A Step-By-Step Tutorial on Creating an APA Term Paper
APA is a type of writing style formulated by the American Psychological Association. It is widely employed in graduate schools and colleges as the standard style for writing essays that involve experiments or studies. The APA format is mostly used in social science courses like psychology, human health, sociology, political science, economics, geography, history, among other disciplines. If your course instructor asks you to write a research paper in APA format, follow these guidelines to avoid term paper revisions.
- The left margin of the research paper should be set at ½ an inch. Also it should have an indentation of ½ an inch. For the font, use Times New Roman and double space your work. Every page should be numbered – the page number ought to appear at the top right corner.
- Use a page header. Every page of your essay should have a header. The title of the paper ought to appear at the top left side of your paper, and it should be in capital letters. You can shorten the title of your paper and use it as the running header.
- Your paper should bear the following structure: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Findings, Discussion, Works Cited (References) and then Appendices.
- Make sure your term paper has a title page. The title page should feature the title of the paper in proper title case – every word must be capitalized excluding words like but, nor, in, of, an, a, with, at, for, from and to. In case these words appear first in your title, capitalize them as well. Just beneath the title, include your name as well as that of your institution.
- On a new page, write an abstract for your paper. Basically, this is a short summary of what your term paper entails – it should be between 150 and 250 words. Before you write your summary, write the word “Abstract” and center it. The text should not be indented.
- Every paragraph in the body of your text should be indented.
- Include citations in the body of your paper. Every time you paraphrase, quote or borrow an idea from a different source, the writer is expected to cite the author as well as their reference year.
- Once you have written the main body, cite the sources of your work on a separate page. Type at the top of the page the word “References” and center it. All your references should follow an alphabetical order. Indent every other line of the sources except for the first line.
Research Guides
- Where to buy research papers
- Paper topics on history
- APA format term paper
- Psychology paper topics
- Topics for school research papers
- Title page formatting
- Research paper in APA writing format
- Research paper discussion formatting
- Free research paper samples
- An outline for your paper
- How to write a term paper