In high school style formatting was not the order of the day. During that stage, essay writing is all about putting your ideas down and submitting it. But as students continue to advance, style formatting becomes very important. At college, students are required to format their essays before submitting. You will not miss to see an instruction that talks about the formatting style of the paper. One of the most recommended and use is the APA formatting style.
APA style paper format
American psychology association is commonly used when citing of scientific sources. Therefore anytime you are assigned a research paper, chances are you will use an APA style formatting. At times, students fail to read the instructions clearly. This makes them get poor grades. However there are some who will read the instructions but fail to follow clear guidelines and rules of a type of a formatting style.apa writing style is always challenging especially for students who are used to simply free writing a paper. Once they enroll in colleges, understanding the APA style format becomes a pain in the neck. But this is only for students who undertake scientific courses.
If you plan to pursue scientific courses, its better you begin to capture the simple details that have to do with an APA style format. Once you capture the rules and guidelines, it becomes simpler to write your research paper.
Here are some of the basics that you need to know.
An APA style paper format mainly focuses on the manner of presentation of a paper. Its structure is unique and different and your professor will easily tell if you have followed rules and guidelines. There are specific sections that you must pay attention to when using APA writing style. Check the sections below.
Title page
Abstract
The main body
Reference pages
In-text citations
Title page
This is the first page your professor will come in contact with. Your title page must contain a running head, title, author name and school affiliation. Do not forget to format your title page once you are done including all this elements.
Abstract
An abstract is a brief summary of your research paper. According to the APA format style, your abstract should be 150 to 250 words. Any excess of words might lead to reduction of a mark. Make your abstract as short as possible and relevant. If you need to expound on details, do so in the main body section.
Reference page
This is the last page of your research or any scientific paper. It contains the order of the sources you have used when doing your research. This is the section that you will cite your sources in alphabetical orders. Its therefore one of the tedious sections you will have to engage yourself in. Format it last to make sure you make no mistakes.
Once you are able to capture these small details, it becomes easy to write your own paper. Collect as a much APA style papers to learn how writers format an essay. It just becomes easy when you learn to do it on your own.