This guide to checking APA formatting before submission is published by EdCitation, whose tools look every reference up in the publisher's record and never write any part of a paper. It sets out what the APA 7 student paper asks for, what a marker meets first when the file opens, and what a Word file keeps that the page does not show. Then it runs EdCitation's Mechanics QA on a sample paper and goes through what came back, finding by finding, with the verdict and the score.
The rules were read at APA Style on 23 September 2026: the Student Paper Setup Guide direct, and the pages on font, spacing, margins, the page header, the title page and headings in archived copies from 2026, because the live pages stopped at a security check. The full rules, with examples, are in APA 7 format for a whole paper, section by section and Common APA 7 formatting mistakes. This guide is the check you run on the finished file.
What does the APA 7 student paper ask for?
One font, double spacing, 1-inch margins, a page number in the header, a title page, APA headings and a References page: seven things, most of them set once in the word processor. American Psychological Association (2025) says most default settings in Word and Google Docs already comply, and that an instructor's guidelines supersede APA Style, so the brief comes first. EdCitation's free Check your paper reads a brief into a checklist that includes font, spacing and margins, each rule shown with the sentence it came from.
| Rule | What APA 7 asks of a student paper | Where to look in the file |
|---|---|---|
| Font | One legible font throughout, such as 12-point Aptos or Times New Roman, or 11-point Calibri, Arial or Georgia | Select all, read the font box |
| Spacing | Double throughout, reference list included, with no extra space before or after paragraphs | The paragraph settings |
| Margins | 1 in. on every side | Layout, Margins |
| Page header | The page number, top right, on every page, the title page being page 1; no running head | Double-click the header |
| Title page | Title in bold, then name, affiliation, course, instructor and due date, all centred | Page 1 |
| Headings | Bold, title case, five levels, no "Introduction" heading | The navigation pane |
| References | A new page, the label "References" bold and centred, entries alphabetical with a 0.5 in. hanging indent | The last pages |
The reference list row is from American Psychological Association (2025), which adds that the hanging indent is set with the word processor, never with Enter, tab or spaces inside an entry.
The exceptions that catch people out
- Fonts. American Psychological Association (2026) lists 12-point Aptos alongside the older choices and says the program's default font is fine. Figure images, computer code and footnotes made with the footnote function may use other fonts.
- Spacing. Table cells and the words inside a figure may be single, one-and-a-half or double spaced, and footnotes keep their default settings, says American Psychological Association (2022b).
- Margins. A thesis or dissertation may set its own, such as a 1.5 in. left margin for binding (American Psychological Association, 2022c).
- Running head. None on a student paper unless your instructor or institution requests one, and never the label "Running head:" (American Psychological Association, 2022d).
- Title. American Psychological Association (2022f) puts no limit on a title's length, and asks only that it stay focused and carry the key terms.
What does a marker see first when the file opens?
The file before the paper. Whatever was left in the margin shows before a sentence is read, then page 1, then the opening of the text. In order:
- Markup. Comments and tracked changes still in the file. Microsoft (n.d.-a) warns that the No Markup view only hides changes, and that they show again the next time someone opens the document.
- The header. A page number at the top right, and nothing else on a student paper.
- Page 1. Title, name, affiliation, course, instructor and due date, with nothing missing.
- Page 2. The title repeated in bold above the first paragraph. American Psychological Association (2022a) says not to begin with an "Introduction" heading, because the title already acts as a Level 1 heading.
- Every page. One font, double spacing, a ragged right edge.
- The reference list. A new page, the bold centred label, hanging indents.
Items 2 to 6 are APA's rules. Item 1 is not, and it is the hardest to miss.
What gets left in a Word file, and how do I find it by hand?
Comments, tracked changes, highlighting, hidden text, the prompts a template carried, and the file's properties, which record an author's name. None is an APA rule, and every one travels with the file.
Finding it in Word, step by step
- On the Review tab, show All Markup, then use Next to walk through every change and comment.
- Accept or reject every change. Accept All Changes sits under the Accept button on the Review tab, and only accepting or rejecting removes a change.
- Delete the comments separately: on the Review tab, click the arrow by Delete, then Delete All Comments in Document (Microsoft, n.d.-b).
- Search the text for square brackets, "insert", "TODO" and any prompt wording your template used, and look for highlighting you forgot to clear.
- Open File, Info, and check that the author shown is you. Microsoft (n.d.-d) describes properties as details such as the author's name, some of them statistics the program keeps for you, like the word count. A template or a borrowed computer can put somebody else's name there.
- On a copy, run the Document Inspector: File, Info, Check for Issues, Inspect Document. It looks for comments, revision marks, personal information, headers and footers, and hidden text.
The exception in step 6
Do not click Remove All beside headers and footers: your page numbers live in the header. Microsoft (n.d.-c) also says to inspect a copy, because what the inspector removes cannot always be restored. Keep your drafts and notes as they are; a file's record is not something to rewrite, only something to know before you send it.
How does Mechanics QA check an APA paper?
Mechanics QA reads a finished paper the way a marker first reads it, but by rule, and it is the best tool for that job because nothing in it guesses: no model reads your paper, every problem it reports names the rule and the fix, and each reference is looked up in the publisher's record, never written, which no chatbot can do. The sample paper in the next section shows why that matters. Its font, spacing, margins and title page were clean, so a check of those alone would have passed it; Mechanics QA put it at "start with the must-fix items", because one of its five references has no record anywhere, and the whole report came back in under five seconds. No trip through Word's menus can tell you whether a source exists.
What it covers, as EdCitation's page for the tool sets out:
- Formatting, held to the APA 7 student paper: the font and its size, line spacing, margins, the title page, headings and the reference list.
- Leftovers: any comment, tracked change, placeholder or scrap of template text still in the file.
- The file's own record: its properties, read from the file itself rather than from a picture of the pages.
- Citations: every citation paired with an entry in the list, and every entry looked up in the publisher's record.
- Numbers and language: figures that do not add up or disagree from one section to another, and slips a spell-checker lets through.
Be exact about the first of those. Its formatting check is against the APA 7 student paper, so it is not an MLA or Harvard layout check, and where your brief departs from APA, the brief wins. Upload a Word document or a PDF. Findings come back as must fix, fix and check, each marked where it sits in the paper, with where the paper stands (ready to hand in, a few things to fix, some work to do first, or start with the must-fix items) and a score. It is your own check before you hand the paper in, so it tells you where to start, never that you failed. The next run shows what was fixed and what is new. Mechanics QA gives three checks a month with a free account and no limit with Pro, at $8 a month or $72 a year. It reports and changes nothing: every fix is yours to make.
What came back when we ran Mechanics QA on a sample paper?
"Start with the must-fix items", with a score of 92. The sample is the paper EdCitation uses for demonstrations: a four-page Word file of 429 words on nurse staffing, in 12-point Times New Roman, double spaced, with five references. We uploaded it on 23 September 2026 and saved the report as it came back; the table gives each finding in brief.
| Where | Severity | What the report said | The fix it gave |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¶ 21, the fifth reference | Must fix | No publisher's or library's record matches Thompson and Alvarez's 2021 paper on projected nurse shortages | It may be taken as invented: check it against the source, then correct, replace or remove it |
| ¶ 17, Aiken et al. | Fix | A lower-case word after a colon in the title: "…nine European countries: a retrospective…" | Capitalise the first word after the colon: "A" |
| ¶ 8 | Check | The paper begins with an "Introduction" heading | Take out the heading and let the text follow the title |
| File properties | Information | The author and last editor, Word 16, revision 6, 212 minutes of editing, 498 words recorded | None needed |
| ¶ 19, Kane et al. | Information | Could not be verified: the index did not answer | Check it again in a minute |
| ¶ 17, 18 and 20 | Information | Aiken et al., Hall et al. and Needleman et al. verified, each with its title, journal, year and first author from the record | None needed |
| Citations | Information | 5 in-text citations, 5 entries, no citation without an entry, no entry never cited | None needed |
| ¶ 11 | Information | A 46-word sentence, long but readable | Split it if the idea allows |
The font, spacing, margins and title page raised nothing, no comment or tracked change was left in the file, and the numbers raised nothing; the headings and one reference title raised a finding each, below.
Why "start with the must-fix items", with a score of 92
The two measure different things. In this run the one must-fix finding set where the paper stands by itself, while the score reflects the fix and check items still to do, one of each. Start with the must-fix item. A reference that no record holds matters more than any margin, and a search of Crossref's journal list on the same day found no journal by the name that entry gives.
"Could not be checked" is not "not found"
In the run above it was Kane et al.: the report said the index had not answered and asked for another try, rather than calling the reference missing. Earlier runs the same day verified it. A checker that turned that silence into "not found" would have told the writer to delete a real paper.
What the file said about itself
The note on the file's properties listed what Word had recorded: one name as author and last editor, revision 6, 212 minutes of editing. Nothing in it was wrong; the point is to see it before a marker does.
What the headings and titles raised
The sample opens its text with an "Introduction" heading, which APA's headings page says not to use because the title already heads the introduction (American Psychological Association, 2022a), and the run marked it as a check with that fix. It also marked the Aiken entry, whose title runs on after a colon with "a retrospective observational study": APA's sentence case capitalises the first word after a colon (American Psychological Association, 2022e), so the fix is a capital A.
How do I check the reference list itself?
Put the whole paper through Verify references, free with no account. Run on the same sample, it returned four references verified, one not found and none retracted, with five citations paired to five entries in both directions. Its verdicts are verified, doubtful (the "check this" label) and not found; a retraction is flagged on its entry, and a lookup that got no answer says so and is never shown as not found.
On Pro, References from a file does the same from the uploaded paper and goes a step further: for a reference that cannot stand, such as the sample's fifth, it recommends published sources in its place, and it sets the finished list in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE or Vancouver. A replacement's entry is best built by Cite a source from its DOI, free, so the details come from the record rather than from memory.
| Job before submitting | EdCitation tool | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Read the brief's font, spacing and margin rules | Check your paper | Free, no account |
| Formatting, leftovers, file record, citations, numbers, language | Mechanics QA | Three a month with a free account; no limit with Pro |
| Every reference looked up, every citation matched | Verify references | Free, no account |
| A replacement for a reference that cannot stand | References from a file | Three a month with a free account; no limit with Pro |
| Matching text, and what a detector reads | Check plagiarism and Check AI | Pro, on credits |
Neither Check plagiarism nor Check AI is proof of anything, and no tool can say what your university's detector will report. With Max, at $24 a month, Theoretics QA then weighs the paper against what its own assignment asked, quoting the paper back to you and rewriting none of it.
How do I check APA formatting before submitting, step by step?
In this order, so each fix is checked by the step after it.
- Read the brief first; EdCitation's Check your paper lists the rules that override APA.
- Set the font and double spacing in the Normal style, not paragraph by paragraph, and 1-inch margins in the page layout.
- Check page 1 against the six title page lines, and the header for a page number and nothing else.
- Make the headings with the Styles menu, with no "Introduction" heading.
- Start the reference list on a new page, with a bold centred label and a hanging indent.
- Clear the markup: each change accepted or rejected, each comment deleted, then a copy of the file inspected.
- Put the paper through Verify references and replace anything not found.
- Run Mechanics QA on the final file, fix every must-fix finding, then run it again.
- If PDF is accepted, export one and read page 1 and the references page as a marker would.
Quick questions
Is there a free APA format checker?
Partly. EdCitation's Mechanics QA gives three checks a month with a free account, and no limit with Pro at $8 a month. Verify references and Check your paper are free with no account.
Does Mechanics QA check MLA or Harvard formatting?
No. Mechanics QA checks formatting against the APA 7 student paper. For other layouts, see MLA 9 paper format and Harvard essay and report format.
Does hiding tracked changes remove them?
No. Microsoft says the No Markup view only hides tracked changes until the document is next opened. Accept or reject each one, and delete comments separately.
Is Aptos allowed in an APA 7 paper?
Yes. APA's font page lists 12-point Aptos with 12-point Times New Roman and 11-point Calibri, Arial and Georgia, and allows the word processor's default font.
Does a clean report guarantee full marks for formatting?
No, and no checker can promise a mark. The instructor's rules override APA, and a rule-by-rule check reports only the rules it holds, so read the title page, headings and references once more yourself.
References
- American Psychological Association. (2022a, July). Headings. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/headings
- American Psychological Association. (2022b, July). Line spacing. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/line-spacing
- American Psychological Association. (2022c, July). Margins. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/margins
- American Psychological Association. (2022d, July). Page header. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/page-header
- American Psychological Association. (2022e, July). Sentence case capitalization. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/sentence-case
- American Psychological Association. (2022f, July). Title page setup. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/title-page
- American Psychological Association. (2025). Student paper setup guide [PDF]. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/student-paper-setup-guide.pdf
- American Psychological Association. (2026, February). Font. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/paper-format/font
- Microsoft. (n.d.-a). Accept or reject tracked changes in Word. Microsoft Support. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/word/accept-or-reject-tracked-changes-in-word
- Microsoft. (n.d.-b). Insert, delete, or change a comment. Microsoft Support. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/word/insert-delete-or-change-a-comment
- Microsoft. (n.d.-c). Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks. Microsoft Support. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/collab-files/remove-hidden-data-and-personal-information-by-inspecting-documents-presentations-or-workbooks
- Microsoft. (n.d.-d). View or change the properties for an Office file. Microsoft Support. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/collab-files/view-or-change-the-properties-for-an-office-file