Shortened Version of Title 1

APA papers require a title page. In the top half of

the page, include all information shown below,
centered and double-spaced. Other information
should be included if your instructor asks for it.

Title

Your FirstName Your LastName

To center a line in Microsoft Word,
select Format | Paragraph from

the Microsoft Word menu bar.
Then, on the Indents and Spacing
tab, choose Centered from the
drop-down list next to the word
Alignment.
Course Title
Instructor’s Name To insert a header in
Microsoft Word, select
Date Submitted View | Header and
Footer from the Word
menu bar. Then right
justify the line and type
a shortened version of
the title of your paper.
Add five spaces after
the title. Then, insert an
automatic page number
by choosing the Insert
Page Number button
on the Header and
Footer toolbar.

Margins should be one inch on the top, bottom, and right

side. The left margin should be 1.0 or 1.5 inches. 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.)
 Shortened Version of Title 2

Title [Centered]

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

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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 Generally, citations

text here more should
text here have
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and the year of publication. Direct quotations should include
text here more text here. the page number as well. See your Ashford approved style
guide for more information.
 Shortened Version of Title 3

When you want to insert a short quotation (40 words or less), 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

more text here. More text here more text here more text here. More text here more text
This is block/displayed quotation style. Single-spacing is allowed for
here more text here.
student papers. See your Ashford approved style guide.
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 41 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

citations you put the period after the citation, but with block/displayed quotations, you

place the period before the citation.

 Shortened Version of Title 4

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 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, 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,
under page 3 of the “C” entries. More the purpose
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citations
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References page at the end of your paper is to
give the
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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.

More text here more text Additional APAhere.

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Use one space after all punctuation (including periods and colons.
Do not
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Page Breaks tab, check Widow/Orphan control.)
here more textSee your Ashford approved style guide for rules on using numbers.
here.

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).

 Shortened Version of Title 5

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 your Ashford approved style guide 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 workShortened Version of Title 6
with the group name.

References Online library entry

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

Proquest database.

Bunt, A., & Yang, B. (2002). Factor structure of the adult attitudes toward adult and

continuing education scale and its capacity to predict participation behavior:

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
Lewis, C. S. (1963). The great divorce. New York: Macmillan. author. Abbreviate
first and middle
Lewis, C.S. (1984). Till we have faces. San Diego, CA: Harcourt. names.

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

Use a hanging indent. Select Format | Paragraph from the

Corporation.
Word menu bar and Hanging under Special.
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, 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.

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). See your Ashford
approved style guide for more information about reference formatting.