Formatting an APA Paper in MS Word

Microsoft Word is a common Program for creating documents. Word offers formatting tools, layouts and creation tools that make it very helpful for creating and editing documents. APA format can easily be inserted into Word and can be easily edited. Click on your start menu, and scroll up to programs, find the “Microsoft Office 2007” and double click “Office Word 2007.” This will open The Microsoft Word program onto the computer screen.

Creating a Document

Microsoft Word will open with a blank default document opened for editing. If the program does not have a blank document open, then click on the “New” tab or find the blank page icon. This action will open the default document and it will be ready for editing. Each time you open Word this should be the actions to start a new document. Now find icon that resembles a hard disk, this icon is used for saving documents after editing. Click the icon and type a name for your document. After saving the new document, return to editing the document. Now that this document is saved, when you click the disk it will simply update the saved version without needing to enter a name for the document.

APA Formatting

Microsoft Word makes editing easy, as many of the basic options are readily available. Under the “Page Layout” tab click the Margins icon, select the 1 inch margins. This should be the normal setting. Now your document will keep these setting throughout. You are now ready to begin your document. Create a page “Header” by clicking the Insert tab, then on Header, the cursor is inside Header box at top of page.  Under Paragraph Tab, select align right.  Now type first 2-3 words of the document title and insert 5 spaces then click insert page number button.  Click close.

APA format requires a title page, so the first page open on the screen will be the title page.  Under the Home icon, click the “Center Text” icon to create text in the center of the page, as required for APA format. The title page consists of a title, your full name, your educational institute’s name, your class, your instructor and the date created on each line. Make sure your document is double spaced. If the document is not formatting with double spacing, you can correct this by finding the paragraph section under the home tab, and selecting double spacing. Your document should be ready for text, simply input the desired content.

Special Features

Microsoft Word offers many special features that will help create a document. One feature is a spell checker, which will scan the document for incorrect spellings. You may see words underlined with a green or red color. This feature is informing you that there is a mistake present within the text. Typically a red border indicates a misspelled or unrecognized word, and a green border will represent a grammatical or formatting error. Word will automatically give suggestions for corrections. To view these suggestions simply right click on the colored border. Word will offer spelling suggestions, and automatic corrections, however, Word will not reformat poor word usage.