​Most schools ask you to adhere to a particular formatting style for assignments. In most cases, Education programs (in which I teach) follow the APA v7 Style Guide (American Psychological Association, 2020). It is important to remember that these formatting guides are aesthetic preferences. If they have been mandated by your school, program, or instructor, they are certainly important to follow. But, they are not as important as document accessibility. The ability for all potential audiences to interact with your work is a human rights issue (and, in many cases, it is now also legally-mandated!).

​Before submitting an assignment, you need to ensure that it adheres to all applicable digital accessibility standards (for which the WCAG 2.2 guidelines (W3C, 2025) are the de-facto baseline). For the most part, for student assignments this will include:

​The following video (Power, 2024a) demonstrates how to format your written assignment documents for both APA v7 formatting and document accessibility standards:

​That does NOT mean that you have to include an APA format in-text citation EVERY time you name a specific digital tool or application within your assignment. You SHOULD:

​These rules should be followed whether the digital tool or resource is copyright-protected, Open Access, or Public Domain. In short, give credit where it is due, and help your audience to connect with that resource if they need to!

​To help, here is a list of common digital tools, applications, and resources that I have curated (in APA v7 format)!

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000 

Canva (2026). About Canva: Empowering the world to design. https://www.canva.com/about/ 

Google (n.d.). Google Slides. https://workspace.google.com/intl/en_ca/products/slides/

Microsoft (2026a). Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/make-your-powerpoint-presentations-accessible-to-people-with-disabilities-6f7772b2-2f33-4bd2-8ca7-dae3b2b3ef25

Microsoft (2026b). PowerPoint. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/powerpoint 

Power, R. (2024a, January 9). Formatting Reports for APA and Accessibility. [video]. https://youtu.be/DS9TJH9eAqI

Power, R. (2024b). The ALT Text: Accessible Learning wtih Technology. Power Learning Solutions. ISBN 978-1-7390190-2-0. https://pressbooks.pub/thealttext/

Purdue University (2026). Reference List: Electronic Sources. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_electronic_sources.html

W3C (2025). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). [Web page]. https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/

I've seen some recent Tweets showing excitement over some of the pending changes to formatting recommendations in the forthcoming APA Publication Manual version 7 (due for realease in October 2019). One thing that I'm pleased to see is more clarification on writing style to approach diversity and inclusion, as emphasized by Amy Diehl:

​The recent hype over the APA Publication Manual version 7 reminded me that I had planned to do a blog post with some recommendations for student paper writing, based on some of the feedback that I find myself most commonly providing to my undergraduate and graduate-level Education students. I won't dwell too much on formatting specifics -- as I haven't seen the latest APA Publication Manual yet. But, I will provide some tips on writing style and formatting for stronger academic papers.

Three of the most common things that I point out in feedback on student papers relate to the use of a first-person perspective, the use of colloquialisms, and the use of subjective adjectives and adverbs. Here is the advice that I provide to my students (straight from the handy checklist of notes that I have ready when reviewing assignment submissions):

• Avoid using a first-person perspective in a formal academic paper. No matter how valid your points are, the reader tends to dismiss them as either anecdotal or biased when the first-person is used.
• Avoid using colloquial phrases, unless they are part of a direct quote. They may come across as subjective to your reader, or as cliche.
• Avoid using subjective adjectives or adverbs in a formal paper. Your reader may determine their meaning differently from what you intended. Unless you can quantify the adjective or adverb, avoid using it.

I have frequently commented on improper formatting of Running Headers in student paper submissions -- but it looks like I no longer need to worry about that. Running Headers will no longer be required for student papers in APA version 7. But, here is the list of some of the most common formatting comments that I have provided in feedback to my students:

• For an APA paper, you should open the main body with a Level 1 header. Either repeat the title of the paper, or use “Introduction.”
• When stating the purpose of your paper, only use “will” in a proposal. Once the paper is written, say that it “does.” Use something like “this paper explores…”
• Spell out numbers from zero to nine, and use numbers for numbers 10 and above (unless you are presenting a statistical figure).
• Do not use contractions in formal writing.
• Only use "&" when citing a group of authors inside of parentheses for an in-text citation. Use "and" when listing the group of authors in a sentence.
• Do not include active hyperlinks in an APA format paper. Instead, just include the URL formatted as plain text (unlinked).

One big change that appears to be coming with APA version 7 is with the use of et al. for in-text citations. Previously, the standard was to list all authors (if four or fewer) the first time you cited them in your paper, and then to use et al. for subsequent citations of the same resource. Under APA version 7, you will be able to use the format first author, et. al. (year) for ALL in-text citations with three or more authors.

Although I do not (at this point in time) deduct marks for this, I do like to point out to my students when they are not doing things to increase the digital accessibility of their papers. The easiest thing to do -- with the greatest impact for the widest possible audience -- is to use the formatting styles tools in your word processor. Too often I find that student manually format their paper titles, subtitles, and Level 1, 2, 3, etc., section headers. Doing this makes it impossible for anyone using a digital screen reader application to easily navigate your document. By formatting these elements using the formatting styles tools, you make two things possible:

• You can automatically create a table of contents for your document.
• Readers using digital screen readers can easily "tab" through your document sections, without forcing their applications to read the entire document out loud to them. 

Of course, you will need to update those formatting styles from your word processor's defaults to comply with APA standards.

This video shows how to use and modify the formatting styles in Word. 

​This template may not reflect all of the forthcoming changes -- but it should provide you with a good start on preparing an undergraduate or graduate paper following APA standards.

​Click on the button below to download a general paper template for MS Word, reflecting some of the changes coming for APA version 7.

American Psychological Association (2019, August 6). Seventh Edition of APA's Best-Selling Publication Manual to Publish in October with a 700,000 First Printing. [Web page]. Available from https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/08/publication-manual

@amydeihl (2019, October 9). Use of singular "they" is no acceptable in APA style formatted papers [Tweet]. Retreived from https://twitter.com/amydiehl/status/1182135456479219712?s=19

GCFLearnFree.org (2016, February 8). Word: Applying and Modifying Styles. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/w2lES-5Ynbk

Slade, Tim (2017, January 17). 100+ Free Hero Images for eLearning. [Web log post]. Available from https://timslade.com/blog/hero-images-for-elearning/