A List Of Necessary Components Of An APA Research Paper

The American Psychological Association developed a formatting style for students to follow when writing papers. The idea is to make a set format that all students can use. It will make it so that all of the papers look the same so that they can be easily read and so that they can’t be graded on the style of the paper but rather the content.

When you are writing a research paper, you have to make sure that you follow the proper format because you don’t want to lose unnecessary points for putting the title of your paper in the wrong place of for using the wrong font. Here are the most important components of an APA formatted research paper.

Page Format

You will use standard paper and have a one inch margin on all sides. The font that you will use should be Arial or Times New Roman with a font size of twelve. The paper should be double spaced as well. You will also include a header on each page. An abridged version of the title should be flush left and the page number should be flush right.

Title Page

On the title page, you will have the title, your name, the name of your school, the name of your instructor, the name of the class, and the date in the exact center of the page. It will be double spaced and may be in a different order. Contact your administrator to see exactly what they want on the title page.

Paper

The text of your paper will be double spaced and each paragraph will be indented. It needs to start on the second page and not be on the same page as the title or reference.

Reference Page

Starting on a new page after the text of the paper, you will cite your sources. The word references will be in the center of the paper. The sources should be double spaced with the second and subsequent lines indented. They should also be in alphabetical order.

You will have to cite sources in a specific way. Some resource libraries will give you the reference citations in the right format. The in-text citations should be the author’s last name or names and then the date of publication in parentheses. This is the main one but there is specific information if there isn’t an author.