5 Common APA Formatting Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Avoid these 5 most common APA formatting mistakes that cost students grades. Formatly catches them automatically.
Academic papers routinely receive score deductions over minor APA 7th edition formatting errors that are easily preventable. Common manual missteps include faulty running heads, irregular heading cases, incorrect block quote margins, and malformed reference list indents, causing unnecessary grading difficulty.
This guide details the five most prevalent APA formatting errors, explaining why manual editing fails and how to apply exact manual corrections.
Analyzing the Five Major APA Errors
The most frustrating APA errors are the ones that look minor: a missing indent, the wrong heading style, or a reference entry that is almost right. Those details are exactly why students lose points.
Formatly’s internal data shows that minor formatting mistakes are the leading cause of avoidable grade deductions. We see the same errors repeated across thousands of student papers.
Our Citation & Structure Audit™ automatically flags these errors, but understanding them is the first step. Let’s examine the diagnostic table below.
| Mistake | Before (Incorrect) | After (Correct) |
|---|---|---|
| Title Page | Includes a running head (for student papers). | Only page number in the top right corner. |
| In-Text Citation | (Smith 2020 page 45) | (Smith, 2020, p. 45) |
| Heading Level 2 | Left-aligned, normal text. | Left-aligned, Bold text. |
| References | Flush left, no indent. | 0.5-inch hanging indent. |
| Spacing | Extra spaces between paragraphs. | Strict double spacing throughout with no extra spaces. |
Why Manual Formatting is a Trap
The rules of APA 7th edition are precise. A manual check takes hours and is prone to human error.
Even with a checklist, it is easy to miss a stray space or an incorrectly italicized volume number in a long reference list. This is where automation becomes essential.
Rather than fighting Microsoft Word settings late at night, a purpose-built tool guarantees compliance.
Let Formatly handle the formatting
Upload your document and get APA, MLA, Chicago, or Harvard output in seconds.
Eliminate Formatting Stress with Formatly
Spending hours manually adjusting indents, citation punctuation, and margin settings pulls focus away from your research. Formatly automates your document layout to ensure 100% compliance with official style guides before you submit.
Our Citation & Structure Audit™ processes your entire document in seconds, identifying and resolving every layout error.
Ready to save time and eliminate grading penalties? Upload your document to Formatly to format your paper in seconds.
Format your manuscript in seconds
Stop fighting with margins, headings, and lists. Upload your document and let our engine instantly apply APA, MLA, Chicago, or Harvard standards — with full tracked changes.