Last-Minute APA Formatting Checklist: 15 Things to Verify Before You Submit Your Final Paper
Your paper is due soon. The research is done. The writing is done. But something in the back of your mind keeps nagging: is the formatting actually right?
This checklist covers the 15 APA 7th edition formatting items that professors check first and students get wrong most often. You can run through the entire list in under 30 minutes. It's not a substitute for reading the APA manual, but if you only have time for one pass before you submit, this is the pass to make.
Grab your document. Open it in Word or Google Docs. Work through these in order.
Title Page
1. Paper title is bold, centered, and positioned in the upper half of the page. Not the very top. Not the dead center. The upper half.
2. Below the title: your name, institutional affiliation, course number and name, instructor name, and due date. All centered, all double-spaced. For student papers, you do not need a running head on the title page (APA 7 made this optional).
3. No extra decorative elements. No cover images, no borders, no WordArt. The title page should contain only the required text elements listed above.
Margins, Spacing, and Font
4. Margins are exactly 1 inch on all four sides. Go to Layout, then Margins, then Custom Margins, and verify. Don't trust the visual appearance. Templates and copy-paste operations can silently change your margins.
5. The entire document is double-spaced with no exceptions. Check that paragraph spacing is set to 0pt before and 0pt after. Word's default Normal style adds 8pt after paragraphs, which makes your spacing look inconsistent even when line spacing is set to double.
6. You're using one approved font consistently throughout the entire document. APA 7 accepts Times New Roman 12pt, Calibri 11pt, Arial 11pt, or Georgia 11pt, among others. Pick one. Check that no stray fonts survived from copy-pasting. Select All (Ctrl+A) and look at the font name in your toolbar. If it shows a blank or multiple names, you have inconsistent fonts.
Headings
7. Every heading follows APA 7 formatting for its level. Level 1: centered, bold. Level 2: flush left, bold. Level 3: flush left, bold italic. Level 4: indented 0.5 inches, bold, ending with a period, text continues on the same line. Level 5: indented 0.5 inches, bold italic, ending with a period, text continues on the same line.
8. No heading levels are skipped. If you have a Level 1 and a Level 3, you need a Level 2 in between. If your paper only uses one level of heading, all headings should be Level 1.
In-Text Citations
9. Every claim, statistic, or idea from a source has a citation. Every citation follows the (Author, Year) format for parenthetical citations or Author (Year) for narrative citations. Works with three or more authors use "et al." from the first mention.
10. The period goes after the closing parenthesis for parenthetical citations, not before. The one exception: block quotes, where the period goes before the parenthetical citation.
Reference List
11. The reference list starts on a new page with the word "References" centered and bold at the top. Not "Works Cited." Not "Bibliography." Not "Reference List." Just "References."
12. Every entry uses a hanging indent: first line flush left, subsequent lines indented 0.5 inches. Use the Paragraph settings to set this, never the Tab key or spacebar.
13. Entries are alphabetized by the first author's last name. Double-spaced throughout with no extra space between entries. Each element (author, date, title, source) follows APA 7 formatting rules for capitalization, italics, and punctuation.
14. Every DOI is formatted as a URL: https://doi.org/xxxxx. Not "doi:" followed by the number. Not a bare DOI without the https prefix. If the source has a DOI, include it. If it doesn't, include the URL only if the source might be difficult to find without it.
Final Check
15. Page numbers appear in the top-right corner of every page, starting with the title page as page 1. Continuous Arabic numerals throughout (unless your graduate school requires Roman numerals for front matter, in which case follow their specific guidelines).
That's it. Fifteen items. If your paper passes all fifteen, you've caught the errors that account for the majority of APA formatting point deductions.
What This Checklist Doesn't Catch
This is a quick-pass checklist, not a comprehensive audit. It doesn't cover table and figure formatting, appendix structure, specific reference types (how to cite a podcast vs. a government report vs. a translated book), or the dozens of edge cases in the APA manual.
If you want a comprehensive check, StyleMyPaper scans your document against 25+ APA 7th edition rules and gives you a report showing what needs fixing and where.
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