The American Psychological Association (APA) style is commonly used for scientific research papers. APA format is one of the most popular formatting styles used in academic and scientific research writing. For students and researchers, crafting an APA style paper from scratch can feel overwhelming due to the specific guidelines. A clear example can help break down exactly how to format and style an APA research paper.
Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) is a wonderful resource that provides thorough examples of APA style papers. The OWL website contains clear instructions and examples of how to format and style an APA research paper, citation and reference list, abstract, and title page. Let’s take an example APA research paper from the OWL website and break down the key sections and formatting.
Title Page
The title page should contain four pieces of key information:
Running head: This includes the shortened title in all caps and should be no more than 50 characters, including spacing. The shortened title is flush left while the page number is flush right.
Title: The full title should be centered in the upper half of the title page and typed in title case (capitalizing the first letter in most words).
Author: The authors name is centered directly under the title and no other credentials should be included.
Institution: The name of the institutional affiliation is centered on the bottom line of the page.
Abstract
The abstract summarizes the major aspects of the entire paper in no more than 250 words and is written in block format without paragraph indentation. It should describe the research topic, purpose, methods, findings, and conclusions. The word Abstract should be centered at the top of the page without formatting.
Body
The body includes the introduction, method, results, and discussion sections. The first page of the introduction begins the text on the first line without indentation while subsequent paragraphs are indented 0.5 inches. Sections have headings formatted in bold, with the method and results in sentence case and discussion and introduction in title case. Figures and tables are typically placed in the body near where they are first mentioned. Captions are provided below figures and above tables.
Citations
In-text citations include the author’s last name and year of publication and should be included whenever using a quote or paraphrasing a source. The year is included in parenthesis at the end of the sentence with page numbers (if given) separated by a comma such as (Smith, 2020, p.1). For multiple authors citations within the text take the form (Smith et al., 2020).
Reference Page
References are placed on a new page with the running head and the label References centered at the top. References are double spaced and use a hanging indent format. Reference list entries contain the author’s name, publication date, title, source, and URL or DOI when available. Sources are listed alphabetically by the authors’ last names.
Conclusion
The conclusion is the last section of the paper and does not have a heading. It should restate the research problem and thesis, summarize the key results, and discuss the implications and significance of the study. Limitations and future directions can also be mentioned. The conclusion aims to tie everything together into a cohesive narrative.
An example APA research paper provided by Purdue OWL’s website clearly illustrates how to format and construct the key elements of a paper in APA style from title page to references. Following the structure and guidelines shown in a model paper makes the process of writing an APA style paper much less daunting. Students and researchers alike should utilize sample APA papers as templates to help craft organized, clearly presented research. The OWL’s example serves as an excellent model for properly formatting and constructing an APA research paper from start to finish.