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Psych. 201
Creating APA-Style Tables in Microsoft Word
A table can be an efficient way of communicating a lot of information in a small amount of space. It
should be able to stand on its own, and should not be redundant with material presented in the text of
your paper. It is not difficult to create a table in Microsoft Word, but there are a few tricks to making it
conform to APA Style. See pp. 125 – 150 of the Publication Manual of the APA (6
th
ed.) for sample
tables in APA style. Below are the basic elements of an APA-style table.
The Elements of an APA-Style Table
• Table number. Tables are numbered with Arabic numerals in the order they appear in the paper.
• Table title (italicized). The table title should be one double-spaced line below the table number.
Capitalize the first letter of major words, and do not end with a period. The title should be
descriptive, but succinct.
• A horizontal line separates the table title from the column headings.
• Column headings (labels centered over each column). Use upper- & lower-case.
• A second horizontal line separates the column headings from the table data.
• Data for your table go next. The table can be double-spaced or not, depending on how much
information you need to convey.
• End your table with a final horizontal line beneath the last row of data. The three horizontal lines
listed above are the only three lines you should have in your table. You should not have any
vertical lines. (See p. 141 of the APA manual for information about ruling of tables.)
• Table notes go one double-spaced line beneath the final horizontal line. Begin with the word
Note (in italics) followed by a period. General table notes are used to explain abbreviations or
provide additional information. (See pp. 138 – 141 of the APA manual for an explanation of
general, specific, and probability notes, and how to format them.)
A Sample Table
Below I will walk through an example for a simple table of means and standard deviations. These data
come from a survey distributed in Fall 2007 to Psych. 201 students. As part of the survey, students
indicated the number of hours per week they typically engaged in a variety of different activities
(schoolwork, physical activity, socializing, watching TV, extracurricular activities, volunteering, and
working at a job).
First, I need to think about how I want to organize all this information. This is the most important step in
creating a good table. Sketch it out for yourself before beginning. It makes sense to list all the variables
down the left-most column, and then have two more columns next to that one, one for the means and
one for the SDs.
The next page illustrates what the table should look like in APA style. Following it are instructions for
how to create it in Microsoft Word.