Another research paper style which you may use is the MLA (Modern Language Association style) writing format. MLA style is preferable when writing materials in Social Sciences and Humanities. This writing format has much in common with APA, but the difference lies in the pagination process. When using MLA, the author’s last name, and not the research paper title, needs to be written beside Topics for the research paper are not easy to find since there are different fields that have been already exhausted from the beginning of the year, but you can always go for an area of interest. In order to choose great research paper titles and interesting things to research, taking some time and contemplate on what makes you be passionate about a certain subject is a good starting point Below is a list of the most common types of research papers: Analytical Research Paper. In an analytical research paper you pose a question and then collect relevant data from other researchers to analyze their different viewpoints. You focus on the findings and conclusions of other researchers and then make a personal conclusion about the topic. It is important to stay neutral and not show
MLA APA & CMS: Guide to Properly Formatting Academic Writing
In this chapter, you will learn how to use APA stylethe documentation and formatting style followed by the American Psychological Association, as well as MLA stylefrom the Modern Language Association. There are a few major formatting styles used in academic texts, including AMA, Chicago, and Turabian:. While all the formatting and citation styles have their own use and applications, in this chapter we focus our attention on the two styles you are most likely to use in your academic studies: APA and MLA, common research paper formats.
If you find that the rules of proper source documentation are difficult to keep straight, you are not alone. Writing a good research paper is, in and of itself, a major intellectual challenge. Having to follow detailed citation and formatting guidelines as well may seem like just one more task to add to an already-too-long list of requirements.
Following these guidelines, however, serves several important purposes. Finally, it helps your reader find additional materials if he or she wishes to learn more about your topic. Furthermore, producing a letter-perfect APA-style paper need not be burdensome. Yes, it requires careful attention to detail. However, you can simplify the process if you keep these broad guidelines in mind:.
This chapter provides detailed guidelines for using the citation and formatting conventions developed by the American Psychological Association, or APA. Writers in disciplines as diverse as astrophysics, biology, psychology, and education follow APA style.
The major components of a paper written in APA style are listed in the following box. All these components must be saved in one document, not as separate documents. The title page of your paper includes the following information:. List the first three elements in the order given in the previous list, centered about one third of the way down from the top of the page, common research paper formats. Use the headers and footers tool of your word-processing program to add the header, with the title text at the left and the page number in the upper-right corner, common research paper formats.
Your title page should look like the following example. The next page of your paper provides an abstractor brief summary of your findings. An abstract does not need to be provided in every paper, but an abstract should be used in papers that include a hypothesis. A good abstract is concise—about one hundred fifty to two hundred fifty words—and is written in an objective, impersonal style. Your writing voice will not be as apparent here as in the body of your paper.
When writing the abstract, take a just-the-facts approach, and summarize your research question and your findings in a few sentences. Note how it sums up the major ideas in his paper without going into excessive detail. Write an abstract summarizing your paper. Briefly introduce the topic, state your findings, and sum up what conclusions you can draw from your research.
Use the word count feature of your word-processing program to make sure your abstract does not exceed one hundred fifty words. Depending on your field of study, you may sometimes write research papers that present extensive primary research, such as your own experiment or survey.
In your abstract, summarize your research question and your findings, and briefly indicate how your study relates to prior research in the field. APA style requirements also address specific formatting concerns, such as margins, pagination, and heading styles, within the body of the paper.
Review the following APA guidelines. Begin formatting the final draft of your paper according to APA guidelines. You may work with an existing document or set up a new document if you choose. Include the following:, common research paper formats.
Depending on the length and complexity of the paper, its major sections may also be divided into subsections, sub-subsections, and so on. These smaller sections, common research paper formats, in turn, use different heading styles to indicate different levels of information. In essence, you are using headings to create a hierarchy of information. The following heading styles used in APA formatting are listed in order of greatest to least importance:.
Visually, the hierarchy of information is organized as indicated in Table A college research paper may not use all the heading levels shown in Table For a brief paper, you may find that level 1 headings suffice. Longer or more complex papers may need level 2 headings or other lower-level headings to organize information clearly.
Use your outline to craft your major section headings and determine whether any subtopics are substantial enough to require additional levels of headings.
Working with the document you developed in Note Include your title and at least two to three major section headings, and follow the formatting guidelines provided above. If your major sections should be broken into subsections, add those headings as well. Use your outline to help you. Because Jorge used only level 1 headings, his Exercise 3 would look like the following:. Throughout the body of your paper, include a citation whenever you quote or paraphrase material from your research sources.
Your in-text citations provide basic information about your source; each source you cite will have a longer entry in the references section that provides more detailed information. In-text citations must provide the name of the author or authors and the year the source was published. When a given source does not list an individual author, you may provide the source title or the name of the organization that published the material instead. When directly quoting a source, it is also required that you include the page number where the quote appears in your citation.
This information may be included within the sentence or in a parenthetical reference at the end of the sentence, as in these examples, common research paper formats. The page number appears in parentheses after the closing quotation marks and before the period that ends the sentence. Again, the parenthetical citation is placed after the closing quotation marks and before common research paper formats period at the end of the sentence.
As noted in the book Junk Food, Junk Science Epstein,p. Here, the writer chose to mention the common research paper formats title in the sentence an optional piece of information to include and followed the title with a parenthetical citation.
Note that the parenthetical citation is common research paper formats before common research paper formats comma that signals the end of the introductory phrase. Another variation is to introduce the author and the source title in your sentence and include the publication date and page number in parentheses within the sentence or at the end of the sentence.
As long as you have included the essential information, you can choose the option that works best for that particular sentence and source. Citing a book with a single author is usually a straightforward task. Of course, your research may require that you cite many other types of sources, such as books common research paper formats articles with more than one author or sources with no individual author listed.
You may also need to cite sources available in both print and online and nonprint sources, common research paper formats, such as websites and personal interviews.
APA is just one of several different styles with its own guidelines for documentation, formatting, and language usage. Depending on your field of interest, you may be exposed to additional styles, such as the following:. The brief citations included in the body of your paper correspond to the more detailed citations provided at the end of the paper in the references section. Again, common research paper formats, this information allows your reader to follow up on the sources you cited and do additional reading about the topic if desired.
The specific format of entries in the list of references varies slightly for different source types, but the entries generally include the following information:. If an entry continues for more than one common research paper formats, the second line and each subsequent line are common research paper formats five spaces. Review the following example. In APA style, book and article titles are formatted in sentence case, not title case. Sentence case means that only the first word is capitalized, along with any proper nouns.
Writing for Success by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4. Skip to content Learning Objectives Identify the major components of a research paper written using American Psychological Association APA style. Apply general APA style and formatting conventions in a research paper. General Formatting Guidelines This chapter provides detailed guidelines for using the common research paper formats and formatting conventions developed by the American Psychological Association, or APA.
These are the major components of an APA-style paper: Title page Abstract Body, which includes the following: Headings and, if necessary, subheadings to organize the content In-text citations of research sources References page All these components must be saved in one document, not as separate documents.
Abstract The next page of your paper provides an abstractor brief summary of your findings. Exercise 1 Write an abstract summarizing your paper. Tip Depending on your field of study, you may sometimes write research papers that present extensive primary research, such as your own experiment or survey.
Margins, Pagination, and Headings APA style requirements also address specific formatting concerns, common research paper formats, such as margins, common research paper formats, pagination, and heading styles, within the body of the paper.
Use these general guidelines to format the paper: Set the top, bottom, and side margins of your paper at 1 inch. Use double-spaced text throughout your paper. Use a standard font, such as Times New Roman or Arial, in a legible size to point. Use continuous pagination throughout the paper, including the title page and the references section. Page numbers appear flush right within your header. Section headings and subsection headings within the body of your paper use different types of formatting depending on the level of information you are presenting.
Exercise 2 Begin formatting the final draft of your paper according to APA guidelines. Include the following: Your title page The abstract you created in Note The following heading styles used in APA formatting are listed in order of greatest to least importance: Section headings use centered, boldface type. Headings use title case, with important words in the heading capitalized. Subsection headings use left-aligned, boldface type.
Headings use common research paper formats case. The third level uses left-aligned, indented, boldface type.
Headings use a capital letter only for the first word, and they end in a period. The fourth level follows the same style used for the previous level, but the headings are boldfaced and italicized. The fifth level follows the same style used for the previous level, but the headings are italicized and not boldfaced.
Research Paper Format APA Style
, time: 12:20Formatting a Research Paper – Writing for Success
A college research paper may not use all the heading levels shown in Table “Section Headings”, but you are likely to encounter them in academic journal articles that use APA style. For a brief paper, you may find that level 1 headings suffice. Longer or more complex papers may need level 2 headings or other lower-level headings to organize information clearly. Use your outline to He continues: "While some common APA formatting errors may be issues due to changes in updated guidelines (APA 5 vs. APA 6), there are other, perhaps more common instances where a student fails to properly reference the source materials within writing assignments. This is particularly true when citing content from the Internet. Understanding how to properly reference and cite source materials Research papers are no less than a curse for high school and college students. It takes time, effort, and expertise to craft a striking research paper. Every other person craves to master the magic of producing impressive research papers. Continue with the guide to investigate the mysterious nature of different types of research through examples
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