General manuscript preparation guidelines
Brush up on the basic requirements for formatting your manuscript, using the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
All manuscripts must be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).
Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the 7th ed.).
Double-space all copy.
Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Publication Manual.
Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website, including sample papers. Please use the resources below to further guide your manuscript preparation.
All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.
Graphics files are welcome if supplied as Tiff or EPS files. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file.
The minimum line weight for line art is 0.5 point for optimal printing.
For more information about acceptable resolutions, fonts, sizing, and other figure issues, please see KnowledgeWorks Global Digital Art Support General Guidelinesopens in new window.
When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.
APA offers authors the option to publish their figures online in color without the costs associated with print publication of color figures.
The same caption will appear on both the online (color) and print (black and white) versions. To ensure that the figure can be understood in both formats, authors should add alternative wording (e.g., "the red (dark gray) bars represent") as needed.
For authors who prefer their figures to be published in color both in print and online, original color figures can be printed in color at the editor's and publisher's discretion provided the author agrees to pay:
- $900 for one figure
- An additional $600 for the second figure
- An additional $450 for each subsequent figure
List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the References section.
Examples of basic reference formats:
Journal article
Nag, S., Vagh, S. B., Dulay, K. M., Snowling, M., Donolato, E., & Melby-Lervåg, M. (2024). Home learning environments and children’s language and literacy skills: A meta-analytic review of studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries. Psychological Bulletin, 150(2), 132–153. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000417opens in new window
Authored book
Dehaene, S. (2023). Seeing the mind: Spectacular images from neuroscience, and what they reveal about our neuronal selves. MIT Press.
Chapter in an edited book
Kim, Y., Boulware, J. N., Nusbaum, H. C., & Henly, A. (2024). Civic virtues, wisdom, and psychological resilience. In N. E. Snow (Ed.), The self, civic virtue, and public life (pp. 21–36). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003367857-3
APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the APA PsycArticles® database. Please see Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for more details.
Respecting authors’ autonomy and recognizing that authors’ names may change after articles have been published, APA Publishing will update author names without publishing an accompanying correction notice. Changes will be made to the digital record for APA-published e-books or journal articles that have already appeared in print. Please see the policy on author name changes after publication for more information.