American Psychological Association (APA) Style is a set of guidelines for writing research papers that is commonly used in the social sciences (psychology, sociology), medical or scientific fields. These guidelines standardize how authors credit other author's contributions to their own writing and make it easier for readers access those works.

To write a paper in APA Style you will begin to share your work in the same professional standards. To write in APA style:

• Follow general paper formatting guidelines for your entire paper:
  • Double-space, 1" margins on all sides, APA  allows multiple font accessible fonts options such as 11-point size Arial and 12 point size Times New Roman. You can find all font recommendations here. 
  • Including a title page with the title of the paper, your name, your course number and name, instructor, due date and the institutional affiliation (Blackhawk Technical College). 
  • Insert a page numbers student papers do not have to include what is referred to as a "running head" (the title of your paper appearing on every page) unless requested by your instructor
• Quote, paraphrase or summarize information from sources in your writing and credit their contribution by:
  • Including a reference page at the end of your paper that gives complete list of sources used in alphabetical order by author's last name 
  • Cite each source in APA format on the reference page as well as in the text of your paper

See the "Student Paper" attachment for an example of an APA Style paper