How to format a paper in APA 7 and in ABNT

Before you format: whose rules apply

APA Style, now in its 7th edition, is the style of the American Psychological Association, used in psychology, education, the social sciences and many other fields. ABNT is the Brazilian standards body, and its rules are the base of most Brazilian courses and journals.

For a class paper or a thesis, the program's guide wins. For a journal, the journal's instructions for authors win, and they often adapt APA Style (word limit, section order, font). When their guide and this one disagree, follow theirs.

APA 7 page setup

• Margins: 1 inch on every side. A dissertation or thesis may ask for more on the left, for binding.
• Font: one font for the whole paper. APA lists 12-point Aptos, 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode, 12-point Times New Roman and 11-point Georgia, among others.
• Line spacing: double, in all parts of the paper, including block quotations and the reference list. No extra space before or after paragraphs.
• Paragraphs: first line indented, usually half an inch.
• Page number: top right corner of every page, starting at 1 on the title page.

The student title page

Students use the student title page unless the instructor or institution asks for the professional one. It has these elements, all centered, in this order:

1. Paper title, three or four lines down from the top, in bold, with the major words capitalized.
2. Author name, one double-spaced blank line below the title. For two authors, use “and”; for three or more, commas and “and” before the last.
3. Affiliation: the department and the institution, separated by a comma.
4. Course: number and name, separated by a colon.
5. Instructor name.
6. Due date, in the format used in your country.

A student paper does not have a running head unless the instructor or institution asks for one. The text starts on a new page, with the title repeated in bold at the top. The abstract is only included if the instructor asks for it.

Headings

Use only as many levels as the paper needs; short student papers may not need any. Do not number headings, do not add blank lines above or below them, and avoid a single subheading inside a section. Do not start the paper with an Introduction heading: the title at the top of the first page of text does that job. After the introduction, use a Level 1 heading for the next main section.

In-text citations: (Snyder, 2019)

The full reference goes in the reference list at the end. In the text, a short citation points to it:

• Parenthetical: (Snyder, 2019).
• Narrative: Snyder (2019) argues that…
• Direct quote, with the page: (Snyder, 2019, p. 335).
• Two authors: (Hungaro & Pugliese, 2024) in parentheses, Hungaro and Pugliese (2024) in the sentence.
• Three or more: the first author and et al., from the very first citation: (Oliveira et al., 2024).

A quotation of 40 words or more goes in a block: a separate paragraph, indented half an inch, with no quotation marks and double spaced like the rest.

The reference list, with a DOI

The list starts on a new page, titled References in bold and centered. Entries are in alphabetical order, double spaced, with a hanging indent of half an inch. A journal article reference has four parts, author, date, title and source, and the DOI closes it:

A widely cited paper on literature reviews:

• Journal and volume in italics. The issue number, when the journal has one, goes in parentheses after the volume, not in italics: 35(3).
• Article title in sentence case: only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns start with a capital letter.
• The DOI as a link, https://doi.org/10.…, with no “DOI:” label, no “Retrieved from” and no period after it. If the article has both a DOI and a URL, include only the DOI.
• No access date for journal articles.
• Up to 20 authors: list them all, with an ampersand (&) before the last one. With 21 or more, list the first 19, an ellipsis and then the last author.
• Page range with an en dash: 333–339.

Many online journals give each article a number instead of a page range, often starting with e. Write the word Article and the number where the pages would go:

This journal is Brazilian and publishes in several languages. Keep its name as the journal writes it, accents included.

Common mistakes

• Margins or spacing from another style, such as the single or 1.5 spacing of ABNT.
• Numbered headings, or an Introduction heading at the start.
• A citation in the text that is not in the reference list, or the other way around.
• A reference list out of alphabetical order, or without the hanging indent.
• The DOI as a bare code (10.1016/…) or with a “DOI:” label instead of https://doi.org/.
• A period after the DOI.
• The article title in title case instead of sentence case.
• A hyphen instead of an en dash in the page range.

If your program uses ABNT (Brazil)

ABNT has different standards for different parts of the paper. NBR 6022:2018 covers journal articles: it sets the structure, recommends a 12-point font and single spacing, and leaves the layout to the editor. NBR 14724:2024 covers theses, dissertations and other academic work, and programs often ask for it in class papers written as articles. NBR 10520:2023 covers citations and NBR 6023:2025 references.

A reference in ABNT puts the same information in a different order: surname in capitals, journal title highlighted (usually in bold), and the DOI followed by the address and the date you accessed it. The Portuguese version of this guide covers ABNT step by step.

Where Kanban Pesquisa helps

Kanban Pesquisa does not format your file: margins, font and spacing are still set in your word processor. It organizes the path to the paper (tasks, deadlines, what is left to review) and your references. If you keep your references in Kanban Pesquisa, the DOI does most of the work, on the free plan too:

1. In Documents, choose Add › New reference.
2. Paste the DOI, or its doi.org address, and select Look up on Crossref. The title, authors, date, journal and any other details Crossref has are filled in.
3. Review the fields before saving. Article numbers come in the Pages / article identifier field; if one is missing, type it there. The copied APA reference adds the word Article before it.
4. In the Documents list, select the reference's quote button to open Copy citation, and choose APA.
5. Copy the full reference or the in-text citation, parenthetical or narrative.

The same window also copies the citation in ABNT, AMA, Vancouver and Chicago. Still, check the result against the style guide and your program's rules: the reference is only as good as the data the journal registered.