10.1: Choosing a Document Design

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Be aware of general format choices.
2. Know basic American Psychological Association (APA) format choices.
3. Know basic Modern Language Association (MLA) format choices.

Chapter 9 "Designing" explores general and specific aspects of designing your
written work, including margins, line spacing, indentation, alignment, headings,
subheadings, fonts, visual text, images, charts, graphs, and text wrapping. In this
section, you will learn about the document design requirements of two of the most
common style sheets: those from the American Psychological Association (APA) and
the Modern Language Association (MLA). (For more on citation and documentation
formats from these and other style sheets, see Chapter 22 "Appendix B: A Guide to
Research and Documentation".)

Following APA Document Design Guidelines

Order of Pages

APA requires the following set order of pages with each listed page on the list
starting on a new page. If your paper does not require one or more of the pages,
skip over those pages, but maintain the order of the pages you do use.

• Title page
• Abstract
• Body
• Text citations
• Footnotes (If used, these may be placed at bottom of individual pages
or placed on a separate page following the citations.)
• Tables too large to place within the text body can be included in this
position
• Figures too large to place within the text body can be included in this
position
• Appendices

Title Page

A double-spaced title page should include the required information centered on the
top half of the page. The title page information can vary based on your instructor’s
requests, but standard APA guidelines include either the title, your name, and your
college name or the title, your name, the instructor’s name, the course name, and
the date.

Page Numbers and Paper Identification

Figure 10.1

Page numbers should be placed at the top, right margin one-half inch down from
the top of the page. Across from the page number, flush left, include the title of the
paper in a running head. If the title of the paper is lengthy, use an abbreviated
version in the running head.

Margins

Make margins one inch on both sides and top and bottom.

Headings and Subheadings

Use double spacing with no additional returns. Before you decide where to place
your headings, you have to decide how many levels of headings you will have.
Typically, you will have two or three levels, but you might have as many as five
levels. Keep in mind that the title does not count as a heading level, you should use
the levels consistently, and you must have a minimum of two headings at each
level. See Figure 10.2 for examples of formatting for different numbers of headings
levels.