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Running Head: Type an abbreviated (less than 50 characters) Title of Paper
Title of Paper
Author’s Name
Northcentral University
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Abstract
The American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines provide rules for preparing
manuscripts. This template provides a basic layout based upon the fifth edition of these
guidelines. The APA guidelines define an abstract as a single paragraph, without indentation,
that summarizes the key points of the manuscript. The purpose of the abstract is to provide the
reader with a brief overview of the paper. The total length should not exceed 120 words, with
each sentence written concisely.
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Title of Paper
The body of the paper should consist of approximately 27 lines of text per page, not
including headings. The following sections provide several typical elements of APA manuscripts
as examples in this template. Note the spacing between sentences. In APA style, there is only
one space between sentences. If you cannot remember this one while typing, you can do a
replace (Control-H) when you are done to replace every instance of two spaces with one space.
Headings
APA style specifies that major sections of the paper (abstract, body, references, etc.) each
begin on a new page with the heading centered at the top of the page. The body of the text is
typically divided into sections as shown in this template. Usually these sections are the Method,
Results, and Discussion.
Subsections
Sections can be further divided into subsections. These are flush to the left margin and
italicized. An example is a Method section divided into Participants, Materials, and Procedure
subsections. In Word, select the text and then make it a Heading 3.
Paragraph headings. It is also possible to make further subdivisions with paragraph
headings. For example, the Procedure subsection might have paragraph headings for Informed
consent, Independent variables, and Dependent variables. Only the first word of the heading is
capitalized; the entire heading is italicized.
References
Per APA guidelines, all sources must be cited on a separate References page. Within the
body of the paper, a pointer containing the author’s last name, year of publication, and page
range within parentheses (Erickson, 2000, pp. 24-67) indicates the cited text. The author’s last
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name corresponds with the entry on the References page, allowing readers to look up the source
of the citation.
An example of a References page is located on page 5 of this template. Note that APA
uses the "hanging indent" style for references. This will automatically be done when you type
references into this template. Otherwise, the easiest way to do this is to type each reference
without worrying about the hanging indent. When you are finished, select (highlight) all the
references and then either 1) use the Control-T keys together, or 2) use the menu commands
Format Paragraph and then, under Special, select Hanging and then a distance for the
indentation.
Quotations
Guidelines for quotations are based upon the length of the quote. Quotes with fewer than
40 words are quoted directly in the sentence. According to the APA, this type of quote “should
be incorporated into the text and enclosed in double quotation marks.”
Quotations longer than 40 words follow different guidelines. Include these quotes in an
indented block.
Start long quotes on a new line and indent 1 inch from the left margin. Also, doublespace the lines and omit quotation marks. The Long Quote 1st and the Long Quote More
styles in this Word template are provided for formatting.
If you quote more than one paragraph, indent the first line of additional
paragraphs by .5 inch. Include a reference citation after the closing punctuation.
(Erickson, 2000, p. 34)
For comprehensive style guidelines, refer to the APA online and print publications.
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References
Beck, B. E. (1999, July). Style and modern writing [Special issue]. Prose Magazine, 126, 96134.
Gode, S. M., Orman, T. P., & Carey, R. (1967). Writers and writing. New York: Lucerne
Publishing.
MacDonald, S. E. (1993). Words. In The new encyclopedia Britannica (vol. 38, pp. 745-758).
Chicago: Forty-One Publishing.
Wilson, J. C. (2001). Scientific research papers. In Stewart, J. H. (Ed.), Research papers that
work (pp. 123-256). New York: Lucerne Publishing.
Xenon, R. M. (2002). Birth order and romantic attachment style. Journal of Research in
Personality, 22, 236-252.
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Appendix
Place supporting and bulky groups of information in the appendixes. If you have multiple
groups of information, create multiple appendixes. Label each appendix with a capital letter,
e.g.—Appendix A, Appendix B, Appendix C, etc.
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Author Note
Derek Graham, Department of Psychology, University of Partridge; Deanna Meyer,
Department of Education, University of Fremburg.
Deanna Meyer is now at Department of Psychology, University of Triver.
This research was supported in part by grants from the National Institute of Writing and
The Regional Scholastic Foundation.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Derek Graham,
Department of Psychology, University of Partridge, Partridge, WA 61820. E-mail: dg@10-uopdop.com
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Footnotes
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Each footnote number must correspond to the same number in the body of the paper.
Group all footnotes in the paper on this page.
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Do not rely upon the footnote and endnote features of Word 2002.
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Table 1
Simple example of a table
Column heading
Column heading
Column heading
Table body
Table body
Table body
Table body
Table body
Table body
Table body
Table body
Table body
Table notes
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Figure Captions
Figure 1. Figure example of a cycle diagram.
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This is an example
All figures are
of a figure.
placed at the end of
the paper.
The figure captions
in the previous
section correspond
to this section.