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APA Essay Format: Writing Features

APA is an abbreviation of the American Psychological Association. However, it is primarily about the fact that this is a standard that is used when writing scientific papers in various subjects. The only thing that unites all these subjects is that they belong to social sciences.

Just imagine how convenient it is when all abstracts and research papers are written according to one standard that was adopted for the entire scientific community. The most common works in APA-style are written in the following subjects:

  • Sociology;
  • Psychology;
  • Education;
  • Political science;
  • Business and other disciplines.

Moreover, this style differs from other formats in its requirements regarding:

  • Paper volume;
  • Font;
  • Field borders and headers;
  • Ways to cite information sources;
  • Indication of references to information sources.

Studying this format is an incredibly useful skill which needs to be mastered by all students who study in the humanities.

What is APA format

Unification of all the basic parameters of writing a scientific work allows scientists from all over the world to know exactly not only the structure of the work but also how to navigate the information sources indicated in the paper. For this, the American Psychological Association has published all the standards for this formatting. Now everyone can get acquainted with these standards and accordingly have information on paper formatting.

Features of writing a cover page

Unlike other formatting styles, the APA format necessarily requires the creation of a cover page for an essay. Most often, the cover page contains the following standard information parameters:

  • Article title;
  • Student name;
  • Professor Name;
  • Course name;
  • Training period.

Another distinctive feature of the cover page in this style is the indication of the page number as well as two options for the title of the work. In the beginning, a short title is indicated, followed by the full title.

Writing annotations

An abstract is a separate paragraph and takes approximately half a page in volume. The abstract should be written on a separate page and indicate general information about the scientific article that is being studied. Moreover, an annotation has the exact same copyright as an article in whole. The abstract consists of the following types of information:

  • Key work ideas;
  • Research results;
  • Research methodology.

APA-style page formatting

Basically, when it comes to page formatting in this style, we are talking about:

  • Pagination;
  • Field boundaries;
  • Indentation and Intervals.

Moreover, in no case should one deviate from these standards. The fact is that even the slightest violations entail a negative assessment by the teaching staff or the scientific community. Therefore, after writing your work, additionally, check that each page of our text corresponds to the specified format parameters.

Creating text links

If you are a student, then knowing how to format links according to this style is one of the main parameters that you need to know by heart. The fact is that when writing academic papers, you will have to quote various scientists or information from public sources.

Thus, each of the quotes or ideas that you voiced in your work should have the correct link parameters. Remember that an author of the work and a year of publication must be indicated in parentheses. Besides, you will also need to show the page number from which the information was taken. Thus, readers who will analyze your work will be able to easily find the source of information that you indicated for further study.

Features creating headers

It goes without saying that creating headings is not a big deal when it comes to essays. However, at the end of your studies at the university, in any case, you will have to write a research paper or dissertation in the APA format. It is then that we are talking about the correct use of headings to classify work sections. In other words, we will have to use completely different heading styles for the parts and subsequent sections.