Referencing: Formatting in APA Style

The title page in APA style is required for published works, but may not be required for all student papers. For student assessments, check your assessment instructions to see if you must include a title page. 

Details to include

The title page should include the following information: 

• Title of paper or assessment
• Author: Your full name, including all contributors if it is a group assessment
• Affiliation: Your School or department and university name
• Course/Unit: The unit this assessment is submitted for
• Instructor: Your lecturer or unit coordinator's name
• Date: The due date for the assessment

Structure

The title page should be arranged such that: 

• The text is center aligned
• The title is 3-4 lines down from the top of the page
• Each of the above details is on a new line

For detailed guidance on the elements of the title page and sample papers visit APA's Style Guide here:

Headings in APA style consists of five levels, each with unique formatting: 

The Level 1 Heading

This heading is Centered, Bold, and in Title Case. The paragraph will start on the next line. 

The Level 2 Heading

The heading is positioned Flush Left, and is in Bold, Title Case.

The Level 3 Heading

The heading is positioned Flush Left, and is in Bold, Title Case, and Italics.

The Level 4 Heading. This heading starts indented as the start of a paragraph and written in Bold, Title Case, followed by a Full Stop. Continue your paragraph text directly after the heading on the same line. However, do not use this heading to start your sentence.

The Level 5 Heading. This heading starts indented as the start of a paragraph similar to Heading 4. It is in Bold, Italics, Title Case, and ends with a Full Stop. Continue your paragraph right after the heading. Do not use this heading to start your sentence. This level of heading should be directly in line with Heading 4. 

See the following page for an example on how to format headings from APA Style and for some sample papers:

An appendix is a section included after the body of your assignment for additional information that supports or supplements your written work but is not appropriate to include in the main work.

If you include an appendix, you must refer to it within the body of your work, e.g. "(See Appendix B)" or "Full details can be found in Appendix."

Structure of the appendix

• The appendix is positioned after the reference list
• The appendix is titled Appendix using Heading Level 1 as above
• If you have more than one appendix, label them with "A", "B", and so on (e.g. Appendix A, Appendix B...)
• Continue page numbers from your work into the appendices
• Figures and tables in an appendix should be labelled according to their appendix letter (e.g. the 2nd table of Appendix B will be labelled Table B2).

Referencing in an appendix

All references that appear in the appendix must be in the main reference list of your work, along with the references for sources you used within the body of the work. It is often considered good academic practice to ensure that sources used in the appendix are used within the body of your work as well.

• Reference images with Figure or Table structure including copyright attributions where necessary.
• For text or quotes reference them as you would in-text in the appendix and include their end-text reference in the Reference List.

If you're writing for a student assessment and are required to include page numbers formatted in APA style, include them in the top right corner of your work. Start numbering from 1 on the title page.

For guidance on how to insert page numbers see the following guide on how to add page numbers in Microsoft Word:

There is no single required font type or font size for APA style. The font should be legible, professionally presented, widely accessible, and provide all required symbols or letters for your use. 

Please check your unit or assessment instructions to identify if there's a preferred font for your unit. 

The APA makes several font suggestions in the APA 7th style manual, including: 

• sans serif fonts such as 11-point Calibri or Arial
• serif fonts such as 12-point Times New Roman

See the following guide for more information:

Spacing and indentation rules are applied to the whole document. This includes the appendix and reference list.

Check your unit or assessment instructions or School-based templates for any variations to the below rules.

Margins

Use 1 inch (2.54 cm) margins on all sides of the page. Dissertations or theses require different margins (1.5 in. left margins). 

Paragraph alignment and indentation

Align paragraphs to the left margin, leaving the right margin ragged. Do not use full justification on your text. Indent the first line of every paragraph of text by 1.27 cm using the tab key or the paragraph-formatting function of your word-processing program for consistency. Do not break words with hyphens at the end of lines. Please note the below exceptions: 

• reference list: Use a hanging indent of 1.27 cm for each reference. Do not put an extra space between reference list entries. 
• abstract: The first line of the abstract should be flush left.
• tables and figures: Table and figure labels/numbers, titles, and notes should be flush left.
• appendices: Appendix labels and titles should be centered.

Line spacing

Use double spacing for the entire paper (including block quotations, title page, abstract, reference list, etc.). Do not add extra spaces or line breaks after headings, or between paragraphs. Please note the below exceptions: 

• Title page: Put a double-space blank line between the title and author's name. For a paper intended for publication, put a blank double-space between final affiliation and author notes.
• Table body and figures: The table body (cells) and words you include within a figure may be single, one-and-a-half, or double-spaced, depending on what best supports data readability. Place a double-spaced blank line between a table or figure and text on the same page. 
• Footnotes: Footnotes at the end of a page should be single-spaced. Footnotes following the references should be formatted like paragraphs (i.e., indented and double-spaced).
• Equations: Triple or quadruple spacing before and after certain displayed equations is allowed.

If you are including a word-for-word quote from another work, you must:

• enclose the quoted text in quotation marks, and
• add the page number(s) where the quote appears to your citation, after the quote. For electronic sources where there is no page number, see our advice on adding section names.

You may also optionally include a page or paragraph number when it would help the reader locate the relevant information in a long or complex text, even when you have paraphrased the information you used instead of quoting. Note: Some Schools prefer that you only provide a page number for a quotation, so check with your lecturer to understand their preference.

Compare (citations in bold for emphasis only):

If your quote spans more than one page in the source, use the plural abbreviation "pp." instead of "p.":

(Pitcan et al., 2018, pp. 170-171).

Longer quotations

In the rare case where you might include a quotation with 40 or more words, the formatting of both the quotation and the citation are slightly different. The quotation is offset from your text (indented by 1.27 cm), and the punctuation of the quote comes before the in-text citation.

Example:

Social media users share different types of content on different platforms, often basing their decisions on a mental model of how their audience on each site will react.

Many participants curated a respectable online presence by avoiding sexual innuendo and censoring opinions on controversial topics. Aviva was “very wary about the things [she] puts online.” . . . She described her online self as a different “form.” She chose to present a fragment of herself, because certain facets of her being would be unacceptable to her imagined audience. (Pitcan et al., 2018, p. 170)

Note the ellipsis (. . .) in the quote above. This indicates that some text from the original work was omitted for this quotation. For more information on quotations in APA 7th style:

An abbreviation shortens a word or phrase, often using the first letter of each word to form an acronym. While they can be useful, you should avoid overuse; technical terms are often clearer when not abbreviated in scholarly writing. Use an abbreviation if it is conventional, commonly used within your discipline, or saves space and avoids repetition without losing clarity. Abbreviations are always optional in APA style, not required.

Once you have abbreviated a term, you can use that abbreviation throughout your written work, even if it appears in citations to other works. The exception to this is in your reference list, where the full name of an otherwise abbreviated group should appear.

Abbreviation tips

• If the term will be used three times or fewer, do not abbreviate. However, you may use a recognisable abbreviation if it appears less than three times and helps avoid cumbersome language.

• Do not define abbreviations in headings. Use abbreviations in headings only if they have been previously defined.

• Use the abbreviation consistently. Do not alternate between the abbreviation and the full term, or different forms of the abbreviation.

• Make abbreviations plural by adding just "s" (e.g., hours = hrs); do not use an apostrophe.

• Do not use full stops with abbreviations in APA style formatting (e.g., NASA, not N.A.S.A)

How to introduce an abbreviation in text

When first introducing a term you want to abbreviate, include the full term followed by the abbreviation in parentheses.

In a 2024 report by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) ... 

When introducing a term in parenthetical/bracketed text such as citations, place the abbreviation in square brackets. Avoid nesting parentheses.

The implementation of systemic reforms is an immediate priority for Australian governments (Australian Human Rights Commission [AHRC], 2024) 

In APA style, you do not place two sets of parentheses within or next to each other.

If the abbreviation is part of a narrative citation, separate the author and date with a comma as usual:

American Psychological Association (APA) (2014) ⇒ American Psychological Association (APA, 2014)

Do not use or include the abbreviated form of an author within your reference list entries. The full name of an organisation should always appear in the end-text citation (reference list). 

Australian Human Rights Commission. (2024). The national anti-racism framework: A roadmap to eliminating racism in Australia. https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-11/NARF_Full_Report_FINAL_DIGITAL_ACCESSIBLE.pdf

In APA style if you need to draw attention or highlight specific terms or phrases there are a number of ways to do so. However, formatting in APA style usually indicates something specific. 

Italics

Italics is used to draw attention to a term or indicate that a letter or acronym is used as a statistical symbol; it is used just for emphasis only in rare cases. It is also used in end-text references for specific elements. See the following page for guidelines related to using italics: