Formatting and Citation Style Assistance

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Manual Citation Verification — No Generators

Flawless Formatting
& Citation Style

Expert academic editors correct every citation, margin, heading, and reference entry to the exact requirements of APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, and your institution’s custom guidelines. Manual review—not automated tools.

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18,000+Documents Formatted
6Major Style Guides
100%Manual Verification

What We Correct

  • In-text citation format and placement
  • Reference list / bibliography construction
  • Margins, fonts, line spacing, and indentation
  • Title page, running head, and header format
  • Heading hierarchy (Levels 1–5)
  • Table and figure numbering and captions
  • DOI and URL formatting and verification
  • Appendix labelling and cross-referencing
  • Table of Contents and List of Figures
  • University-specific custom style rules
Choosing Your Style

Citation Style Selection Guide

Different academic disciplines adopt different citation conventions. Using the wrong style—or applying the right style incorrectly—leads to grade penalties, journal rejection, and failed dissertation submissions. Use this guide to confirm which standard applies to your field and document type.

07

APA 7th Edition

Psychology · Sciences · Nursing · Education

The American Psychological Association style is the dominant standard in social and behavioral sciences. The 7th edition (published 2020) introduced significant changes from APA 6 that most programs now require.

  • Author-date in-text citations: (Smith, 2022)
  • Running heads removed for student papers
  • Up to 20 authors listed before et al.
  • DOIs formatted as hyperlinks: https://doi.org/…
  • Five levels of headings with distinct formatting
  • Reference list alphabetized by first author surname
  • Hanging indent of 0.5 inches on reference entries
09

MLA 9th Edition

Literature · Arts · Humanities · Language Studies

The Modern Language Association style dominates literature, language, and humanities disciplines. MLA 9 introduced a container system that accounts for nested sources—critical for citing digital and multimedia works.

  • Author-page in-text citations: (Fitzgerald 152)
  • Works Cited page—not “References” or “Bibliography”
  • Container system for nested sources
  • Author’s last name in page header, not running head
  • No separate title page for most papers
  • Italics for container titles (journal); quotes for article titles
  • URLs and access dates for web sources where available
17

Chicago / Turabian

History · Business · Fine Arts · Social Sciences

The Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) offers two systems. Notes-Bibliography (NB) is used in history and humanities; Author-Date is used in social and natural sciences. Turabian is a student adaptation of Chicago used widely in undergraduate research.

  • Notes-Bibliography: superscript numbers → footnotes
  • Author-Date: (Smith 2022, 45) parenthetical
  • Shortened subsequent footnotes: Ibid. / short form
  • Comprehensive bibliography at end of document
  • Block quotations for passages over 100 words
  • Headline-style capitalization for source titles
  • Publishers listed with city for books published before 1900
IE

IEEE / Vancouver

Engineering · Computer Science · Medicine · Physics

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and Vancouver style both use sequential numeric citations. IEEE is standard for engineering and CS journals and conference papers; Vancouver is the medical and biomedical equivalent used by journals like the BMJ and The Lancet.

  • Numeric in-text citations: [1], [2]–[4]
  • References listed by order of first appearance—not alphabetically
  • Author initials precede surnames
  • Journal names abbreviated per IEEE standard list
  • Volume, issue, page range required for journal articles
  • No punctuation after article title in IEEE
  • Vancouver: superscript numbers ¹ or (1) in-text

Official Reference: American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). APA Publishing. Available at https://apastyle.apa.org/products/publication-manual-7th-edition. This is the authoritative source for all APA 7 rules. Our editors reference this manual—and its accompanying APA Style Blog—when adjudicating ambiguous citation cases for your documents.

Practical Demonstration

Formatting in Action

Annotated examples showing correct in-text citation format, reference entry structure, and key formatting rules for each major style.

In-Text Citation — Parenthetical

Author surname and year in parentheses, separated by a comma. Place before the closing punctuation mark of the sentence.

Sleep deprivation reduces cognitive performance by up to 40% (Smith & Jones, 2023).
In-Text Citation — Narrative

The author’s name is integrated into the sentence; the year follows immediately in parentheses after the name.

Smith and Jones (2023) demonstrated that sleep deprivation reduces cognitive performance by up to 40%.
Reference Entry — Journal Article

Hanging indent (0.5 in). Author surname, initials. (Year). Title in sentence case. Journal Name in Title Case and Italics, Volume(Issue), pages. DOI as hyperlink.

Smith, J. A., & Jones, B. R. (2023). The impact of sleep deprivation on working memory in adults. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 35(4), 112–128. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_01234
Reference Entry — Book

Author surname, initials. (Year). Title in sentence case and italics. Publisher. DOI or URL if available.

Brown, L. K. (2021). Organizational behavior in complex systems (3rd ed.). Harvard Business Press.
Critical APA 7 Layout Rules: 1-inch margins all sides · Double-spaced throughout · Times New Roman 12pt, Calibri 11pt, or Arial 11pt · Student papers: no running head · Professional papers: abbreviated running head in ALL CAPS · Page number top right · Abstract page (Level 1 heading “Abstract”) for papers over 3,000 words.
In-Text Citation

Author surname and page number in parentheses. No comma between author and page number. Placed before the sentence’s closing punctuation.

The green light symbolizes Gatsby’s unattainable ambition (Fitzgerald 152).
Narrative Citation

Author’s name integrated into the sentence. Only the page number appears in parentheses.

As Fitzgerald argues, the green light represents “the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us” (189).
Works Cited — Book

Author surname, first name. Title in Italics. Publisher, Year. Container logic: locate the source within its containers.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Scribner, 1925.
Works Cited — Journal Article

Author. “Article Title in Quotes.” Journal in Italics, vol., no., year, pp. URL or DOI if accessed online.

Rowe, John Carlos. “Closing Time: Temporality and New Historical Fiction.” American Literary History, vol. 32, no. 2, 2020, pp. 201–220. https://doi.org/10.1093/alh/ajaa001
Critical MLA 9 Layout Rules: 1-inch margins all sides · Double-spaced · Times New Roman 12pt · Header: last name + page number (top right) · No separate title page unless required · Works Cited starts on a new page with “Works Cited” centered · Hanging indent 0.5 in on Works Cited entries.
Footnote — First Citation (Full)

Superscript number in text → full citation in footnote at page bottom. Author first name first in footnotes.

The Treaty of Versailles fundamentally restructured European borders.1
1. John Doe, The Aftermath of War: Europe 1918–1925 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020), 45.
Footnote — Subsequent Citation (Short Form)

After the first full footnote, shortened form is used for subsequent citations to the same source.

Post-war migration patterns accelerated urbanization.3
3. Doe, Aftermath of War, 112.
Bibliography — Book

Author surname first. Periods separate elements (unlike footnotes which use commas). Hanging indent.

Doe, John. The Aftermath of War: Europe 1918–1925. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Bibliography — Journal Article

Author surname, first name. “Article Title.” Journal Name Volume, no. Issue (Year): pages. DOI.

Hoffman, Robert. “Nationalism and Economic Policy in Interwar Europe.” Historical Journal 64, no. 3 (2021): 789–815. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X20000412
Critical Chicago NB Rules: 1-inch margins · Single-space footnotes (double between) · 10pt or 12pt serif font · Footnotes separated from text by a 2-inch line · Bibliography on new page · Ibid. acceptable for consecutive citations to same source · Headline-style capitalization in source titles.
In-Text Citation — Parenthetical

Author surname and year in parentheses. Page numbers required for direct quotes. No comma between author and year in most Harvard variants.

Corporate governance failures often precede financial crises (Freeman 2019, p. 78).
In-Text Citation — Narrative

Author’s surname integrated into sentence; year in parentheses immediately after.

Freeman (2019, p. 78) argues that governance failures consistently precede systemic financial instability.
Reference List — Journal Article

Author surname, initial. (Year) ‘Article title in single quotes and sentence case’, Journal Name in Italics, vol., no., pp. DOI.

Freeman, R. E. (2019) ‘Stakeholder theory and corporate governance in financial institutions’, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 158, no. 2, pp. 345–362. doi:10.1007/s10551-017-3695-5.
Reference List — Book

Author surname, initial. (Year) Title in italics. Edition. Place: Publisher.

Johnson, M. P. (2020) Strategic management: theory and practice. 4th edn. London: Sage Publications.
Important Note on Harvard: Unlike APA, MLA, and Chicago, “Harvard” is not a single, unified style with one authoritative manual. Different universities publish their own Harvard variants. Always check your institution’s specific Harvard guide. We follow your provided university handbook precisely.
In-Text Citation — Single

Bracketed number corresponding to the reference list entry. Placed before punctuation. No author or date in text.

Machine learning has transformed natural language processing significantly [3].
In-Text Citation — Multiple / Range

Multiple non-consecutive sources: [1], [3]. Consecutive range: [2]–[5]. Used when multiple sources support the same claim.

Several studies have confirmed this finding [1], [4], [7].

Early research established the baseline [2]–[5].
Reference Entry — Journal Article

Number in brackets. Author initials before surnames. Abbreviated journal name in italics. Volume(Issue): pages. Month Year. DOI.

[1] J. A. Smith and B. R. Jones, “Deep learning for text classification,” IEEE Trans. Neural Netw. Learn. Syst., vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 1523–1536, Apr. 2021, doi: 10.1109/TNNLS.2020.3017330.
Reference Entry — Conference Paper

Author, “Paper title,” in Proceedings Name, City, State, Year, pp.

[4] L. Kumar and R. Patel, “Transformer architectures for low-resource languages,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Acoust. Speech Signal Process., Toronto, ON, Canada, 2021, pp. 7843–7847.
Critical IEEE Rules: References numbered by order of first appearance in text—not alphabetically · Author initials precede surname (reversed from APA/MLA) · Journal names abbreviated per the IEEE abbreviations list · No period after article title · Specific month/year format required · DOI in doi: format (not full URL).
Our Process

The 20-Point Technical Formatting Review

When you upload a document, our editors conduct a structured review covering every component that affects your grade or journal submission outcome. No component is skipped.

Citation-Reference Cross-Check

Every source cited in the text is verified against the reference list. Every reference entry is verified against the text. Orphan citations (cited in text, missing from references) and phantom references (listed but never cited) are both flagged and resolved.

Layout and Margin Precision

Margin settings (1 inch for most styles), font type and size, line spacing (double for APA/MLA, style-dependent for Chicago), and paragraph indentation are all enforced. Page breaks, section breaks, and orphaned headings are corrected.

DOI and URL Verification

All digital object identifiers and hyperlinks are checked for correct format and accessibility. APA 7 requires DOIs as full hyperlinks (https://doi.org/). Broken links are flagged. Retrieved dates are added where required by style rules.

Capitalization Correction

APA 7 uses sentence case for article and book titles but title case for journal names. MLA uses title case for all source titles. Chicago uses headline style. These rules are applied consistently throughout every reference entry—one of the most common errors in auto-generated bibliographies.

Italics and Quotation Mark Placement

Italics apply to container titles (journals, books, websites). Quotation marks apply to source titles nested within containers (articles, chapters, web pages). The distinction is critical and frequently misapplied by students and automated tools alike.

Author Handling

Multi-author rules differ by style. APA 7 requires all authors up to 20, then et al. for 21+. APA 6 used et al. for 6+ authors. Chicago footnotes use first name first; bibliography entries use surname first. IEEE reverses to initials-before-surname. Each case is formatted correctly.

Tables, Figures, and Appendices

Tables are numbered consecutively (Table 1, Table 2) with titles above in APA; figures are numbered with captions below. In MLA, figures follow different conventions. Appendices are labelled (Appendix A, Appendix B) and referenced within the text at first mention.

Heading Hierarchy

APA 7 defines five heading levels with specific bold/italic/indentation combinations. Chicago uses three standard levels. Mismatched or inconsistent heading levels disrupt the logical structure of your argument and trigger committee feedback in dissertations.

Why Not Use Free Citation Generators?

Automated tools like Citation Machine, EasyBib, and Zotero generate an approximation—not a verified citation. They lack editorial judgment and produce predictable error patterns that professional editors catch immediately:

Capitalization Errors

Generators apply title case to article titles in APA (should be sentence case) and miss the journal name distinction. This error appears in virtually every auto-generated APA reference list.

Incorrect Author Truncation

Many tools apply et al. rules inconsistently—triggering it too early, too late, or not at all across different entries in the same reference list, violating style consistency requirements.

Italics and Container Confusion

Tools routinely italicize article titles instead of journal titles, or apply quotation marks to container titles. This inverts the correct visual hierarchy of source elements.

DOI Format Inconsistency

APA 7 requires DOIs as full hyperlinks (https://doi.org/). Many generators still produce the deprecated doi: prefix or omit DOIs for sources that have them.

No Cross-Check Capability

Generators create individual citations; they cannot verify that every in-text citation has a matching reference entry, or vice versa. This cross-check requires a human reading the full document.

The Human Advantage

Our editors verify every entry against the official published style manual—not an algorithm’s interpretation of it.

Accepted File Formats

We accept and return documents in the following formats:

.docx (preferred) Google Docs .pdf (review only) .doc
Style-by-Style Breakdown

Citation Rules in Depth

Each major citation style has rules that extend well beyond basic author-date or author-page formatting. These details determine whether your paper passes or fails a formal style review.

APA 7

APA 7 — Key Rules

The 2020 update introduced the most substantial changes to APA format since the 5th edition. Programs that still require APA 6 receive specific APA 6 treatment on request.

  • Student vs. professional paper distinction in title page and running head rules
  • Sentence case for article, book, and chapter titles in references
  • Title case only for journal, magazine, and newspaper names
  • DOIs formatted as live hyperlinks beginning with https://doi.org/
  • Up to 20 authors listed; 21+ uses first 19, ellipsis, last author
  • No “place of publication” required for books
  • Bias-free language guidelines applied to body text
  • Abstract optional for student papers; required for manuscripts
MLA 9

MLA 9 — Key Rules

MLA 9 (2021) expanded the container system and introduced clearer guidance for citing social media, streaming content, and born-digital sources that MLA 8 left ambiguous.

  • Container system: source sits within a container (journal, website, anthology)
  • Author-page format: no comma between name and page
  • Works Cited (not “References” or “Bibliography”)
  • Title case for all source titles
  • Location information (publisher city) omitted for most sources
  • Access dates for web sources only when content changes or has no stable date
  • No period after URL or DOI at end of Works Cited entry
  • Translator and editor included as optional elements when relevant
Chicago 17

Chicago 17 — Key Rules

Chicago 17 (2017) governs both Notes-Bibliography (humanities) and Author-Date (sciences) systems. Using the wrong system for your discipline is a significant error.

  • NB system: footnotes at bottom of page; bibliography at end
  • Author-Date: parenthetical (Smith 2022, 45) with reference list
  • Ibid. now discouraged in digital publications; short form preferred
  • Headline-style capitalization for all titles in NB; sentence case in AD
  • Publisher city required for books published before 1900 only
  • Block quotations for prose over 100 words; poetry over 2 lines
  • Footnotes numbered consecutively across the full document
  • Bibliography entries differ from footnotes in punctuation and author name order
Harvard

Harvard — Key Rules

Harvard is not a single standard. Different universities and publishers have issued their own variants. We match your institution’s specific version—not a generic Harvard approximation.

  • Author-date system: (surname year, p. page)
  • Reference list alphabetized by author surname
  • Publication year in parentheses after author name in references
  • Article titles in single quotation marks (most variants)
  • Journal and book titles in italics
  • Volume(issue) format varies by institutional variant
  • Edition information required for all books beyond 1st edition
  • University-specific style guide takes precedence over generic Harvard rules
IEEE

IEEE — Key Rules

IEEE style is used for journal articles, conference papers, and theses in engineering and computer science. The IEEE Editorial Style Manual is the authoritative source—not third-party interpretations.

  • Numeric citation by order of appearance—not alphabetical
  • Author initials precede surname: J. A. Smith
  • Journal names abbreviated per the IEEE journal abbreviations list
  • Article titles not italicized; journal names italicized
  • Volume number italicized; issue number in parentheses—not italicized
  • Month and year of publication required for journal articles
  • DOIs in doi: format within the reference entry
  • Conference paper: city, state/country, year, page range all required
Vancouver

Vancouver — Key Rules

Vancouver style is used in medicine and biomedical sciences. It is the format standard for journals indexed in PubMed and most major biomedical publishers including the BMJ and NEJM.

  • Superscript numbers ¹ or bracketed numbers (1) in text
  • References listed in order of first appearance
  • Journal names abbreviated per NLM abbreviations
  • Author surnames followed by initials without periods
  • Up to 6 authors listed; 7+ adds et al.
  • Year, volume(issue): pages format for journals
  • PMID or PubMed Central ID included where available
  • No italics or bold in reference entries

Style Authority Reference: Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). (2023). Research and Citation Resources. Purdue University. Retrieved from https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/resources.html. Purdue OWL is widely recognized as the most comprehensive freely available academic reference for APA, MLA, Chicago, and other citation styles. Our editors cross-reference official style manuals with OWL guidance to resolve edge cases and unusual source types not covered in primary style manual examples.

Institutional Requirements

University-Specific & Custom Style Guidelines

Most graduate programs do not use a standard style unchanged. They modify it. Dissertation offices, departments, and journals all impose additional rules that override the standard guide’s defaults. We apply your institution’s specific requirements precisely.

1

Upload Your Guide

Attach your university’s graduate handbook, departmental style guide, or target journal’s author instructions directly to the order form. Our editors review the full document before beginning work—not a summary of it.

2

Custom Rule Mapping

A senior editor identifies every deviation your institution requires from the standard style: unique heading formats, custom margin sizes, modified title page requirements, specific font requirements, or non-standard block quotation thresholds.

3

Precise Application

Custom rules are applied throughout the document with standard style rules as the baseline. Where institutional rules and standard rules conflict, institutional rules take precedence. A formatting note is included with delivery documenting all custom rules applied.

Dissertation and Thesis Formatting

Graduate dissertations and master’s theses require formatting well beyond citation correction. We handle the complete document structure: Table of Contents (auto-generated with correct page numbers), List of Figures, List of Tables, List of Abbreviations, chapter breaks, section numbering, front matter, and back matter formatting—all aligned to your graduate school’s submission requirements. Electronic submission formatting (PDF/A compliance, bookmark generation) is also available.

Journal Submission Formatting

Academic journals impose specific author guidelines that differ significantly from the underlying style standard. Elsevier, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, and SAGE journals all have house styles that modify base APA, Chicago, or Vancouver rules. We format manuscripts to the specific journal’s requirements—author biography format, abstract word count, keyword structure, figure resolution requirements, and reference formatting—to maximize compliance on first submission.

Style Conversion

Need to convert a paper from APA to Chicago because you are submitting to a history journal after previously submitting to a psychology journal? We convert the entire citation apparatus—in-text citations, reference list format, heading style, and layout—from one style to another. This is substantially more complex than formatting from scratch and requires full manual review of every citation element.

Reference List Construction from Raw Sources

Submit a rough list of sources—URLs, DOIs, author names, book titles in any format—and we construct a complete, correctly formatted reference list. We identify source types (journal article, book chapter, report, dataset, software, grey literature), locate missing publication data, and produce a finished bibliography ready for direct insertion into your document.

Why Choose Us

What Sets Our Service Apart

Manual Review Only

Every citation is reviewed and corrected by a human editor—no automated tools. We verify your formatting against the official published style manual, not an algorithm.

Official Manual Access

Our editors have current editions of all major style manuals. When rules are ambiguous, we check the official source—not a summary guide.

Free Post-Delivery Corrections

If your instructor or committee identifies a formatting error in work we completed, we correct it at no additional charge within the revision window.

Rush Delivery Available

Standard essays returned in 6–12 hours. Rush delivery in 3–6 hours for papers under 20 pages. Dissertations require 24–48 hours minimum for thorough review.

Transparent Pricing

Standard formatting starting at $10 per page. Final price confirmed at order based on document complexity and deadline. No hidden charges.

First Order −10% Free Revision Window Style Guide Included Formatting Note Provided
The Team

Our Formatting Specialists

Editors with discipline-specific expertise in the style guides used in their fields. You are matched to a specialist familiar with the citation conventions of your academic area.

Simon Njeri, APA and MLA Formatting Specialist

Simon Njeri

APA 7 & MLA 9 Specialist

Senior editor with 8+ years formatting social science and humanities papers. Expert in APA 6-to-7 conversion, complex multi-author entries, and dissertation front matter for psychology and education programs.

1,800+Documents
4.9★Rating
Zacchaeus Kiragu, Chicago and Turabian Formatting Specialist

Zacchaeus Kiragu

Chicago 17 & Turabian

History scholar with a graduate degree in historical research. Specialist in Notes-Bibliography footnote management, ibid./short-form rules, and Chicago Author-Date for social science journals. Handles complex multi-volume works and archival sources.

1,200+Documents
4.9★Rating
Dr. Julia Muthoni, IEEE and Scientific Formatting Specialist

Dr. Julia Muthoni

IEEE & Vancouver / Scientific

PhD in engineering. Expert in IEEE journal and conference paper formatting, journal name abbreviation lists, and Vancouver citation for biomedical manuscripts. Handles LaTeX-to-Word conversions and figure/table formatting for technical papers.

980+Documents
5.0★Rating
AN

Dr. Alice Nderitu

Harvard & Institutional Styles

Master’s in information science. Specializes in Harvard variants across UK, Australian, and African institutions, as well as journal-specific house styles for Elsevier and Sage. Expert in dissertation formatting for universities with non-standard margin and heading requirements.

760+Documents
4.8★Rating
RO

Richard Ochieng

Dissertation & Thesis Layout

Formatting specialist focused on graduate-level document structure. Handles Table of Contents generation, List of Figures, front matter sequencing, and graduate school submission compliance for both electronic (PDF/A) and print formats across multiple university systems.

640+Documents
4.9★Rating
CM

Caroline Mukami

Style Conversion & Reference Lists

Expert in cross-style conversion projects (APA → Chicago, MLA → Harvard) and construction of reference lists from raw source data. Handles grey literature, government reports, datasets, and software citations—source types that standard style guides cover inadequately.

520+Documents
4.8★Rating
Client Outcomes

What Our Clients Report

4.9 / 5.0Trustpilot
5.0 / 5.0Sitejabber
18,000+Papers Formatted
★★★★★

“I submitted my dissertation to the graduate office three times and it was rejected for formatting each time—different issues every round. Simon went through my entire 280-page document and produced a checklist of every error before touching a single reference. The fourth submission was approved without comment.”

PK
Patricia K.PhD Candidate, Educational Psychology
★★★★★

“I had 94 references in a mixture of APA 6 and APA 7 format because I had added sources over two years of writing. Every entry was different from the next. The team standardized everything to APA 7 and caught 17 in-text citations that had no matching reference entry. I had no idea those were missing.”

MJ
Marcus J.Master’s Student, Clinical Psychology
★★★★★

“I was converting a conference paper to a journal article submission and needed to switch from IEEE to Vancouver. Caroline handled the full conversion in 18 hours. The journal’s copy editor confirmed on acceptance that the references were clean—which apparently is rare.”

TN
Taiwo N.Biomedical Researcher, University of Lagos
★★★★★

“My university uses a modified Harvard format with specific rules for South African legal sources that aren’t covered in any standard guide. I uploaded our faculty handbook and the team followed every rule precisely—including citing legislation in a format I had never been able to get right from the handbook alone.”

SL
Sipho L.LLM Student, University of Cape Town
Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I submit my paper for formatting? +

Click “Format My Paper” to access the order form. Upload your document (.docx preferred) along with any style guide, university handbook, or journal author instructions. Specify your required citation style and deadline. If you have specific requirements not covered by the form, add them in the instructions field.

We accept: Microsoft Word (.docx, .doc), Google Docs (shared link), and PDF (for review—editing requires a Word file). All formatted documents are delivered as .docx.

Do you use automated citation generators? +

No. All citations are manually formatted and verified by a human editor against the official published style manual. Automated generators produce consistent, predictable errors—particularly in capitalization, author handling, DOI formatting, and the distinction between italicized and quoted titles. These errors are immediately visible to academic markers and journal reviewers.

Our editors have current editions of the APA Publication Manual, MLA Handbook, Chicago Manual of Style, and IEEE Editorial Style Manual. Ambiguous cases are resolved by checking the primary source—not a third-party summary.

Can you format a dissertation or thesis? +

Yes. Dissertation and thesis formatting is one of our core services. We handle the full document structure including:

  • Table of Contents with auto-generated page numbers
  • List of Figures and List of Tables
  • List of Abbreviations or Glossary
  • Title page, abstract page, dedication, and acknowledgements formatting
  • Chapter breaks, section numbering, and appendix labelling
  • University-specific margin, font, and heading requirements
  • Front matter (preliminary pages) and back matter sequencing
  • Citation and reference list formatting throughout all chapters

Dissertation formatting requires 24–48 hours minimum. We recommend submitting at least 72 hours before your graduate office deadline.

What is the difference between APA 6 and APA 7? +

APA 7 (published October 2019) introduced the following key changes from APA 6:

  • Running heads removed for student papers; retained only for manuscripts submitted for publication
  • Up to 20 authors now listed before et al. (APA 6 used et al. after 6 authors)
  • DOIs formatted as live hyperlinks (https://doi.org/…) rather than the old “doi:” prefix
  • No publisher location required for books
  • Distinction between student papers and professional/manuscript papers for title page requirements
  • Expanded font options: Times New Roman 12pt, Calibri 11pt, Arial 11pt, Lucida Sans Unicode 10pt, Georgia 11pt
  • Singular “they” accepted as a generic third-person pronoun

We apply APA 7 by default. If your program still requires APA 6, specify this in your order instructions.

Can you fix a messy reference list or bibliography? +

Yes. Submit your disorganized list—URLs, DOIs, rough author-title combinations, notes from a Word document—and we construct a fully formatted, alphabetized (or numerically ordered for IEEE/Vancouver) reference list. We identify each source type, locate missing publication data where possible, and produce entries ready for direct insertion into your document.

For sources where critical publication information is genuinely unavailable, we flag the entry and note what data is missing rather than fabricating details. You can then supply the missing information or ask us to omit the entry.

Do you support university-specific formatting rules? +

Yes. Upload your institution’s graduate handbook, department style guide, or faculty formatting requirements alongside your document. We read the full guide before beginning work and apply every institutional requirement precisely.

Common institutional deviations we handle include: custom margin sizes (e.g., 1.5-inch left margin for binding), specific font requirements beyond standard style guide defaults, non-standard heading formats, unique title page elements, and faculty-specific modifications to citation rules for legal, theological, or medical sources.

Where institutional rules conflict with base style guide rules, the institutional rules take precedence. We document all deviations applied in the formatting note delivered with your document.

Are tables, figures, and appendices included in the formatting service? +

Yes. Tables and figures are formatted according to your specified style guide’s rules:

  • APA: Table number and title above the table (bold, title case); Figure number and caption below (italicized note)
  • MLA: “Fig.” abbreviation followed by sequential number; caption below
  • Chicago: Tables numbered separately from figures; table titles above; figure captions below with specific punctuation rules

Appendices are labelled (Appendix A, Appendix B or Appendix I, II) and cross-referenced within the main text at first mention. For dissertations, a List of Tables and List of Figures is generated as part of the front matter package.

What turnaround time do you offer? +

Turnaround depends on document length and complexity:

  • Short essays (under 15 pages): 6–12 hours standard; 3–6 hours rush
  • Research papers and reports (15–40 pages): 12–24 hours
  • Dissertations and theses (40–300+ pages): 24–72 hours depending on scope
  • Reference list construction only: 6–12 hours regardless of length

Rush delivery is available for an additional charge. For dissertations, we strongly recommend at least 72 hours lead time before your graduate office submission deadline. Formatting complex multi-chapter documents correctly cannot be reliably compressed below 24 hours without quality risk.

Manual Review — No Generators

Submit with Confidence

Every citation verified. Every margin correct. Every reference cross-checked. Professional formatting that holds up to committee and journal review.

18,000+Documents Formatted
6Major Style Guides
100%Manual Verification
6hrMin Turnaround
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