How To Write Research In Apa

How To Write Research In APA

American Psychological Association style of writing was developed by social and behavioral scientists to standardize the writing of scientific APA style papers in the scientific profession of psychology. The writing of an APA style paper requires the writer to pay attention to pay attention to mechanical details in the writing such as margins, typeface, margins, page headers and line spacing.

An APA style paper should be written on an 8.5 by 11 inch paper and the margins of the paper should be at least one inch all round. The font used in an APA style paper should be 12 point, Times New Roman. The lines within an APA style paper should be double spaced all through the paper. A typical APA style paper should have the following basic sections in its structure: a title page, abstract, introduction, methodologies section, results, analysis, discussion, references and an appendix.

The writing of an APA style paper should start with the composition of a title page. The title for the APA style paper should be on one line with the next line being taken up by the author’s name. The name of the institution of affiliation, the instructor’s and the date of submission should follow respectively-each item should be centered and written on its own line. On the left of APA style paper there should be a ‘Running Head’ with a short version of the title of the paper in capital letters. This should appear on all pages with the sequential page numbers.

On the first actual page of the APA style paper, there should be an abstract with a centered title-Abstract-on the page. The abstract should be summarized in 75-100 words, and it should center and focus the research topic of the APA style paper. The next section of an APA style paper should contain an introductory summary that outlines the research to be highlighted within the APA style paper in a brief and concise manner.

The introductory section should also contain the thesis statement outlined in one to three lines at the end of the introduction paragraph. Thereafter, there should be another paragraph or two that may be used to review the relevant literature on which the research’s basis is developed.

This section should be followed by the main body of the APA style paper that contains the methodology, results, analysis and discussion section of the APA style structure.

The contents within the main body and literature review should have clear in-text citations that show clearly the research facts and the sources from which they were obtained. In an APA style

How To Write Research In APA, APA Style Paper, APA Publication Manual

paper in-text citations should take the author-date format, where the author’s last name and the date of publication should be enclosed in parentheses and separated by a comma after a direct quote of the source or a paraphrasing statement made from the source. Page numbers may also be included in the in-text citations to indicate the source’s page.

The format may be as follows (…research has shown that cognitive abilities develop mainly during the early childhood (Christopher, 2008, p.177). At times an introductory statement may be used to introduce the author, in this case only the date and page may be included in the parentheses after the introductory statement (…According to Christopher (2008, p. 177) cognitive abilities..). The main body should comprehensively present method used in the research, the results obtained, analysis of the research result as well as a discussion stating the significance of the results obtained.

The APA style paper should then be concluded by a conclusion section that makes a brief highlight of all the research’s main ideas and significance. Finally, a list of references (bibliography) containing details of all the sources used is listed on the last page and an appendix follows thereafter, detailing any other essential information such as acronyms, abbreviations and graphs.