APA 6th Edition
The text in your essay should be left-aligned, which means that each line of a paragraph begins at the left margin and the text at the right margin will be uneven (American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 229). The first line of each new paragraph should be indented by one tab space, which should be set to 0.5 in or 1.27 cms (p. 229). To set up an automatic first line indent, use the appropriate path for your version of Microsoft Word to access the Paragraph formatting options, and under "Indentation", choose “First line” under "Special" and set the indent under "By" to 0.5 in or 1.27 cm.
Unless you have been directed otherwise by your program, all text in the essay should be double-spaced (p. 229), and no extra space (aside from the double-spacing) should be inserted between paragraphs. To see an example of the correcting formatting for paragraphs, please see the paragraphs in the Sample One-Experiment Paper.
Reference
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
APA 7th Edition
Begin every line of text from the left margin, except for the first line of each paragraph. Indent each line of a new paragraph one tab space, which should be set at 1.27 cm or 0.5 in (American Psychological Association, 2020, p. 45).
To set up an automatic first line indent, use the appropriate path for your version of Microsoft Word to access the Paragraph formatting options, and under "Indentation", choose “First line” under "Special" and set the indent under "By" to 0.5 in or 1.27 cm.
Unless directed otherwise by an instructor or a program handbook, double-space “the entire paper, including the title page, abstract, text, headings, block quotations, reference list, table and figure notes, and appendices” (American Psychological Association, 2020, p. 45). To see an example of the correcting formatting for paragraphs, please see the paragraphs in the Sample Annotated Student Paper on the American Psychological Association's Sample Papers web page.
Reference
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000