Another semester has closed and the reviews are in. As always, I had one student who rails on their hatred of APA formatting and one student who loved it.

OK, maybe not loved it, but mentioned that it made a positive impact on their journey.

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The goal of this post is to help provide some context on why I take points off of papers for poor APA formatting1This is not some form of academic revenge from my doctoral program. My own quarrels with APA started with professors giving us templates and then taking off points for following the templates (because the templates were flawed). That was pretty mean, but I worked my way through that (so much so that four of us who stuck together for those years earned a nickname among professors). So no, this is not me getting even.. If you are one of my current students reading this, please take some notes. I make APA 7th Ed. an optional text because there are freely available resources you can use to learn what you need to do. You should also use the services of the writing coach provided by the university and watch my video linked below.

If you are a former student who despised APA and thought your grade unfairly reflected your effort, I hope this helps to clarify why it’s important.

The vast majority of the points that come off are due to citations and references in their presence, formatting, and accuracy. Proper citations clearly show which work is original and which work belongs to others. More importantly, it allows readers to find the cited source materials that interest them and read those as well2See the notes on Secondary Sources for one reason why this happens..

Academic dishonesty is a massive problem these days. I spend time every semester talking plagiarism before the first assignment is due. Yet every semester I have a student submit someone else’s work as their own. Proper APA formatting around citations removes this problem by clearly highlighting your work in contrast with someone else’s3Quick side note, copying a paragraph and changing a few words is still plagiarism, and we’re pretty good at sniffing that out. Don’t do it..

I’d like you to consider a scenario. You are a cybersecurity professional who is tasked with creating a report or document that will be consumed by upper management. Your firm has a standard template and rules about how their branding should be represented4Virtually every company has this, you just need to look for it. Check your Marketing group if you need a place to start.. You follow that so it looks polished. You make sure there are no typos, no mistakes, and it looks as professional as possible because your name is on it, right? You wouldn’t take a report you downloaded from the internet, change the logo, and submit it as your own (I hope). That’s certainly a career limiting move once you are discovered, even if the content is relevant.

A massive part of your effectiveness as a knowledge worker is rooted in how you present yourself and your ideas. I’ve seen great ideas fall flat because they were presented in such a haphazard way that they were dismissed. I’ve seen reports from prominent consulting firms in such a state of disarray (multiple fonts, multiple font sizes or styles, inconsistent spacing) that it made me cringe to think how much the firm spent on the work. APA is the format du jour at the university, and learning it will help you conform to other style guides in the future.

But before you dismiss this as just someone being overly critical about formatting (is that even possible 🤣), let’s not forget that we are cybersecurity professionals! Literally every day your job includes tasks that support conforming to standards. Things like PCI DSS, NERC CIP, ISO 27K, or NIST CSF require you to demonstrate that you are conforming to their respective authors’ rules on how they think things ought to be. Conforming your writing to a standard is no different, but it certainly is easier.

Before you leave, I have some tips for you (and a short video):

  • Use a template to start! I found this one.
  • Cite every source, and cite it properly. You need an inline citation near the content in question, and a properly formatted and ordered reference list (not footnotes). Look at APA 7th Ed., chapters 8-10 for the details. You can use this guide as a reference as well.
  • Try to paraphrase your sources instead of directly quoting. Sometimes you do need direct quotes, so make sure those are enclosed in quotation marks and cited properly.
  • Always go to the primary source. Do not use secondary sources or cite references you have not read.
  • Pay attention to margins (1″ all the way around), spacing (double), section headings, captions, headers, and footers.
  • Use one font, one font size, and one font style for the content throughout the entire paper.
  • Use the Oxford/serial Comma.
This post originally appeared on BrandenWilliams.com.

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  • 1
    This is not some form of academic revenge from my doctoral program. My own quarrels with APA started with professors giving us templates and then taking off points for following the templates (because the templates were flawed). That was pretty mean, but I worked my way through that (so much so that four of us who stuck together for those years earned a nickname among professors). So no, this is not me getting even.
  • 2
    See the notes on Secondary Sources for one reason why this happens.
  • 3
    Quick side note, copying a paragraph and changing a few words is still plagiarism, and we’re pretty good at sniffing that out. Don’t do it.
  • 4
    Virtually every company has this, you just need to look for it. Check your Marketing group if you need a place to start.