Problem with APA formating

So I’m having a strange problem with spacing in an APA document. And I am at a complete loss as to what to do. I can’t even create a minimal working example.

I load packages into main.tex with usepackage{import}. I have separate import files for the rest of my packages, my bibliography stuff, and title page. Then I have the main document with separate import files for each section, and sometimes subsections. All very standard stuff.

My first file, which is brought in with import{tex/}{introduction} is contains, text in the format:

section{Introduction}

First paragraph, which includes a % symbol, several ``quoted strings'' a few $ signs and that's it. 

Second paragraph, which includes several & symbols. And only covers three sentences. 

Third paragraph, which has more $ symbols, more ``quoted strings'', another &, and a parencite{ref1,ref2}. 

When compiled it produces output like the following, which is clearly not the the APA document format:

There is no Title, there is no page numbering, there is no short title, etc.
But If I replace my actual text with the code above, which accurately describes the text content, I get the following:

I have no idea where to look to figure out what’s causing this, because even minor changes seem to fix it. It is not any of the special characters as far as I can tell. It is not the references. Does anyone have any ideas?