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Use a 12-point Times New Roman font throughout your paper. (This text is 12-point 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 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 more text here more text here. More text here 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 here more text here. More text here more text here more text here. More text here more text here more text here.

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 “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).

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. 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 more text here. More text here more text here more text here.

In my further studies of dreams and chocolate, I checked out a website to see if it agreed with the Miller book. The site said, “To see chocolate in your dream signifies self-reward. 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, since no authors are listed, cite the source by its title. Titles of books and reports are italicized or underlined; titles of articles, chapters, and web pages are in quotation marks such as “Dream Moods.” The group does not use page numbers on their site, so I wrote “C3” because I found the information under page 3 of the “C” entries. 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.

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.

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Now, what if you want to use a quotation from the Ashford University Online Library? For instance, this is an interesting quotation: “Indiana teacher Richard Beamer trusts his students with his life. Last fall Beamer fulfilled his longtime dream of flying 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 “They 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 quotations (ascitedinCummingsKraut,2002).

I hope this sample paper is a useful aid in helping you prepare your APA style student papers. Do not use “in conclusion” or anything similar to that in your conclusion. Find a fresh, new way to restate your thesis, and do not forget to summarize your main points either. Finally, please remember that your instructor has the right to modify these guidelines for a specific class. 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 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 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 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 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 more text here.

References

Arce, I. (2003). Flying high. NEA Today, 21(4), 38-39.

Bunt, A., & Yang, B. (2002). Factor structure of the adult attitudes toward adult and continuing education scale: Evidence for adoption of a revised scale. Adult Education Quarterly: A Journal of Research and Theory, 52(4), 299-314. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108654

Cummings, J.N., Kraut, R. (2002). The quality of online social relationships. Communication of the ACM, 45(7), 103-108.

Dream moods. (2003, January 6). Dream Dictionary. Retrieved January 14, 2003, from

Lewis, C. S. (1963). The great divorce. New York, NA: Macmillan.

Lewis, C.S. (1984). Till we have faces. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.

Liu, T., Song, X., Chen, G., Buka, S., Zhang, L., Pang, L., & Zheng, X. (2013). Illiteracy and schizophrenia in China: A population-based survey. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology, 48(3), 455-464. doi:10.1007/s00127-012-0552-3

Microsoft Word 2000 [Computer Software]. (1999). Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation.

Milem, J. F., (1998). Attitude change in college students: Examining the effect of college peer groups and faculty normative groups. The Journal of Higher Education, 69(2), 117-140.

Miller, F. H., Choi, M. J., Angeli, L. L., Harland, A. A., Stamos, J. A., Thomas, S. T., . . . Rubin, L. H. (2009). Website usability for the blind and low-vision user. Technical Communication, 57(1), 323-335.

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 York: Price Stern Sloan.