Final Paper APA Checklist

Best Practices

Here is a checklist for your final paper. I recommend that you read through this carefully. Ask questions about anything that confuses you. However, in many cases with this list, I will refer your questions to Purdue OWL for clarification. In fact, I have linked as many of these items to Purdue OWL as time permits. However, it is your responsibility to ensure that you check the resource to make sure it is correct. 

Note: Please make sure to take the time to examine the STUDENT paper on this link here. 

If there is a conflict between what I have below and Purdue OWL, let me know. I do make mistakes from time to time. Purdue OWL should be considered correct if there is a conflict.

Remember that this paper is graded much more comprehensively than past assignments that led up to this paper. I am looking for great work, great arguments, and properly written papers. This checklist should help you toward that end—and pretty much if you see it here, then I’ll be looking for it too. Good luck! 

This is extremely comprehensive. Take the time to read it and understand it. 

This class uses the APA Style Guide, 7th Edition. No other edition is acceptable. If you are going to buy a copy, which I do recommend, then I suggest the spiral bound version I’ve linked here. 

APA Checklist for Final Paper

Title Page:

Link to title page

  1. Title page does not have a Running head. 
  2. Title page does have a page number in the upper right-hand corner. 
  3. Title page has appropriate, double-spaced, information. 
  4. Title should be in bold type. All else on title page should be in regular type. 
  5. Title page information should start three or four lines from top of the page. 
  6. Title page should have
    • Title of Paper [bold type]
    • Your Name
    • Psychology Department, University of Akron
    • WC-PSYCH-100-[your specific section number; see syllabus], Introduction to Psychology
    • Bishop Harber, Professor
    • Assignment Due Date

General Formatting: 

Link to general formatting

  1. Each page has the page number in the upper right-hand corner. No running head.
  2. Entire document is typed. 
  3. Entire document is double-spaced. 
  4. Margins are one-inch on both sides, top, and bottom. 
  5. Headings are used appropriately per APA 7th Edition. 
  6. First line of each paragraph is indented .5-inches or one tab stop. 
  7. Use of personal pronouns are used only as necessary. 
  8. The paper title is repeated in full on the first page of the body of the paper and should be in bold type. 
  9. You must have at least an Introduction, Summary [of scholarly papers], and Discussion sections. You may have others, but these three are required. 
  10. Remember: The Introduction section does not get its own heading. All others do get their own heading.
  11. There are no spaces (new paragraphs) before or after the Title, before or after Headings, or between paragraphs. 
  12. There are no contractions (eg., do not use “can’t,” use “cannot”).
  13. Spell check entire paper. 
  14. Spell out all numbers zero through nine, and the rest from 10 and above are in Arabic numerals. 

Abstract: 

There is no abstract in this paper. 

In-Text Citations: 

Link to in-text citations

  1. All sources cited in text are also in the References list.
  2. All sources in the Reference list are cited in the paper.
  3. Direct quotations include the author (or title if no author), the date, and specific part of the source (page number, paragraph number, or section title). (See the APA 7th Edition for examples.)
  4. Exception: Direct quotations from your movie only need (Director, Date) citation format.
  5. In-Text citations include a comma between all elements of the citation, eg., (Jones, 2020, p. 3). It is NOT (Jones 2020). 
  6. All quotations less than 40 words are enclosed in quotation marks. The in-text parenthetical phrase comes before the ending punctuation.
  7. All quotations greater than 40 words are shown as an indented block quote with no additional beginning paragraph indenting. The parenthetical phrase comes after the punctuation.
  8. Paraphrased in text citations include the author (or title if no author) and the date. (See the APA 7th Edition for examples.) It is optional to include the specific page, paragraph, or section of a source that is paraphrased.
  9. For any multi author sources, for any sources with greater than three (3) or more authors listed with the first author followed by “et al.”
  10. If the information for the in-text citation is included in the body of text (narrative citation) and I have multiple authors, the word and is spelled out, eg., “Jones, Smith, and Black (2010)…”. If the information for the in-text citation is all included in a parenthetical phrase an ampersand is used to separate the next to last and last authors, e.g. “(Jones, Smith, & Black, 2010)”.

References

Link for references

  1. The page title, References, is centered, 1-inch from the top of the page and starts a new page. It should be in bold face type. 
  2. All sources listed in the References have at least one (1) corresponding in text citation.
  3. References are listed in alphabetical order by the first author’s last name.
  4. All lines are double spaced and for each entry the hanging indent is used. See the APA 7th Edition for instruction on formatting this.
  5. Only initials are used for first and/or second names of authors. There is a space between initials, eg., Lewis, C. S.
  6. If there are multiple authors, they are listed in the order they appear on the original source. Authors in the references are separated by commas (even for 2 authors) and an ampersand is used before the last one.
  7. Titles of books, journals, technical reports are given in italics, as are journal titles and volume numbers.
  8. Titles of books, journal articles, web sites are in lower case except for the first word, first word after a colon or dash, and any proper nouns.
  9. The title of a web page that is an article contained in a larger web site is not italicized. Likewise, journal article titles and book article titles are not italicized.
  10. For any citations ending with a URL all hyperlinking (blue, underline) is removed and there is no period at the end of the hyperlink.
  11. Do not simply rely on any internet resource or database output for APA style (like citationmachine,net, citefast.com, etc), but rather ensure your output conforms to the rules of APA 7th Edition. (Use Purdue OWL for assistance here.)

General Editing and Grammar

  1. Spell check and grammar check your paper before turning it in. I would read through it for spelling errors as the auto spell check does not catch words that are spelled correctly but used improperly. 
  2. Read your paper carefully to make sure everything flows logically and coherently.