What is a research paper in apa format

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.

An APA-style paper includes the following sections: title page, abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion, and references. Your paper may also include one or more tables and/or figures. Different types of information about your study are addressed in each of the sections, as described below. General formatting rules are as follows:

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. If you find that the rules of proper source documentation are difficult to keep straight, you are not alone.

Paper Format. Consistency in the order, structure, and format of a paper allows readers to focus on a paper’s content rather than its presentation. To format a paper in APA Style, writers can typically use the default settings and automatic formatting tools of their word-processing program or make only minor adjustments.