APSA Format in Google Docs: Complete 2026 Guide

APSA style — the citation system published by the American Political Science Association — looks like a close cousin of Chicago author-date at first glance, and that's exactly where most students trip up. The in-text citations are similar but not identical, the References page has its own quirks around institutional authors and government documents, and Google Docs has no built-in APSA option to fall back on.

This guide walks through building an APSA-formatted paper in Google Docs from a blank page, covering the parts that differ from Chicago and MLA so you don't accidentally borrow rules from a style your professor isn't grading you on.

1. The Foundation: Font, Margins, and Spacing

Start from a blank document. Pasting in text from another file carries over hidden formatting that tends to surface later as inconsistent fonts or line spacing.

Set the font

1. Press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Cmd+A (Mac) to select the whole document.
2. Choose Times New Roman from the font dropdown.
3. Set the size to 12 pt.

The APSA Style Manual doesn't mandate a single typeface, but Times New Roman at 12 pt is the de facto standard political science departments expect. If your syllabus specifies something else, follow that instead.

Set the margins

1. Go to File > Page setup.
2. Set all four margins to 1 inch.
3. Click OK.

Set line spacing

1. Go to Format > Line & paragraph spacing > Double.
2. From the same menu, select Remove space after paragraph.

APSA papers are double-spaced throughout, including block quotes and the References page — unlike Chicago, which single-spaces some of those elements. Removing the default paragraph spacing keeps the whole document visually consistent.

2. The Title Page

Unlike MLA, APSA typically uses a separate title page rather than a four-line heading at the top of page one. Check your syllabus, since some instructors accept either — but when a title page is required, build it like this:

1. Insert a page break (Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter) so the title page is isolated from the body.
2. Center-align the text vertically by leaving blank lines above the title, roughly a third of the way down the page.
3. Center the paper's title in plain 12 pt Times New Roman — no bold or italics unless the title itself contains a work that requires it.
4. A few lines below, add your name, the course number and name, the instructor's name, and the date — each on its own centered line.

Some departments also want a word count or an abstract on the title page. Add these as separate paragraphs below the heading block if your assignment calls for them.

Page numbers

1. Go to Insert > Headers & footers > Header.
2. Go to Insert > Page numbers and choose the top-right option.
3. If your instructor wants the title page unnumbered, use Insert > Page numbers > More options and select Different first page, then start numbering from page 2.

APSA doesn't require a running header with your last name the way MLA does — a plain page number in the top-right corner is standard.

3. In-Text Citations: Author-Date

APSA uses parenthetical author-date citations, similar in spirit to Chicago author-date but with its own formatting conventions political scientists rely on:

• Basic citation: Democratic institutions tend to outlast their authoritarian counterparts (Przeworski 2000, 45).
• Author named in the sentence: Przeworski (2000, 45) argues that democratic institutions tend to outlast their authoritarian counterparts.
• Two authors: (Mansbridge and Martin 2013, 12).
• Three or more authors: (Achen et al. 2016, 88).
• Multiple works, same citation: (Fearon 1995; Walt 1987).
• No page number available: Omit it — (Huntington 1991) is a complete, valid citation on its own.

Note the comma placement: a comma separates the year from the page number, but no comma separates the author from the year — a detail that's easy to import incorrectly from Chicago or APA muscle memory.

4. Block Quotes

Quotes of 100 words or more (roughly five or more lines) should be set off as a block quote rather than run into the paragraph:

1. Start the quote on a new line.
2. Highlight it and indent 0.5" from the left margin using the ruler or Format > Align & indent > Indentation options.
3. Keep it double-spaced, matching the rest of the paper.
4. Drop the quotation marks — the indent already signals a direct quote.
5. Place the citation after the final punctuation: . . . end of quote. (Fearon 1995, 380)

5. The References Page

APSA calls its source list "References," not "Works Cited" or "Bibliography." Build it the same way you would for Chicago author-date, with a few APSA-specific habits layered in.

Start a new page

Insert a page break (Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter) after the last line of your conclusion. Center and type References in plain 12 pt Times New Roman, then return to left alignment before typing entries.

Apply hanging indents

1. Type each entry as its own paragraph, double-spaced, in author-date order.
2. Select all entries.
3. Go to Format > Align & indent > Indentation options.
4. Under Special indent, choose Hanging and set it to 0.5".
5. Click Apply.

Format entries correctly

Government documents and reports from organizations without a personal author — think the U.S. Department of State or the United Nations — are alphabetized by the agency's name. Don't invent an author where the source doesn't credit one.

Alphabetize correctly

• Sort by the author's last name, or the organization name for institutional sources.
• For multiple works by the same author, order them by publication year, oldest first.
• If an author has two works published the same year, add "a" and "b" after the year — both in the References entry and in the in-text citation — e.g., (Fearon 1995a).

6. Tables and Figures

Political science papers lean on data more than most humanities writing, so APSA has specific conventions for tables and figures that Google Docs won't apply automatically:

• Number tables and figures separately — Table 1, Table 2 — and Figure 1, Figure 2 — each in their own sequence.
• Place the title above a table but below a figure.
• Include a source note directly beneath the table or figure if the data comes from another work, formatted the same way as an in-text citation.
• Reference every table and figure by number somewhere in the body text — don't let one sit unmentioned.

7. Final Submission Checklist

• 1-inch margins on all sides
• Times New Roman, 12 pt, double-spaced throughout
• Title page with paper title, name, course, instructor, and date (if required)
• Page numbers in the top-right corner
• Author-date in-text citations with a comma between year and page, none between author and year
• Block quotes indented 0.5" with no quotation marks, for quotes of 100+ words
• Tables and figures numbered, titled, and referenced in the text
• References page with 0.5" hanging indents, alphabetized by author or institution
• Every in-text citation matches a References entry, and vice versa

Export the right way

Go to File > Download > PDF Document (.pdf) unless your instructor asks for a .docx. Skim the exported PDF before submitting — confirm the title page, page numbers, and hanging indents on the References page all carried over the way they appeared in the editor.

One More Thing: Make the Writing Sound Like You

Getting the citation format right doesn't change how a paper reads. If AI helped draft any section — an outline, a literature review summary, a rough first pass — that writing style often stands out from the rest of the paper, and instructors increasingly run submissions through AI detectors before grading.

AuraWrite AI rewrites AI-drafted text so it reads like your own voice — keeping your argument, evidence, and citations intact — while bringing AI detection scores back down to human range. Run your draft through the humanizer first, then apply the APSA formatting above to the cleaned-up text.

Conclusion

APSA format rewards attention to the details that separate it from Chicago and APA — the comma placement in citations, the References label instead of Bibliography, and the way institutional authors get alphabetized. Set the foundation once, build the title page and References list carefully, and the rest of the paper follows the same double-spaced, hanging-indent structure you'd use for any other style.

Once the formatting is locked in, the only thing left between your draft and the grade is the writing itself.

Last updated: July 18, 2026