Formatting in APA

Generally, your assignment instructions or course guide will tell you how to format your writing and what font and line spacing to use. If they do not, then you should ask your lecturer or course coordinator for guidance.

If you are referred to OWLL, then you can use OWLL’s general formatting and layout guidelines. If you are told to use APA formatting and layout, this page outlines aspects of formatting according to the APA Style Guide (7th ed.).

• Font
• Bulleted lists
• Numbered lists
• Lettered list
• Numbers
• Abbreviations
• Capitalisation
• Italics
• Quotation marks
• Formatting tables and figures

APA recommends a variety of fonts.

Serif fonts (with little ‘feet’, or horizontal lines, at the base of letters) include 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal (10-point) Computer Modern (the default font for LaTeX).

Sans serif (without the little ‘feet’) include 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode.

Be consistent with your font throughout your assignment, with the following exceptions:

Figures: Within figures, use a sans serif font with a type size between 8 and 14 points.

Computer code: Use a monospace font such as 10-point Lucida Console or 10-point Courier New.

Footnotes: Use the default font settings in your word processing software. The footnote font is likely to be smaller than the text font and have different line spacing, and it is not necessary to change it.

The APA Style Guide advises using the bullet list function of your word processing software to format a list.

Note: bulleted lists should not be used to imply priority or importance by order. If you do want to denote order or steps, then use a numbered list.

If the bulleted items are complete sentences, then begin each item with a capital letter and finish with a full stop (or other punctuation).

If the bulleted items are words or phrase (i.e., not a grammatically complete sentence), then start each bulleted item with a lowercase letter (unless it is a proper noun).

There are two ways to punctuate bulleted phrases or words. You can simply not close with punctuation.

Alternatively, you can end each bulleted item with a semi-colon closing the final bulleted item with a full stop, as if there were no bullet points and the items were in a single sentence.

You use a numbered list when you have complete sentences or paragraphs in an ordered series (e.g., steps in a process). Use a lettered list or bulleted list if the items are phrases rather than complete sentences.

The APA Style Guide advises to use the numbered list function of your word processing software which will automatically indent the list.

Here is a numbered list example:

There are four steps to making a red lentil pancake:

1. Soak the lentils overnight.
2. Rinse and drain the lentils.
3. Blend with sufficient water to make a thick batter.
4. Season to taste.
5. Cook over a medium heat on a non-stick pan, carefully flipping when the batter is nearly dry (Smith, 2023).

You can add letters to a list in a sentence to draw more attention to the items and emphasise to the reader that each item is distinct from the others.

APA Style has rules about formatting numbers. In general, write numbers zero to nine as words, and use numerals (Arabic numbers) above 10 (e.g. 10, 45, 232).

There are, however, exceptions to this. Use numerals, even under 10, when:

• giving a number immediately before a unit of measurement. E.g., 5 m, 2 kg
• denoting statistical or mathematical functions. E.g., divided by 5, 95% CI [3.2, 8.4]
• denoting fractions (except common fractions), decimals, percentages, ratios, percentiles. E.g., 34/35, 1.7, 50%, 2:1 ratio, the 5th percentile
• denoting time and date. E.g., 4 s, 7 mins, 2 days, about 3 days ago, July 4, 1:04 p.m.
• age. E.g., 2 years old, 5-year-olds, 5-year-old-children
• scores and points on a scale. E.g., I got 6 in a 9-point scale
• an exact amount of money. E.g., $5, $20 USD
• a numeral as a numeral. E.g., locate the number 2 on the wall.
• indicating a place in a series or part of a book, table or figure if the number is after a noun. E.g., see Figure 4, book 7, chapter 6. That said, you should use words when the number precedes a noun, e.g. the tenth book in the series, the thirteenth row.

Use words to express numbers, even for 10 and above, when:

• starting a sentence, title or heading. E.g., Forty percent of cows were treated and the remaining 60% were not.
• common fractions. E.g., one fifth of people, half the day, two-thirds majority

An abbreviation can be a shortened form of a word. E.g., telephone abbreviates to phone. An abbreviation can also be an acronym which uses the first letter of words comprising a title or phrase. E.g., the acronym for Geographical Information System is GIS. Do not use full stop between letters in an acronym. E.g., CIA not C.I.A.

Also, consider readers’ familiarity with the abbreviation and if they are likely to recognise it as unfamiliar abbreviations can be confusing and undermine clarity.

You must write out the name in full before using an acronym for the first time. E.g., The United Nations (UN)… Note the use of square brackets in parenthetical citations. E.g., (Ministry of Business, Innovation, & Employment [MBIE], 2017).

It is recommended that you only provide acronyms for terms that you refer to more than three times in your document. In subsequent citations, just use the acronym; it is advised not to switch between the full term and acronym.

In APA Style, words are lowercase unless there is a specific rule to capitalise them. E.g., the first word in a sentence or a proper noun (the specific name of people, places, and things).

Names of racial and ethnic groups are proper nouns which means they are capitalised. E.g., Māori, First Nations, African-American, Asian, Pākehā.

Capitalise trade names (e.g. Wellbutrin, Coke) but not the generic name (e.g., bupropion, cola).

Capitalise a job title or position when it precedes a name (e.g. Dr Walker, President Lincoln) but do not capitalise when the title or position is used alone or after a name (e.g., Jane, who is a doctor…, the president of the company…registered nurses).

Capitalise the first letter of each word more than three letters in the title of a source that is part of a greater work (e.g., a journal article, a book chapter, a news article) which is referred to in your text. Note this different from how you format the title in your reference list. You should also put the title in quotation marks. E.g., In “Lex Aotearoa”, Justice Williams….

Please refer to the APA Style Guide website for examples of other capitalisation principles in action.

Italics should be used sparingly. You can use italics when:

• you first introduce or define a key term or phrase. E.g., Enhanced greenhouse effect describes…Do not italicise subsequent discussion of the term or phrase.
• you refer to the title of a stand-alone work (e.g., book, report, webpage, newspaper) in-text. E.g. In the Visual history of the world …Note this is different to how you format standalone titles in your reference list. Also note, titles which are part of a larger work (e.g., journal articles, book chapters, news article) are not italicised.
• you cite a journal in your reference list. Italicise (and capitalise) journal titles and the journal number but not the comma between the title and number nor the issue number. E.g., Journal of Qualitative Methodology, 2(3), 34–43.
• you use English letters used as statistical symbols or algebraic variables. E.g., SD, n, 2x + 3y.
• you give the meaning of a number on a scale. E.g., …on a Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 10 = strongly agree).
• you use a non-English word, phrase or abbreviation that does not appear in an English dictionary and the reader is unlikely to be familiar with. E.g.,…He shouted xin nian kuai le!

Aside from when you, quote there are other situations where quotation marks may be used:

• to refer to a letter, word, or phrase as an example of itself or when reproducing verbatim instructions or stimuli. E.g., the letter “s”; he wrote “I do”; They selected “orange”; The first question was “How often do you shower?”; The stimulus words were “red” and “green”.
• around the title of something that is part of a greater work (e.g., an article, book chapter) when referred to in-text. Note the title is also capitalised and this is different from how it is formatted in your reference list. E.g., In “The Trial of Mr Peabody”, it was seen…
• to refer for the first time to a word or phrase used ironically, or as slang, or as an invented or coined word or expression. E.g., She was “happy”; He carefully chose his “fit”; A “poonami”.

Generally, your assignment instructions or course guide will tell you how to format your writing and what font and line spacing to use. If they do not, then you should ask your lecturer or course coordinator for guidance.

If you are referred to OWLL, then you can use OWLL’s general formatting and layout guidelines. If you are told to use APA formatting and layout, this page outlines aspects of formatting according to the APA Style Guide (7th ed.).

• In APA style, the descriptive title for a table goes above the table.
• The table should be placed after the paragraph where it is first mentioned (smaller figures may fit on the same page, but larger ones may need to be placed at the top of the next page).
• Number each table with an Arabic number (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, Table 3…) in bold in the order they are first mentioned in your text. Do not refer to a table by its position relative to the text (e.g., “the table below”) or its page number (e.g., “the table on page 12”). Do not use suffix letters (e.g., Table 5a, Table 5b).
• The title should be descriptive but not too long. The title should be italicised, with the first letter of each major word (usually words with 3 or more letters) capitalised. Give the descriptive caption on a new line under the table number. E.g.
  
  Table 1
  
  Covariances of 10 Weighted Industry Portfolios from Mar. 2014 to Mar. 2019
• In general, use 12-point type, double-spacing, and 1-inch (2.54 cm) margins, although check with your assignment instructions or lecturer for specific formatting requirements. You may use a landscape orientation to keep your table on a single page.
• Make sure each column (or row, depending on how you orientate information) has a clear heading.
• If your appendix includes a table, identify which appendix with a capital letter (e.g., Table A1 is the first table of Appendix A, Table A2, is the second table of Appendix A, Table B1 is the first table of Appendix B).
• Sometimes you may have multiple sources within the same table. You can cite each source within each cell individually in the standard parenthetical author-date format. However, if the same citation applies to multiple cells, or you have a number of different sources and parenthetically citing each one would make the table look too cluttered, you can use a superscript, lowercase letter to denote the source in notes below the table.

Table 1

• Limit the use of lines (rules) in your table. Usually in APA style, the vertical lines are eliminated.

• In APA style, the figure number and descriptive caption for a figure goes above the figure.
• The figure should be placed after the paragraph where it is first mentioned (smaller figures may fit on the same page, but larger ones may need to be placed at the top of the next page).
• Number each figure with an Arabic number (e.g., Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3…) in the order they are first mentioned in your text. Do not refer to a figure by its position relative to the text (e.g., “the figure below”) or its page number (e.g., “the figure on page 12”). Do not use suffix letters (e.g., Figure 5a, Figure 5b).
• The title should be descriptive but not too long. Figure and the figure number should be bold. The title should be italicised and use title case, and it should describe what is being presented in the figure. Give the descriptive caption on a new line under the figure number. E.g.
  
  
  Figure 1
  
  A Flowchart of Data Collection Methodology Used in Experiment 1
  
• In general, use 12-point type, double-spacing, and 1-inch (2.54 cm) margins, although check with your assignment instructions or lecturer for specific formatting requirements. You may use a landscape orientation to keep your figure on a single page.
• If your appendix includes a figure, identify which appendix with a capital letter (e.g., Figure A1 is the first figure of Appendix A, Figure A2, is the second table of Appendix A, Figure B1 is the first figure of Appendix B).

Referencing tables and figures

APA has strict rules about crediting images, figures, or tables that have been reproduced or copied and a footnote should be included with a full reference that states that permission has been sought to use the table or figure. However, unless your assignment is going to be professionally published, this level of detail is unnecessary. Instead, treat the image as a direct quotation. Provide a citation in the caption, with author, year, and page number. The source should also have an entry in the reference list.

Further table and figure resources

• Images, tables, and figures in Microsoft Word
• Adding, formatting or deleting captions in Word
• Sample figures

 

Disclaimer

These pages are provided as a guide to proper referencing. Your course, department, school, or institute may prescribe specific conventions, and their recommendations supersede these instructions. If you have questions not covered here, check in the style guide listed above, ask your course coordinator, or ask at Academic Q+A.

Page authorised by Director - Centre for Learner Success
Last updated on 14 May, 2024