Style: The APA Way Guidelines from Keys for Writers   What's the Purpose of APA?

• Documentation of sources is necessary not just in research papers but in any written work that contains information from or references to texts outside itself.
  
  
• The fifth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) sets the documentation style not only for psychology but also the other behavioral and social sciences, as well as nursing, criminology, and personnel management.
  

• APA style provides a standard system for giving credit to others for their contribution to your work. It is a parenthetical documentation style, meaning that citations to original sources appear in your text. Each citation will have a corresponding entry in the references list at the end of the paper.
  
  
• Your essay should be typed, double-spaced on standard-sized paper (8.5 X 11 inches) with margins of 1 inch on all sides.
  
  
• Your final essay should include, in the order indicated below, as many of the following sections as are applicable, each of which should begin on a separate page:
  - title page, which includes a running head for publication, title, and byline and affiliation
  - abstract
  - text
  - references
  - appendixes
  
  
• The pages of your manuscript should be numbered consecutively, beginning with the title page, as part of the manuscript header in the upper right corner of each page.

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