APA standards provide structure to essays and make them easy to read. Guidelines include margin settings, required pages, proper citations and references, and general formatting. The essay should be double-spaced, use size 12 font, and be written in the third person.
APA stands for American Psychological Association. Many times, a student will be asked to format an essay according to APA standards. When this happens, there is no reason for the student to fuss or feel overwhelmed. Formatting a document in accordance with these standards provides structure to the document and makes it easy to read and follow. Many people get confused with this type of format, thinking that citations and references are the primary concern; however, there are several guidelines that must be followed to produce a proper APA essay, including margin settings, required page types and sizes, proper citations and references, as well as general formatting.
The first step a person should take when writing an APA essay is to check their margin settings. Computer word processors will have default margins, but that doesn’t always mean they will meet APA guidelines. An APA essay has margins of 1 inch (2.54 centimeters) all around, which means that the top, bottom, right and left margins should all be set to 1 inch (2.54 centimeters). Most computer word processors will allow the user to change the margin settings via the FILE and PAGE SET UP tabs.
An APA essay includes a title page, an abstract page, one or more content pages, and a reference page. Both the title page and the first content page include the title of the document. The paper title page includes the title of the paper, the name of the author or authors who wrote the paper, and most of the time, the name of the school or college where the student is enrolled. All of this information should be centered in the center of the page, both horizontally and vertically. The abstract page begins with the word “Abstract”, in capital letters, which is right aligned to the paper, and the abstract should never be longer than 250 words.
Whenever an APA essay author quotes or paraphrases content within their article, in-text citations and a reference page must be included. Citations in the text are placed after the content being quoted or paraphrased in the following format including parentheses: (surname of the author being quoted or paraphrased, year of its publication). If at any time the author’s name is not available, the student should write the name of the cited or paraphrased article followed by a comma and then “na”, all in parentheses. If the date of the article is not available, write the author’s name followed by a comma and then “nd”, all in brackets.
The last page of an APA essay is always the reference page, which is titled with the word “Reference” in capital letters and aligned left across the page. All authors and articles cited and/or paraphrased throughout the article must appear on the reference page. This allows the card to be fully creditable.
There are many other formatting issues for an APA document. All pages are double-spaced, using size 12 Times New Roman or size 12 Arial font, and should also include a running header, which is typed in all caps, as well as a page number in the upper left corner of each page. The beginning of each paragraph found within the content pages must be indented by no more and no less than five spaces. It is always important for a student to remember to check their paper for grammatical errors, as none should appear in an APA essay. It is also important for a student to remember that the paper should almost always be written in the third person.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
