference. For references that are part of some larger collection (e.g. chapters in a book, journal articles in a journal) you should include the page range that your reference spans (e.g. the chapter, the specific journal article) in the reference entry.

Mikanovich, T. (2020). Attribution and pedagogy: Notes from thee underground. Journal of Fictitious Writing Studies, 14(2), 10-27. https://doi.org/10.1234/5678

Here, the reference entry tells the reader that the article came from pages 10-27 of the Journal of Fictitious Writing Studies. Sometimes–especially if you are looking at a pdf of the article you are citing–you won’t have accurate page numbers; they might just number the pdf as if it is an isolated document. Try to find the journal’s table of contents to confirm. Also, for articles published only online, or articles published online in advance of their physical publication, you might not have a page range.

How do I cite [material]?

Here is a link to the APA reference and citation resources that I’ve put together.

But, if the specific type of source/material that you want to cite isn’t outlined in either my materials or the APA manual, Google it. Chances are, you aren’t the first person to need to figure out how to do it. You might find multiple ways to cite something–pick the one that seems the least made-up.

This might seem flippant, but you have to remember that citation styles were designed to catalog the publications of the world; the publications of the world were not designed to appease existing citation styles. It isn’t uncommon that non-standard or unique materials will fall outside of the guidelines that the APA has set out. When all else fails, consider the following:

One purpose of referencing the sources/materials that you use in your paper is so that your readers can go and find those materials on their own. Will they be able to find the material with the information you’ve given them?
Another purpose of attribution is to give credit to the appropriate people. Is it clear who deserves credit for the material that you are referencing?
Besides specific citation instructions, the APA Manual describes a general set of guidelines for referencing sources in your paper.

2. Conciseness and Clarity

Modern academic psychology has put a premium on writing shorter articles in greater numbers. And the APA Publication manual reflects this. Publication standards influence and are influenced-by changes in tenure/professional development standards which influence and are influenced-by the kinds of things that people are “expected” to produce and so on. In short, APA style would prefer that you write in clear, brief prose. Nothing that I have written in this post or ever before follows that guideline.

Here are some suggestions to follow to help you write more concisely:

Try not to stack clauses on top of clauses in a single sentence. Though it is ok to have a cause-and-effect or explanatory sentence, you probably don’t want a cause-and-effect sentence that outlines multiple potential effects or extenuating factors.

Less clear/concise: Though the survey results may have been influenced by later respondents learning more about the situation before they participated in the study, it is clear that most people had a positive opinion of the government’s recent policy initiatives, whether or not they would admit to it if asked directly.

More clear/concise: Survey results suggest that a majority of people have a positive opinion of the government’s recent policy initiatives. However, these results may be shaded by later respondents having learned more about the initiative than early respondents.

Even though the second example isn’t all that much shorter than the first, it does a few important things. First, for the sake of clarity, it separates the main claim from a clarifying/amending clause. Second, it uses framing language (e.g. “However…”) to help the audience understand what the relationship between these two sentences is before they read both of them. In terms of concision, the second example ditches the caveat about respondents admitting to something if they were asked directly. Unless this is a central issue within the paper/research, there isn’t any reason to bring it up.

Avoid jargon or terms that are needlessly confusing. Writing for academic audiences doesn’t mean that you have to pull out your fanciest words. It also doesn’t mean that you should use complicated industry-specific terms unless you need to. Somewhat counter-intuitively, writing for an academic audience requires you to give enough background information and context for an audience with general expertise/comprehension (not total specialization) in your field. Sometimes this means giving up terms that are shorthand in your field–or, as is often the case, terms that have a lot of stylistic importance for an audience that you are familiar with, but little substance beyond that.

Too much jargon: To achieve synergy between its short-term goals and its long-term strategic initiatives, a company like Facebook needs to consider the scalability of its product for the future. Instead of a simple product re-imagining, Facebook needs to strive for an authentic paradigm shift.

Less confusing: Facebook needs to figure out how to balance its short-term and long-term goals. This could mean adapting its product to future changes, or it could be something more substantial.

There isn’t any hard and fast rule for what does and doesn’t constitute needless jargon. Just try not to sound like you are selling anything.

Remember that your goal is to support an argument and not just show how smart you are. A place where this comes up a lot is in literature reviews. Though it might be tempting to show that you’ve read every relevant piece of scholarship that touches on the topic you are studying, doing so might distract from the argument you are trying to make about the pieces of scholarship that matter the most.

3. General Formatting (headings, sub-headings, etc.)

As with citations and references, this is a place where the APA manual gives you rules and you follow them. A great place to look for a quick refresher is the APA 7 Sample Paper that Purdue’s Online Writing Lab put together. For clarification, they give two examples, a “Student Paper” and a “Professional Paper.” Just use the professional paper template–except the title page. Use the student one for that if you are turning something in for a class. Really, just ask your professors what they want.

In all likelihood, a research/term paper written for a graduate-level course will need the following: a title page, the body of the paper (with discrete sections marked by specific kinds of headings and sub-headings), and a reference page(s). You might also have appendices if you’re asked to include extra information that doesn’t really fit anywhere.

Title Page Guidelines

This is a combination of both the professional and student title pages, based on what I’ve seen professors at Annenberg ask for. Again, ask your professors for clarification about what they way.

APA 7 Sample Title Page

There should be a shortened, all-caps version of your title in the top right of the header of all your document’s pages. This is called the running head. Similarly, page numbers should be put to the top right of each page in the header.
The title of your paper should be bolded and centered a few lines below the header.
A few lines below that, put your name, school and department, class, professor, and the date of submission.
For professional papers (i.e. things you will be sending out for submission to journals) you should include author notes at the bottom of the page–check the full manual for a description.

Heading/Sub-Heading Guidelines

APA 7 has specific rules for the fonts, indentation, justification, etc. of headings and sub-headings. I haven’t included an abstract in this example–if they want that, check the full guide for instructions.

Sample APA 7 Headings -- see table below for reader-friendly version

Here’s an explanation in a table form from APA Style.

I won’t give an example for every single page/formatting requirement that APA 7 outlines. Just know that they mostly follow the same trend: running head and page number n the header; title of the section (e.g. Appendix, References, etc.) bolded and centered under that; then text.

4. Specific Formatting (tables, figures, etc.)

The things I’ve outlined above will probably get you like 90% the way there. But the APA Publication Manual does not want for rules. Here are some links to resources (mostly provided by APA Style, the website that the APA updates with helpful tips for writers using their styleguide) to help you with the particular things you have questions about:

How to format tables and figures
What the hell do you use footnotes or appendices for?
APA 7 has guidelines for bias-free language
Journal article reporting standards (JARS — i.e. the stuff that should be in every journal article)