Research Paper Formatting: APA, MLA & UGC Style Guide for Indian Students (2025)

Formatting a research paper correctly is one of the most underestimated challenges in academic writing. Indian students submitting to international journals, completing PhD theses, or writing for UGC-Care listed publications often discover formatting requirements only at the submission stage — and fixing them under deadline pressure is one of the most avoidable sources of delay. This guide walks through the step-by-step process of formatting a research paper correctly for APA 7th edition, MLA 9th edition, and UGC-aligned journal submissions, covering everything from page setup to citation style, heading hierarchy, and reference list formatting.

Contents

• What You Need Before You Start
• Step-by-Step: How to Format a Research Paper
• Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
• What to Do If Something Goes Wrong
• Conclusion

What You Need Before You Start

Before you apply any formatting style, you need three things: a confirmed style guide, your institution or journal’s specific submission guidelines, and a fully written draft. Applying formatting to an unfinished draft wastes time because structural changes during revision often break formatting — headings change, paragraphs move, and reference lists grow.

Identify your required style guide. The most common formats in Indian academic contexts are:

• APA 7th edition — used in social sciences, education, psychology, nursing, and many interdisciplinary fields. Required by most international journals in these disciplines and widely accepted by Indian universities for postgraduate research.
• MLA 9th edition — used in humanities, literature, linguistics, and language arts. Mandated by many Indian English departments and humanities journals.
• UGC-Care journal guidelines — journals listed in the UGC Care List have individual style guides. These vary by journal. Always download the specific “author guidelines” or “submission instructions” from the target journal’s website, not a generic UGC template.
• University thesis format — most Indian universities have a separate, institution-specific format for PhD and MPhil theses. This is usually available from the research office or on the university’s academic affairs website. Thesis format takes precedence over any journal style guide.

Collect the style guide (and any supplementary university guidelines) before you begin. You also need a word processor that supports style-based formatting — Microsoft Word or Google Docs — with a clean, unstyled draft to start from.

Step-by-Step: How to Format a Research Paper

Step 1: Set up your page and document defaults

Page setup is the foundation. Incorrect margins or line spacing affects every subsequent element. For most academic formats:

• Margins: 1 inch (2.54 cm) on all sides for APA 7 and MLA 9. Check your university’s thesis guide — some Indian universities require 1.25 inches on the left to allow for binding.
• Font: APA 7 accepts Times New Roman 12pt, Calibri 11pt, Arial 11pt, or Georgia 11pt. MLA 9 defaults to Times New Roman 12pt. Thesis guides vary — 12pt Times New Roman or Arial is standard at most Indian universities.
• Line spacing: APA 7 requires double spacing throughout the document, including the reference list. MLA 9 also requires double spacing. PhD thesis guidelines vary — many Indian universities require 1.5 spacing for body text and single spacing for block quotations and footnotes.
• Paragraph indentation: APA 7 requires a 0.5-inch (1.27 cm) first-line indent for all paragraphs. MLA 9 uses the same standard. Do not use the Tab key — set this in your paragraph settings to ensure consistency.

Step 2: Build your heading hierarchy

APA 7 uses five heading levels. Most research papers use three or four:

• Level 1: Centred, bold, title case — for major sections (Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Conclusion)
• Level 2: Left-aligned, bold, title case — for sub-sections
• Level 3: Left-aligned, bold italic, title case — for sub-sub-sections
• Level 4: Indented, bold, title case, ends with a period — body text begins on the same line

MLA 9 does not mandate a specific heading system. Most MLA papers use a simple hierarchy — centred bold for major sections, left-aligned bold for sub-sections. Check your target journal’s house style for MLA-based publications.

For PhD theses at Indian universities, the heading hierarchy is usually specified in the university’s thesis formatting guide. The standard pattern is: Chapter titles in all-caps or title case at the top of a new page, numbered section headings (1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1) in bold, and sub-sections in bold italic.

Step 3: Format your in-text citations

In-text citations are where most formatting errors occur, particularly in the transition between citation styles.

APA 7 in-text format: Author-date system. One author: (Smith, 2024). Two authors: (Smith & Jones, 2024). Three or more: (Smith et al., 2024). Direct quotations add a page number: (Smith, 2024, p. 45). Use an ampersand (&) inside parentheses; spell out “and” in running text: “Smith and Jones (2024) found that…”

MLA 9 in-text format: Author-page system, no date in the citation. One author: (Smith 45). Two authors: (Smith and Jones 45). Three or more: (Smith et al. 45). No comma between author and page number. The date appears only in the Works Cited list, not in the in-text citation.

For reliable guidance on how citations should appear across different formats, see our overview of citation instructions for research papers.

Step 4: Format your reference list or Works Cited

The reference list (APA) or Works Cited (MLA) must be on a new page at the end of the paper, with a centred bold heading. All entries are double-spaced with a hanging indent (second and subsequent lines indented 0.5 inches).

APA 7 journal article format:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article in sentence case. Journal Title in Title Case and Italics, Volume(Issue), Page–Page. https://doi.org/xxxxx

MLA 9 journal article format:
Author, First Name. “Title of Article in Title Case.” Journal Name, vol. #, no. #, Year, pp. ##–##. DOI or URL if online.

For UGC-Care journals, download the specific author guidelines from the journal’s website. Most UGC-Care journals follow a variant of APA, MLA, or Vancouver (for biomedical journals), but the exact format — especially for DOI presentation, edition numbering, and institutional affiliation — varies by journal.

Step 5: Add the title page and abstract

APA 7 title page (student version): Paper title (bold, title case, centred, in the top half of the page), author name(s), institutional affiliation, course name and number, instructor name, due date. No running head is required for student papers in APA 7 — this changed from APA 6, where all papers required a running head.

MLA 9 title page: MLA 9 does not require a separate title page for most papers. Instead, a header in the top-left corner of page 1 contains: Student Name, Instructor Name, Course Name, Date (day month year format). The title is centred below this header, not bold. Page numbers appear in the top-right with the student’s last name (e.g., Smith 1).

PhD thesis title page: Follow your university’s thesis guide exactly. Indian universities typically require: title in all capitals, student name, registration number, department name, university name, degree awarded, and submission year — all on a single page with the university emblem, if specified.

For an abstract, APA 7 requires 150–250 words on a separate page labelled “Abstract” (centred bold), not indented. MLA 9 does not require an abstract unless specified by the journal.

Step 6: Check your appendices, tables, and figures

Appendices appear after the reference list. Label each one sequentially (Appendix A, Appendix B) with a bold centred title. Tables and figures are numbered sequentially within the text. In APA 7, the table number and title appear above the table; the figure number and caption appear below the figure. In MLA 9, label tables as “Table 1”, “Table 2” with a caption above, and figures as “Fig. 1”, “Fig. 2” with a caption below.

Step 7: Final consistency check

Before submission, use your word processor’s Find function to check for: inconsistent hyphenation in compound modifiers, mixed citation formats (APA author-date mixed with MLA author-page), unlinked DOIs, incomplete reference entries, and heading capitalisation errors. Run a spell check in the correct dictionary (British English for most Indian academic submissions, or the journal’s specified variety).

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Mistake 1: Mixing citation styles within the same paper

This is the most common error. A paper that begins with APA in-text citations (Smith, 2024) and drifts into MLA-style citations (Smith 45) or Vancouver-style numbered citations ([1]) within the same manuscript will be rejected immediately or returned for revision. Set your citation style in a reference manager (Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote) at the beginning and apply it consistently throughout.

Mistake 2: Using APA 6 formatting rules for APA 7

APA 7th edition (2019) introduced significant changes from APA 6: the running head is no longer required for student papers, the author note format changed, more than two authors are now truncated with “et al.” from the first citation (previously three or more), and up to 20 authors can be listed in references before truncating (previously only six). Many Indian university guides and online resources still reflect APA 6 rules — always use the current edition.

Mistake 3: Incorrect DOI format

APA 7 presents DOIs as hyperlinks in the format https://doi.org/xxxxx — not as “doi:xxxxx” or “DOI: xxxxx”. MLA 9 similarly uses the full URL form. A reference entry with an incorrectly formatted DOI will be flagged during editorial review at any reputable journal.

Mistake 4: Wrong heading capitalisation

APA 7 uses title case for Level 1 and Level 2 headings (Capitalise Major Words) and sentence case for Level 3 headings and article titles in references (Only capitalise first word and proper nouns). MLA 9 uses title case for paper and section titles but sentence case for article titles within the Works Cited list. These rules differ, and confusing them is a frequent source of revision requests.

Mistake 5: Relying on online citation generators without verifying

Automated citation tools — including those built into Word, Google Docs, and various web tools — produce errors more often than they should. Generated citations frequently miss DOIs, incorrectly capitalise titles, or apply outdated style guide versions. Always verify generated citations against the current official style guide before submission. A reference manager like Zotero, kept updated with the current citation styles, is significantly more reliable than one-click web generators.

What to Do If Something Goes Wrong

The most common formatting crises Indian researchers face just before submission fall into three categories: the format guide you followed doesn’t match the journal’s actual requirements, the document’s automatic heading styles are inconsistent, or the reference list is partially formatted in the wrong style after switching citation tools.

Format mismatch after submission

If a journal editor returns your manuscript noting formatting errors, read their author guidelines from scratch rather than trying to patch individual elements. A targeted revision guided by the “submission checklist” in the journal’s guidelines is more reliable than fixing errors one by one from the review comments. Most editors allow a short revision window — typically one to two weeks — for formatting-only corrections before a manuscript is withdrawn from consideration.

Broken heading styles in Word

If your document’s heading styles have become inconsistent — different fonts, sizes, or colours in what should be the same heading level — use Word’s “Find Style” function to locate all headings of a given level, then reset the style using “Apply Matching Style” or by manually reapplying the correct style from the Styles panel. Avoid formatting individual headings with direct formatting (bold, font size changes) — always use Styles.

Mixed reference lists after tool change

If you switched reference managers mid-project and now have some references in one format and some in another, the cleanest solution is to export all references to a single manager, apply the target style globally, and regenerate the entire reference list. Manually patching mixed reference formats reliably takes longer than regenerating from scratch.

If your document formatting requirements are complex — multiple style guides, bilingual sections, tables, or journal-specific template compliance — professional document formatting assistance may be the most time-efficient option. Our document formatting service handles full manuscript formatting to any major or UGC-Care journal style, and our citation formatting service ensures your reference list and in-text citations are error-free across all standard citation styles.

For an introduction to the role citations play in research credibility and how to approach them strategically, see The Role of Citations in Research Writing.

Conclusion

Research paper formatting is a technical skill that takes time to learn, but most formatting errors reduce to a small set of recurring mistakes: mixing citation styles, applying outdated style guide rules, and working without a reference manager. Starting from a confirmed style guide, using a reference manager consistently, and verifying critical formatting elements before submission prevents the most common errors. If formatting complexity exceeds what your timeline allows, professional formatting support is available — but the foundation of any well-formatted paper is still understanding which style guide you are using and why.