How to Format a List Using APA

Essays, reports, dissertations and books around the academic community usually require certain formatting styles. Highly organized standards are essential in serious and academic studies and allow authors and writers to properly organize their content. The most widely used set of guidelines in the social sciences is provide by the American Psychological Associatiom style guide, which has specific formatting guidelines for lists within a text.

Instructions

1. Leave one blank line between your last line of text and the first line of your list.

2. Indent two spaces on the first (and every succeeding) item in your list.

3. Use numerals starting with "1" for a numbered list. Use bullet points for non-numbered lists. Use the numeral followed by a period then a space before capitalizing the first letter of your list. In a non-numbered list, place one space after the bullet also.

4. Indent the second line of a list item one tab beyond the number or bullet, and every succeeding line after that within the same list item.

5. Place the next list item on the next line down.

6. Leave one blank line at the conclusion of your list before beginning your text again with an indented paragraph.

References

• "Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association"; Sixth Edition; 2009