APA 7th Edition Format & Citations (Word) -- 2024

Summary

This video tutorial by David provides a comprehensive guide on how to format an APA paper. It covers setting up margins, selecting appropriate fonts, inserting page numbers, and structuring the title page. Viewers will learn about APA citation methods, including parenthetical and narrative in-text citations, and how to quote or paraphrase sources correctly. The tutorial also explains the use of block quotations and formatting the reference page, ensuring the document follows APA style. In just 12 minutes, viewers will master the essentials for writing and citing papers in APA format.

Takeaways

• 📝 Set 1-inch margins on all sides of the page by going to the Layout tab, then selecting Normal from the Margins menu.
• 🔤 Use accessible fonts such as Calibri, Arial (11 or 12 pt), or Times New Roman (12 pt). Ensure consistency of the font, including in the page numbers.
• 📄 Insert page numbers at the top-right corner by using the Page Number tool under the Insert tab and ensure the font matches the document.
• 🎓 On the title page, center the title using title capitalization and bold it. Include your full name, course name, instructor's name, and due date.
• 📚 Use double spacing throughout the paper and remove any additional space after paragraphs by adjusting line spacing settings.
• 📖 In-text citations can be parenthetical or narrative. Both methods require references to be listed on the final page of the paper.
• 💬 Use quotations verbatim with quotation marks and provide a page number. If paraphrasing, you must still cite the source, though a page number is optional.
• 📑 Block quotes (over 40 words) should be indented, without quotation marks, and the citation should follow the block without a period after the parentheses.
• 🔍 References are listed on a new page titled 'References,' which should be boldfaced and center-aligned. The entries should be in alphabetical order and use hanging indentation.
• 📘 For periodical citations, use sentence capitalization for the article title, title capitalization for the journal name, and include volume, issue, and page numbers with a DOI or URL.

Q & A

What are the acceptable fonts for an APA paper?

APA allows the use of Calibri (11-point), Arial (11 or 12-point), and Times New Roman (12-point).

How do you set page margins in APA format using Microsoft Word?

Go to the Layout tab, click on the Margins drop-down, and select 'Normal' to set a one-inch margin on all sides.

How should you format page numbers in APA style?

Go to the Insert tab, click on Page Number, select 'Top of Page,' and choose 'Plain Number 3' to place the page number at the top right. Make sure the font matches the rest of your paper.

How should the title page be formatted in APA style?

Move the cursor to the top third of the page, center-align the text, and double-space. Type the title in bold using title capitalization, followed by your full name, course name, instructor's name, and the due date.

What are the two types of in-text citations in APA?

The two types are parenthetical in-text citations (author's name and publication date in parentheses at the end of the sentence) and narrative in-text citations (author's name is part of the sentence, followed by the publication date in parentheses).

What is the difference between quoting and paraphrasing in APA?

Quoting involves using the source’s words verbatim in quotation marks, while paraphrasing involves restating the information in your own words. Both require citations.

How do you format a block quotation in APA?

Block quotations are used for quotes longer than 40 words. Introduce the quote with a colon, then indent the entire quotation without quotation marks. The citation appears after the punctuation.

When should you include page numbers in APA in-text citations?

For quotations, a page number is required. For paraphrases, a page number is optional but recommended for reader convenience.

How should the reference page be formatted in APA style?

The reference page should start on a new page with the title 'References' centered and bolded. Each reference should be left-aligned, double-spaced, and use hanging indentation.

What is the general format for a periodical citation in APA?

A periodical citation starts with the author's name, followed by the publication year in parentheses, the article title using sentence capitalization, the periodical title in italics with title capitalization, and the volume number in italics. Include the issue number in parentheses and the page range, followed by a DOI or URL.

Outlines

00:00

📄 Introduction to APA Formatting and Setup

David introduces the video by outlining the topics to be covered, including formatting an APA paper, quoting or paraphrasing sources, and citing them correctly with in-text and reference citations. He begins by explaining how to format the document's margins (1-inch on all sides) using the Layout tab. Then, he details how to set the font and type size, recommending Calibri, Arial, or Times New Roman, and ensuring font consistency throughout the paper. The next step is inserting page numbers using the Insert tab and ensuring the font of the page numbers matches the rest of the document. Lastly, he covers setting up the title page, including centering text, enabling double spacing, and entering the paper title in bold, followed by the author's name, course details, instructor, and due date.

05:07

📝 Body Text Formatting and Subheadings

David explains how to begin the body of the paper by typing the first paragraph, emphasizing that hitting 'Enter' should only be used to start a new paragraph. He advises using APA subheadings to divide major sections and provides instructions for formatting Level 1 subheadings with boldface and title capitalization. After creating a subheading, users can Left Align to continue typing. He also introduces the two types of in-text citations: parenthetical (author and publication info in parentheses) and narrative (author mentioned in the text, with publication date in parentheses). These citations correspond to full reference citations at the end of the paper.

10:11

🔖 Quoting, Paraphrasing, and APA Citation Rules

This section dives into the proper ways to quote and paraphrase sources in APA style. Quoting involves copying a source verbatim with quotation marks, while paraphrasing is rewriting the source's information in one's own words. David highlights that both require citations and explains how to introduce quotes using signal phrases. He discusses the formatting of page numbers in citations and how to cite paraphrased content, which can optionally include a page number. He stresses the importance of correctly attributing sources, whether they are quotes or paraphrases.

🖊️ Block Quotes and Reference Formatting

David explains how to handle block quotes (quotations over 40 words) by using a colon, removing quotation marks, and indenting the entire quote using the 'increase indent' tool. He notes that the in-text citation for a block quote comes after the punctuation. He also introduces how to format the reference section on a new page using a page break, centering the title 'References,' and aligning the references list to the left. The references should be in alphabetical order, double-spaced, and use hanging indents for every line after the first. He describes how to cite periodicals with sentence capitalization for article titles and proper capitalization for journal titles.

📚 Final Formatting and Reference Citations

The last section covers hanging indentation for references. David provides an alternative method to create hanging indents, highlighting the lines of the citation except the first one and using the hanging indent tool to drag the indent over one half inch. He also summarizes the key points about reference formatting, including the order of elements in a periodical citation (author, publication date, article title, journal title, volume, and issue number). The DOI or URL should be included at the end without a period. Finally, he ensures that users understand how to apply the formatting and citation rules consistently throughout their paper.

Keywords

💡APA format

APA format is a widely-used style guide for writing academic papers, developed by the American Psychological Association. It provides rules for the structure, formatting, and citation methods in research papers. In the video, APA format serves as the foundation for structuring the paper, setting margins, choosing fonts, and citing sources both in-text and in the reference list.

💡In-text citation

An in-text citation is a reference to a source within the body of a paper. APA uses two types: parenthetical citations, where the author's name and date of publication are included in parentheses, and narrative citations, where the author is mentioned in the sentence and the date is in parentheses. The video explains both types and emphasizes their role in attributing quotes and paraphrased information to the original source.

💡Paraphrase

A paraphrase involves rewording ideas from a source in your own words while retaining the original meaning. In the video, paraphrasing is presented as one of the two acceptable ways to use a source in APA format, with an emphasis on ensuring proper citation even when quoting is not used directly. This helps to avoid plagiarism and maintain academic integrity.

💡Quotation

A quotation is the direct repetition of words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. In APA format, quoted text must be followed by an in-text citation that includes the page or paragraph number. The video highlights the importance of using quotation marks and proper citations to ensure that the quoted material is correctly attributed to its source.

💡Title capitalization

Title capitalization refers to capitalizing certain words in the title of a paper or section headings. In APA format, major words are capitalized, while short words like prepositions and articles are left in lowercase unless they are the first or last word. The video demonstrates how this rule is applied both to the title page and subheadings within the body of the paper.

💡Reference citation

A reference citation is a detailed entry in the reference list that provides full information about a source used in the paper. In APA format, it includes elements like the author’s name, publication date, title of the work, and the source (journal, book, etc.). The video explains how to format this information correctly and stresses the importance of alphabetical order and consistency in citations.

💡Margins

Margins refer to the blank space around the text on a page. In APA format, the standard margin size is one inch on all sides of the paper. The video walks through the process of setting margins in a Word document as the first step in formatting an APA paper, emphasizing the need for uniformity in the document's layout.

💡Block quotation

A block quotation is used for quotes that are longer than 40 words. In APA, these quotations are indented half an inch from the left margin and are not enclosed in quotation marks. The video describes how to format block quotations, highlighting that they require a hanging indent and no quotation marks.

💡Hanging indentation

Hanging indentation is a format where all lines of a reference entry are indented except for the first one. In the video, this method is explained as a key formatting feature for entries in the reference list. It ensures that readers can easily differentiate between citations, making the references easier to navigate.

💡Signal phrase

A signal phrase is a phrase used to introduce a quote or paraphrase, often including the author's name and the context of the quotation. The video emphasizes the importance of signal phrases in APA format, especially when quoting directly, as they help integrate the quote smoothly into the writer's own narrative while giving credit to the source.

Highlights

Learn how to format your pages in APA, including margins, font, and title page setup.

Use the Layout tab to select 'Normal' margins, setting one-inch margins on all sides.

Select accessible fonts like Calibri 11 or 12, Arial 11, or Times New Roman 12-point for consistency.

Insert page numbers at the top right using 'Plain Number Three' and ensure they match your document font.

Create a properly formatted title page with centered alignment, double spacing, and title capitalization.

Use bold for your title and make sure to remove space after paragraphs for proper spacing.

After the title, include your name, course title, instructor's name, and the paper’s due date.

Use APA in-text citations, either parenthetical (author and date in parentheses) or narrative (author as part of the sentence).

Quote sources verbatim with quotation marks, or paraphrase them while ensuring you cite both.

For direct quotes, include the page number, and for paraphrases, page numbers are optional but recommended.

Use block quotations for quotes longer than 40 words, with indented formatting and no quotation marks.

Begin a new page for references, center the word 'References' in bold, and format the list with hanging indentations.

Align all references to the left, double-space between entries, and order them alphabetically by the author’s last name.

Format periodical citations with sentence capitalization for titles and italics for the journal and volume number.

Include a DOI or URL for periodical retrieval information, without placing a period at the end of the citation.

Transcripts

Hi everyone, this is David. And in this video, you're going to learn everything you need to know about APA to do your paper.

We're going to take a look at how to format your pages in APA,

how to either quote from a source or paraphrase from the source (the only two ways that you can use a source)

and then how to cite those paraphrases and quotes with in-text citations and reference citations,

everything that you need to know in the next 12 minutes.

Okay, the first thing we're going to do is to format our page.

We're going to go to the Layout tab, and then over to the margins tab on the left,

click that drop down arrow and select normal to put a one-inch margin on all sides of your paper.

And once you're done with that, you have set all the margins for your paper.

Okay, the next thing we're going to do is to set up our font and type size.

Go up to Home, and then after Home click on the font dialog box launcher arrow.

In this box you want to select your default font. As you know, Calibri is the default font for Word and Calibri is fine.

APA says you can also select other accessible fonts.

And those include Arial 11 or 12 point and also Times New Roman at 12-point only.

Then once you've selected your font, be sure to click on Regular in addition to your font and type size.

Now go down to Default in the bottom left and clicking in that radio button will mean that these settings will be saved for all of your

papers whenever you open up a Word document.

Okay, time to put in some page numbers. Go to the Insert tab and all the way over to Page Number drop down arrow and select Top

of Page and pull down of your options there and select Plain Number Three,

and that will put a page number in the top right-hand portion of your page up in the header area.

Now that page number is going to be in Calibri because that's Word’s default font.

You have to make sure that whatever font that page numbers is in,

that page number has to agree in its font with any other font that you selected.

Everything in your paper must be in one font.

To exit the header area, click on the word Header

or anywhere in the body of the document.

Now it's time to fill out the rest of your title page.

First thing you want to do is to move your cursor down to the bottom top third,

that's about the one-inch marker on that ruler on the left.

Once you've got your cursor down there, next thing you want to do is to go up to the

Home tab and then over to Center Alignment.

Once you've got Center Alignment set, don't leave,

you're going to go over to the line spacing tool and select 2.0 for double spacing.

Now your spacing is set. But don't leave yet; go back up to the line spacing tool.

And this time, select Remove Space after Paragraph, if it is not grayed out.

If it is grayed out, you're good to go. Now, type in your title.

Be sure to use title capitalization.

That means you capitalize all words except prepositions and articles that are fewer than four letters.

But also, be sure to capitalize any first or last word of a title no matter what they are.

Okay, next, let's highlight that title.

Go up to Home and then click on B for bold facing. All titles in APA are boldfaced.

Hit enter one time to get double spacing.

Go back up to Home click on B again, to turn off boldfacing.

Type in your full name including a middle initial if you want,

then the name of the course and number of the course followed by a colon,

one space and then the full title of the course:

Introduction to Criminal Justice. Hit enter one time to get double spacing.

And this time you're going to put in the name of your teacher.

You can use honorifics if you want Dr., Instructor, Professor, whatever.

Then underneath that hit enter one time and put in the due date for the paper.

Okay, that's it for the title page. Now what we want to do is to go up to Insert tab,

click and then in the pages grouping, select Page Break.

And that puts us on the first body page of our paper.

You will note that Word in the upper right corner is now numbering our pages automatically.

Next, let's go to the Home tab. Then over to Center Alignment, because now we're going to retype our main title.

Then we're going to highlight it and boldface it.

Back down at the title, hit enter one time to add double spacing.

Go back up to be to turn off boldfacing. And this time, we're going to go to Left Align to begin typing our paper.

Paragraphs in APA are indented one half inch.

So, all you need to do is to tap the tab key one time, and that takes it out a half inch for the indentation.

Time to type in your first body paragraph.

Go ahead and type it in and, as you do, be sure not to hit enter at the end of the line.

The only place you want to use enter is at the end of a paragraph to begin a new paragraph.

APA really wants you to use subtitles or subheadings to divide the major sections of your paper.

So, to enter a Level One subheading,

go down below your first paragraph, hit Center Alignment,

and then type in the next title, subtitle, or subheading, whatever you want to call it.

But it follows the same rules as your main title.

In other words, you use title capitalization, you also highlight it, you also go up to B for boldfacing.

Hit enter to get your double spacing, and be sure to turn off boldfacing.

And now we can hit Left Align and continue with the second paragraph

or second section of our paper, being sure to indent it one half inch.

Okay, let's talk about the two types of APA citations.

The first one is called the parenthetical in-text citation.

That's where the author's name and publication information are within the parentheses

that come at the end of the sentence before the sentence period.

The next type is the narrative in-text citation.

In the narrative in-text citation, the author's last name or maybe even something about the author are a part of the sentence.

So, the only information within the parentheses is the date of publication.

Regardless of which type that you use.

Both refer to a reference citation on the last page of your paper.

Okay, let's talk about using sources in APA.

There are only two ways that you can use a source in any research paper.

One is to quote from it verbatim putting the quoted words in quotation marks.

And the other is to paraphrase. That's where you more or less put that same quote into your own words.

Regardless of whether you quote from the source, or whether you paraphrase the source,

you always must cite the source, whether it is a quotation or a paraphrase.

Okay, let's dig a little bit deeper into citations. First, how to cite a quotation.

The first thing you want to do is to be sure to introduce the quotation with what's called a signal phrase:

“Oncologist S. Graham writes” colon.

So that introduces or sets off our direct quotation.

Then comes the direct quotation verbatim, set off with quote marks.

And whenever you use a quotation in an APA paper, it must have a page number.

So here we see page number 61. “Page” here is singular, so we're seeing only the p.,

that's the abbreviation followed by a period, followed by a space, followed by the actual page number.

When you have multiple pages you use pp., followed by a period,

a space, the page range with a hyphen in between them.

There is no space before or after that hyphen indicating the page range.

If there is no page number, count the paragraphs from the beginning of the article to whenever you arrive at

the paragraph that contains the quote that you're using.

And that is the number that you use, preceded by the abbreviation para.

In-text citations for a paraphrase.

First, a paraphrase is simply taking that quote and putting it as much in your own words as you can,

knowing that you're going to have to repeat certain words.

For example, here's the original from Sarah Graham that we've already read.

Now notice the paraphrase of that original:

“Although the public perception is that breast cancer is the number one killer of women, the reality is that more women die of lung cancer.”

You will also note that during that paraphrase key words have to be repeated.

How else do you say “breast cancer,” “women,” or “lung cancer”?

You must repeat keywords whenever doing your paraphrases.

Another thing about in-text citations for paraphrases:

a page number is optional, although you might want to use one for the convenience of your reader.

Okay, our next topic is the block quotation.

Any quotation longer than 40 words must use the blockquote format.

Here's how you do it. First you place a colon at the end of the sentence introducing the quotation.

Then you simply type in your quotation,

but then you highlight that entire quotation, go up to the Home menu,

and then over to increase indent, and tap that increase indent one time,

and that gives you the hanging indention that you need.

Now note that for block quotations, there are no quote marks.

And as a result, there is no period after that parentheses that contains the in-text citation.

Excuse me, Professor Taylor, what about references?

They go on the last page, a new page at the end of your paper.

So, let's click on Insert. And then after Insert, we're going to go to Pages and then insert a page break.

And that gives us the new page on which we can place our references.

Let's click on Home again, and we have to center align our subtitle,

and our subtitle is simply the word “References.” Type in the word “References.”

And it is plural, by the way. Highlight it, go up to the Home grouping, click on B for boldface,

come back down to References. Hit enter to get your double spacing, go back up and be sure to turn off boldfacing.

Now go over to the alignment grouping, and you want to this time click on Align Left.

Your references are aligned left just like the text of your paper.

Type in your references using double spacing.

And, of course, make sure that they are in alphabetical order.

So, let's take a look at a general format for the most common type of citation, the periodical citation.

What comes first is the author name.

The author can be an individual or individuals.

It can also be a corporate author or a committee author.

Next comes the publication date, year in parentheses. It has a period on the left and a period on the right.

After the year comes the article title. APA is very different in that the article title uses what is called sentence capitalization.

In other words, the title of that article, whatever the source is,

is punctuated and capitalized just like a sentence.

Look at this example: capital P prisons do not reduce crime, colon.

That's your main title. High capital H cost of ignoring the science.

That’s your subtitle. So, any title, whether it's a main title or subtitle, the first word is capitalized,

and any proper noun and that's it.

No other words are capitalized, and it ends with a period.

The periodical information consists of the title, which uses regular title capitalization.

The title is also put in italics, as well as the volume number.

Here you see Prison Journal, comma, Volume 101, and then the issue number, if there is one, is placed in parentheses, comma,

that is followed by the page range. And again, it's different for reference citations:

there is no p. or pp. followed by a period.

After the periodical information is the retrieval information for that periodical.

And that consists of a DOI. And if you don't have a DOI use the web URL.

And neither one is followed by a period because it's a URL that comes at the end.

Okay, our last topic is hanging indentation.

You've already seen one way of making hanging indentation. That's with the increase indent tool.

I'm going to show you one more way. And what you do for hanging indention is

simply highlight all lines of the citation except the first one and then go up to the hanging indent tool.

Click on it and drag it over one half inch and that gives you that half inch hanging indentation that all reference citations have.