Help me! Dear Wordy, Counting the number of words in an APA Style paper is easy: Count all the words in the entire paper to get the total word count. That includes the title page, abstract, main text, quotations, headings, citations, footnotes, reference list, tables, figure captions, and appendices—everything.

Does the abstract count as a page in APA?

The abstract is the second page of a lab report or APA-format paper and should immediately follow the title page. Think of an abstract as a highly condensed summary of your entire paper.

Is the abstract included in the word count of a paper?

No, references and the abstract title are not counted in the word count.