How to Make a Table in APA Format

APA stands for American Psychological Association. APA style is one of several forms of academic writing and is predominantly used in the social science fields, such as psychology, sociology and anthropology. The guidelines for APA formatting—such as margin size, in-text citations, reference lists and table formats—are published in the “Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association”.

Click on “Insert table” from Microsoft Word (or any other word processor) and select the number of rows and columns required to present your data.

Insert a heading for each row and column, capitalizing only the first letter of each heading (with the exception of proper nouns which should always be capitalized). For example, if you are comparing intelligence scores between men and women in three different age groups, your rows and columns would be headed as followed:

Age Men Women

20-30

30-40

40-50

Give your table a number and title. They should be flush right, not centered, and the title should be concise yet explanatory, capitalized and in italics. For example:

Table 1

Cross-Sectional Comparison of Male and Female Intelligence Scores

Type your data into its appropriate locations within the table.

Type the word "Note." in italics under your table if further explanation is required, such as the meaning of non-standard abbreviations or symbols used within the table (do not italicise the information within a note). If your note is a sentence, begin it with a capital.