When students arrive at college or university, they often are baffled by some of the new requirements they find instructors asking of them. One of the most confusing comes when instructors start throwing around terms like “MLA,” “APA,” and “Chicago” while asking students to understand how to write their papers in these strange, foreign styles. Indeed, most students arrive on campus without knowing that there are different ways to format an essay, term paper or research project. One of the most frequently used essay formats in the modern era is APA, in large measure because it is perceived to be “scientific,” and that makes it seem an appropriate choice for college-level work, which aspires to scientific accuracy.
However, APA format can be a difficult style to master because of its counterintuitive use of punctuation and its unusual author-date format. For many students, academic writing in APA style can be a challenge. Indeed, a large number of students will end up having to pay someone to do the essays they need written because they have difficulty with APA style. Before you contact websites e.g. WriteMyPaperHub looking for an online expert to do research papers and essays for you, ask yourself: “Can I write my paper if I know APA style better?”
In this article, along with professional academic experts and editors we’ll look at the ways to write a paper in APA format so you can begin to feel more comfortable writing in this citation style.
APA Isn’t Just About Citations
APA format covers all of the parts of a paper, not just the reference list. To meet APA requirements, your paper should use a standard font and size, with typical one-inch margins, and have a title. In the past, every essay was required to have an abstract—a one-paragraph summary of the paper that appeared on its own page after the title. However, in the most recent updates to APA format, the requirement for an abstract has been dropped for short student papers, though it remains for long research papers and professional writing.
Know APA Heading Rules
APA style uses a nested series of headings to organize essays. There are specific rules about how headings should appear in APA format. Major headings are centered in boldface. Headings within those sections are boldface and flush left. There are additional rules for lower-level headings depending on how many levels you will need. For most essays, you shouldn’t need more than two levels of heading. Note, though, that the title of the paper is not placed in bold.
The Running Head
A unique feature of APA format is the “running head” that appears at the top of each page. This header is a short form of the paper’s title and appears in ALL CAPS on top left of every page. It is generally three to five words in length. On the top right of each page is the page number. Together these two elements make up the header of the paper and should appear on every page of the paper.
APA In-Text Citations
In-text citations are used to cite sources whenever you quote, paraphrase, or summarize from a source. In APA format, these citations take the form of the author’s last name and the date of publication. The author-date format helps to identify sources quickly and easily. If there is no author, then a source is cited by its title. Do not place a URL in an in-text citation or in place of one. In APA format, the author and date are sufficient for in-text citations except in the case of direct quotations. When quoting a source, you must also provide the page number, which appears after the letter “p.” (if one page) or “pp.” (if two pages or more).
Reference List Basics
In APA format, reference lists are the most important part of the APA experience. Your paper’s resources live in the reference list, and the references need to be formatted in a clear and standardized way in order for future researchers to be able to locate your sources. Most APA resources follow a standard format: the author’s name (last name, first initial), the year of publication, the title of the work, and publication information for that work. For different types of sources, the exact details will differ. For a book, for example, the publication information is the city of publication and the publisher’s name. But for an article, the key information after the article title is the name of the journal in which the article appeared, its volume and issue number, and the page numbers. For an online source, the publication information is the URL where the online piece can be found.
Oddities of APA Reference Lists
While most of the ways APA format lists sources are straightforward, there are some oddities you will need to be aware of. APA does not use first names. Authors’ first names are always abbreviated to initials. APA also capitalizes article titles in an unusual way, in that it doesn’t. APA capitalizes article titles like this sentence, capitalizing only the first word and proper nouns. Another oddity is the way APA lists volume and issue numbers for journals. The volume number is italicized and the issue follows in parentheses. So, if you had an article from vol. 3, issue 4, then it would be listed as 3(4) in the reference list.
All in all, there are more formatting rules, so be sure to check before you cite. You will find plenty of APA formatting tips and helpful guidelines you may find interesting for your paper writing – enjoy them. Meanwhile we wish you good luck with writing a paper in APA citation style!
