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APA Checklist for College Papers

Everest uses a modified APA style for papers submitted as part of your course requirements. APA stands for American Psychological Association. Their style guide is used by professionals writing scholarly articles for the social sciences. Other disciplines may use other style guides. For example, humanities use MLA (Modern Language Association) and business uses CMS (Chicago Manual of Style). If you have questions about how to apply APA style to your assignment, consult with your instructor. He or she is the final authority on what is acceptable for his or her class. Use this checklist to help you ensure that your paper conforms to basic APA style for college papers. SECTIONS The following sections are frequently included in college papers. Check your assignment to see which sections are required. Title Page: Abbreviated title and page number Title of paper Your name Course name Instructor name Date the paper is due Title Page Layout: The above information is centered left to right, just above the center of the page as measured top to bottom. Abstract (on page 2, single spaced) (not used for essays or short papers) Body: Starts on page 2 (page 3 when an Abstract is included) Begins with the title of the paper as a first-level heading References Page: End notes (optional for research papers)

Copyright 2009 Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (CCi) Santa Ana, California, 92707 All rights reserved. APA Checklist for College Papers 2009-0727

FORMAT Margins are set at 1 inch top, bottom, left, and right. Type face is a serif font (e.g. Times New Roman) and is 12 point. Title is abbreviated and appears in upper right corner if each page, including the title page. (Abbreviated title and page number may be placed in the document header, between the top of the page and the margin.) Page number appears five spaces after abbreviated title and is right-justified (touches the right margin). Page number on title page is 1. (Separate pagination rules apply for dissertations and theses. Check with your instructor.) First line of every paragraph is indented inch. PARAPHRASES, QUOTES, and IN-TEXT CITATIONS Paraphrased words of another author are cited with the authors name and the date of publication (author, year). Direct quotes of another author are set off with quotation marks at the beginning and end and are cited with the authors name and the page number the quote was taken from. Quotes over 40 words long are indented inch, are single-spaced, and do not have quotation marks. They are cited with the authors name and the page number. Every paraphrase or intext quote is properly cited. HEADINGS Headings, if used, are correctly formatted (not bold). (Do not confuse paper headings with the header or a running head. Headings set off sections of the paper by topic. A page header includes the abbreviated paper title and page number. Running heads are not used in college papers.) The paper title on page 2 and References are listed as first-level headings If needed, topics are broken out as second-level headings If needed, sub-topics are broken out as third-level headings Example Headings o First-Level Heading o Second-Level Heading o Third-Level Heading. (Begins a paragraph and ends with a period. May be an incomplete sentence.)

Copyright 2009 Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (CCi) Santa Ana, California, 92707 All rights reserved. APA Checklist for College Papers 2009-0727

[Type a quote from the document or the summary of an interesting point. You can position the text box anywhere in the document. Use the Text Box Tools tab to change the formatting of the pull quote text box.]

[SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION]

REFERENCES The word References appears top center of the reference page as a first-level heading (no quote marks). References page is ordered alphabetically by author. First line of each reference is a inch hanging indent. The individual references are single spaced with a double-space between each reference. (It is also acceptable to double-space throughout. Check with your instructor for his or her preference.) For references that include URLs, the link has been removed. There is no terminal period for references that end with a URL. There is a reference listed for every author you cited in the body of your paper.

Copyright 2009 Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (CCi) Santa Ana, California, 92707 All rights reserved. APA Checklist for College Papers 2009-0727