What You Should Know about APA Style
Formatting every page of your essay in APA style is a real challenge as it demands more rules to follow than MLA. The American Psychological Association has established this paper format for English-speaking students who study in-depth such sciences like psychology, social sciences, and healthcare & medicine. Thus, APA is mostly used in English college writing.
Technically, we cannot say that Bibliography is the same as APA References Page. However, they look pretty much the same, and they are both used for the same purpose: to tell the reader about the applied resources.
Here are some links to more study materials on how to write an A+ research paper and how do my essay.
Goals of Formatting Texts in APA Style
According to the official American Psychological Association guide in APA format, it is used to:
- Organize information in a visually attractive manner
- Provide a uniform standard of every section of the academic paper
- Ensure clear presentation of essays or research papers
- Help make sure that the sources are cited according to the academic guidelines
- Add in-text citations properly
- Find and use evidence to defend thesis
- Avoid plagiarism
As a rule, English students apply APA writing style to format research and term papers. If they have to choose a writing style to format dissertation, they would rather choose Chicago or Harvard. Their guides are even more complex to read and understand.
Thanks to the technological progress, it is not that hard to cite a page in APA writing style. Besides, students can always download and use free examples/samples of other papers in English done in APA style. Still, you should try to memorize this general information on how to format a page in APA style before getting to work.
Elements to Be Included When Citing in APA
Since 1929, the authors of famous scientific publications used APA writing style to format each page of their research papers carefully. It helped to develop an accurate structure and flow of thoughts. That is why we can enjoy the information from such resources today. The first manual was suggested by the team of known psychologists, anthropologists, and business managers. Thus, Business Administration program often demands its students to follow the guide proposed by the American Psychological Association as well. When a writer wants to ass in-text citation or make a reference, he should simply follow an easy set of procedures offered by the American Psychological Association. It simplifies the process of reading comprehension and distinguishes the authors who have once established helpful scientific resources.
There are many links on the web you can consult to get more details about the American Psychological Association. You can consult this article to find out what the basic elements of APA writing style are.
- Type of headings, tone of writing, and length of pages/paragraphs;
- Punctuation and abbreviations;
- Presentation of page numbers;
- Facts and statistics;
- Extra material like tables and figures;
- In-text citations and references page; and
- many other elements.
Type in Your References Page Manually
The first way to prepare your research paper for printing and further publication is to format all pages in APA style manually. It might take a plenty of time, but all good students need to learn the entire guidelines by heart for future examinations which require applicants to write an essay. Also, if you study the entire APA style guide once, you will save a lot of time on your future assignments.
With the help of some examples and this short manual, you may do it quickly. So, if you write a research paper on social sciences, try to use this table as your manual:
| Paper size | Standard Word Page |
| Margins | 1” on all sides (top, bottom, left, right) |
| Font and size of the text | Times New Roman or Arial, 12-pt size |
| Double-spaced | Yes |
| Alignment | Flush left and uneven right margin |
| Paragraph allocation | Up to 7 spaces |
| Line ending | Make a single space after a punctuation mark like period |
| Page number | Place the page number on every page in the upper right margin. Include five spaces from the page’s top, flushed with the right margin. Running head is for your title page only, place it ½” to the left of the page’s number. |
| Title page | Use upper and lower case below to write down:
|
| Extra information | Find more information by these links to Purdue Online Writing Lab Center |
Major Rules of Creating a Reference
The information on every used/cited source must begin with the author’s last name and first name initial. Add a comma to divide his full name into separate parts. Put a period after the author’s name. An ampersand is used when there is more than one author of the source. In the case of more than 7 writers, use ellipses between the 6th and the last author.
The publication date then goes into parentheticals. Put a period after. The full title of the source where you took in-text citation from then goes in italics, without letter capitalization. Name the city of publication, publisher, and number or issue (if available). Finally, list the pages with the used citations.
Here are a couple of references in APA style examples with one or no author’s name:
Eurovision in Ukraine: Controversy over Russian entry. (2017). BBC News. Retrieved
on March 13 from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39254404
Frolov, V. (2017). Russia Reveals Eurovision 2017 Entry. The Moscow Times. Retrieved
on March 13 from https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-reveals-eurovision-2017-
entry-57398
These guidelines from The American Psychological Association will help every student to cite in-text citations and create references in APA writing style. If you still have any questions on how to find the proper sources or format your paper in any other style, you can count on fast and quality help from the online writing center. Place your order by including all information on your teacher’s requirements, and a team of qualified academic writers who used to graduate from the best English-speaking colleges of the world will solve your issue for cheap!
