1
Running head: SHORTENED TITLE
APA papers require a title page. In the top half of the
page, include all information shown below, centered
and double-spaced. Please note that Ashford University
APA guidelines require title pages to include the course
instructor’s name and date. This requirement is specific
to Ashford and is not included in the APA publication
guidelines as outlined in the APA Publication Manual
(6th edition).
Title
Your First Name Your Last Name
To center a line in Microsoft Word,
Course Title
select Format | Paragraph from

the Microsoft Word menu bar.
Instructor’s Name
Then, on the Indents and Spacing
tab, choose Centered from the
Date Submitted
drop-down list next to the word
Alignment.
To insert a header in
Microsoft Word, select
View | Header and
Footer from the Word
menu bar. Then, left
justify the line and type
“Running head” and a
shortened version of the
title of your paper in all
caps. Next, insert an
automatic page number
by choosing the Insert
Page Number button on
the Header and Footer
toolbar.
Be sure to select
“Different on First
Page.”
Margins should be one inch on all sides. To change your
margins, select File | Page Setup from the Margins tab on
the Word menu bar. (Header and Footer margins, on the
Layout tab, should always remain at 0.5 inches.)
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SHORTENED TITLE
Title [Centered, Upper and Lowercase]
Use a 12-point Times New Roman font throughout your paper. (This text is 12point Times New Roman.) Double-space after the title and begin the text of your paper.
Indent the first line of text in each paragraph in the paper. More text here more text here
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Whenever you include ideas that are not your own or are not common knowledge,
whether you quote or paraphrase, you must cite your source. More text here more text
citations
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and the year of publication. Direct quotations should include
the page number as well.
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3
SHORTENED TITLE
When you want to insert a short quotation (fewer than 40 words), include it as
part of the current line. For instance, one of my favorite quotes by C. S. Lewis (1984) is
from his book Till We Have Faces. It goes, “Why should your heart not dance?” (p. 96).
After quoting, you need a citation. If you have already mentioned the author in your text,
then you need only the year of publication and the page number for a direct quote. If you
have not mentioned the author in text, then include the author’s last name in the citation.
For example, I also like this quote, “I do not think that all who choose wrong roads
perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road” (Lewis, 1963, p. 6).
More text here more text here more text here. More text here more text here more
text here. More text here more text here more text here. More text here more text here
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This example shows block/displayed quotation style. Block quotes
should be double-spaced.
here more text here.
Now I want to discuss chocolate. Chocolate is one of my favorite topics. I have
this book called 10,000 Dreams Interpreted, and it talks about what it means if you
dream about chocolate:
To dream of chocolate, denotes you will provide abundantly for those who
are dependent on you. To see chocolate candy, indicates agreeable
companions and employments. If sour, illness or other disappointments
will follow. To drink chocolate, foretells you will prosper after a short
period of unfavorable reverses. (Miller, 1997, p. 143)
When you want to include a quotation of 40 words or more in length, then you indent the
entire quotation one-half inch, or five to seven spaces, in block/displayed quotation style.
Do not use quotation marks around a quotation displayed this way. Note that with other
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SHORTENED TITLE
citations you put the period after the citation, but with block/displayed quotations, you
place the period before the citation.
In my further studies of dreams and chocolate, I checked out a Web site to see if it
agreed with the Miller book. The site said, “To see chocolate in your dream signifies selfreward. It also denotes that you may be indulging in too many excesses and need to
practice some restraint” (Dream Moods, 2003, p. C3). In this case, the only author listed
is the group author of the Web site, an organization called “Dream Moods.” The group
does not use page numbers on their site, so I wrote “C3” because I found the information
Remember,
the purpose
ofmore
citations
under page 3 of the “C” entries. More
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References page at the end of your paper is to
give the
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the information in the source.
text here.
You should start a new paragraph whenever you begin to write about a new idea.
Paragraphs have no specific minimum or maximum length, but make sure to try to cover
each topic adequately without boring your reader or inserting irrelevant information. A
good general rule of thumb is to have no more than ten typewritten lines in a paragraph.
Additional APA Format Tips:
More text here more text here more text here. More text here more text here more
All terminal punctuation (e.g., period, question mark) is followed by two
spaces. One space is used in reference citations, initials, abbreviations, and
text here. more text here more text here more text here. More text here more text here
with commas, colons, and semicolons.
Do not hyphenate words at the end of a line.
more text here. More text here more text here more text here. More text here more text
Always have at least two lines of a paragraph at the top or bottom of a page.
(Select Format | Paragraph from the Word menu bar. Then, on the Line and
here more text here.
Page Breaks tab, check Widow/Orphan control.)
Now, what if you want to use a quotation from the Ashford University Online
Library? For instance, this quotation is interesting: “Indiana teacher Richard Beamer
trusts his students with his life. Last fall Beamer fulfilled his longtime dream of flying
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SHORTENED TITLE
west at treetop level in a plane built by his fifth-grade students at Southward
Elementary School” (Arce, 2003, p. 38-39).
If you want to reference a work that has two authors, you list both authors in your
citation. For instance, I often use Mad Libs to teach basic grammar concepts to my
students. After all, sentences like “Who could really [VERB] that there were two
[PLURAL NOUN] in space?” (Price & Stern, 2001, p. 25) are much more fun than
diagramming sentences.
You should not always include direct quotations. In most cases, try to put the
author’s ideas in your own words (paraphrase). When you paraphrase, you still need a
citation. For instance, if I am thinking about attitudes towards education, I could tell you
that Bunt and Yang (2002) examine the Adult Attitude Toward Continuing Education
Scale (AACES) to determine its effectiveness. This parenthetical reference requires only
the year because I mentioned the authors in the text, I followed the mention directly with
what they said, and I listed the source on the References page. However, if I tell you that
the attitudes of college students are more easily influenced by peers than faculty norms
(Milem, 1998), then this reference requires the author’s name in a citation because I did
not mention the author in the text. Neither reference requires a page number because the
references are not direct (word-for-word) quotations.
I hope this sample paper is a useful aid in helping you prepare your Ashford
University student papers. Remember to check the Ashford Writing Center for more
detailed information about APA style. Also, please remember that your instructor has the
right to modify these guidelines for a specific class.
If the author is a group rather than an individual, list the work
with the group name.
SHORTENED TITLE
6
Online library entry
should be cited the same
as a print article. If a
Arce, I. (2003). Flying high. NEA Today, 21 (4), 38-39.
Digital Objective
Identifier (DOI) is
Bunt, A., & Yang, B. (2002). Factor structure of the adult attitudes
toward itadult
andbe
available,
should
used in place of the URL.
continuing education scale and its capacity to predict participation behavior:
References
Evidence for adoption of a revised scale. Adult Education Quarterly: A Journal of
Research and Theory, 52(4), 299-314.
Dream Moods. (2003, January 6). Dream dictionary. Retrieved January 14, 2003, from
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/c2.htm
Alphabetize your
references by
author.
Abbreviate
Lewis, C. S. (1963). The great divorce. New York1<: Macmillan.
first and middle
names.
Lewis, C.S. (1984). Till we have faces. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.
Microsoft Word 2000 [Computer Software]. (1999). Redmond, WA: Microsoft
Use a hanging indent. Select Format | Paragraph from the
Word menu bar and Hanging under Special.
Milem, J. F., (1998). Attitude change in college students: Examining the effect of college
Corporation.
peer groups and faculty normative groups. The Journal of Higher Education,
69(2), 117-140.
Miller, G. H. (1997). 10,000 dreams interpreted or what’s in a dream. Chicago,/: Rand
McNally.
Price, R. & Stern, L. (2001). Mad libs: The original #1 mad libs. New York1<: Price
6WHUQSloan.
If you have more than one entry with the same author AND published in
the same year, add a lowercase letter after the year both here and in your
in-text citations, for instance, (2001a) and (2001b).