APA Style Research Paper Checklist

The following are some things that should be checked in an APA style empirical research paper. This list is based on common mistakes made by students, and is by no means exhaustive.

Title Page see example, manual 4th ed. p. 258; 5th ed p. 306

_____ includes title, running head, header page number, name, in proper place

_____ running head all caps

Abstract Intro

_____ not indented _____ title at beginning same as on title page

_____ not over 120 words

Method

_____ Participants, Materials, and Procedure, heading level 3 (see manual, 4th ed. p. 91; 5th ed. p. 113)

_____ Participants: number of males and females, mean age (or age range)

Results

_____ clearly indicate the dependent variable(s)

_____ for each independent variable, give appropriate means and statistics and state whether it had a sig. effect

_____ effect sizes reported for each significant effect

Discussion

References

_____ everything referenced in text occurs in Ref. list and vice-versa

_____ alphabetized according to last name of first author

_____ only first word of article title capitalized

_____ journal title italicized and first letter of all important words capitalized

_____ volume # (not issue #), and page #s for journals

Figures

_____ captions on a separate page, preceding Figure (see manual, 4th ed. p. 268; 5th ed. p. 316)

overall

_____ Abstract, Method, Results, Discussion, References, Figure Captions all level 1 heading

_____ refer to all Figures and Tables somewhere in the text