
The spacing between words is automatically adjusted as needed to maintain the flush margins. You'll often see this in newspapers and magazines.
Justified paragraphs are aligned flush with both the left and right margins. Right-aligned paragraphs are flush with the right margin and ragged on the left. Center alignment is sometimes used for titles and section heads. Center-aligned paragraphs are horizontally centered between the left and right margins and are ragged on both sides. Text in a left-aligned paragraph is flush with the left margin and ragged on the right margin. Left is the most common alignment setting and is the default. Setting paragraph alignmentĮach paragraph in a document can be aligned left, center, right, or justified ( Figure 4.6), as explained below: You can also create bulleted or numbered lists, and add borders or shading. Common paragraph formatting that you can apply includes alignment, indents, tab stops, and line spacing. That is, rather than affecting individual words or sentences, it affects the entire paragraph. Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).Microsoft Office 2008 for Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide 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.Īmerican Psychological Association.
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.
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. 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.