The American Psychological Assocation (APA) and Modern Language Association (MLA) are two common style guides used for writing academic papers. APA is used within social sciences (e.g. psychology, education, sociology). MLA is primarily used in the liberal arts and humanities.

If you are just starting to write papers for college or are a graduate student, your instructors will include the style that is required for assignments in the assignment guidelines. In addition, they may require additional preferences (e.g, a different style to the cover page). Pay attention to these requirements because instructors will remove grade points if a student does not follow the formatting for approved grammatical and citation requirements.

It is recommended (strongly) that students study and learn the requirements of the style early on in their education career and keep updated as different editions are released by MLA (currently 3rd edition) and APA (currently 6th edition). Having good knowledge of the style will help the student write more efficiently. Another recommendation is to have the style book by your computer as you work so that you can check punctuation and citations as you write. Highlight the most commonly used punctuation and other information with a highlighter and post-it notes, because the answer surely will come up again.

Both APA http://www.apastyle.org/ and MLA http://www.mla.org/ have Websites and search engines that can help if you have a tough style problem. Also, most colleges have Writing Centers or online tutorials to help you with ensuring that your use of the style guidelines in your academic paper are perfect.

Here are some major differences in the two styles.

Reference Examples:

APA Style
Jelfs, A., Richardson, J., & Price, L. (2009). Student and tutor perceptions of effective tutoring in distance education. Distance Education, 30(3), 419-441. doi:10.1080/01587910903236551.

Mellers, B.A. (2000). Choice and the relative preasure of consequences. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 910-924.

MLA Style
Jelfs, Anne, John T. E. Richardson, and Linda Price. “Student and tutor perceptions of effective tutoring in distance education.” Distance Education 30.3 (2009): 419-441. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 16 Feb. 2010.

Palmer, William J. Dickens and New Historicism. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997. Print.

In-text citation examples:

APA Style
This is the citation format when there is a quote: According to Black (2009), “all clowns scare children to death” (p.3).

MLA Style
According to Kenneth Black, “all clowns scare children to death” (3).

Professional Editing

There is another option if you need help with academic writing, especially when you are writing a thesis or submitting a paper for publication. Many editors specialize in academic writing and will offer to edit a paper based on word count or pages and the type of editing required. Academic editing will cost more than a standard edit. These editors are professionals who have a lot of experience editing papers in different style formats. They can provide expertise for the difficult editing issues such as footnotes and endnotes, charts and tables, and citing references.

Heather Todd is full-time professional editor, published writer & marketing consultant whose passion is to help others create a letter-perfect presentation in their writing. Ms. Todd provides advisory & consulting services worldwide to numerous corporations, a small sampling of such businesses include: http://www.FirstEditing.com

Most teachers want research papers written in APA style, and many college classes require research papers. Where do you start?

Pick a thesis

A thesis is a premise for your argument, a hypothesis, or a brief statement of what your paper is about. A thesis for a research paper is just like a thesis for an essay, except that the thesis probably isn’t quite as narrow since your research paper will be larger.

Your thesis shouldn’t be too narrow or to broad. Take into consideration the teacher’s specifications for the assignment; that is, how long is the paper allowed to be? Then consider your thesis and if you can fill the space of your paper without making it too long.

How can you tell how much space you can fill defending your thesis or supporting it? Well, this depends a lot on how you write, but it also depends on how much information is available and how many sub topics there are for the thesis.

Research and take notes

Go to the library and read some books on your topic. Check out the magazines and journals. Go online and look for more information. Be particularly careful about your sources when you research online. Remember, online content isn’t subject to peer review or even a traditional book publisher and copy editor.

A great place to start your online research is at scholar.google.com, because journal style articles are returned. Books.google.com or amazon.com will allow you to see parts of books before ordering them. Another good place is to go to your local library’s website and find their “Online Resources and Databases.” These are links to library vetted websites.

Make a list of all your sources. This was traditionally done on index cards, but it might be easier to keep a log file in Word or Excel. For each book keep track of the author(s), the title, the publisher, city, state, and county of publishing, date of publishing, the name of the editor if it’s listed, and even the ISBN. Then, for each source, give it a unique number of phrase so you can easily keep track of it. For instance, I might give this article a phrase of “Nico-APA.”

Write down your source next to each piece of information you keep as a note.

If some things don’t make sense, try drawing pictures or putting some of the information into charts to help make sense of the data.

Revise your thesis

Now that you know what information is available, look at your thesis and determine if it needs to be revised or not. Remember, it needs to fill the space requirement of the assignment without going over.

Write an outline

A lot of people skip this step, but don’t. It’s important. Write an outline. Your outline should look something like this, but don’t be overly concerned about the roman numerals, letters, and such. In fact, you can skip those and just use indenting to keep track of which headings are major headings and which are sub headings.

Major Topic

^^^^^Sub Topic

^^^^^Sub Topic

^^^^^^^^^^ Sub Topic

^^^^^^^^^^Sup Topic

^^^^^Sub Topic

Major Topic

^^^^^Sub Topic

^^^^^Sub Topic

^^^^^Sub Topic

Determine if you need any tables, graphs, or charts

Did you run an experiment and you data to show? Did someone else run an experiment and you want to show their results and attribute the credit to them? Did you come up with an awesome chart or graph to help you understand the topic and it should be included in the paper?

Write a draft

Write the draft of your paper. Follow your outline, and if it’s easier for you, just write one section at a time. Before you type your research paper, set up your word processor for Times New Roman 12 point. Set up the margins to be 1 inch. Make sure each paragraph is more than one sentence. Make sure each paragraph is less than one page. Put two spaces at the end of sentences. Make sure the document is double spaced. Make sure each page has less than 27 lines of text (and this does not include the running header). Indent the first line of each paragraph.

Add a running head

The running head is a shortened version of the title. It should appear at the top of each page and it needs to be flushed to the left. The running head should be less than 50 characters. An example is:

Running head: THE TITLE OF MY PAPER

Edit, proofread, and revise

Look for potential bias in your paper and remove it. Remove jargon. Run a spelling check. Run a grammar check. Ask someone else to read your paper and have them mark it up. Don’t use abbreviations if you can avoid it, and if you do use abbreviations, explain the abbreviation the first time you use it. Do not use spaces inside the abbreviations. Dashes, such as en dashes, em dashes, and hyphens, should not have spaces on either side of them. Number all the pages, except pages that are entirely figures, sequentially. The title page is included in this numbering.

Create a title page

Create a title for your paper. Don’t use words like “experiment” or “method” in it. The title should have a maximum size of 10-12 words. Ideally, the title is less than 50 characters and fits into the running head. The title page should contain at least the name of the paper, the author’s name in the format of Firstname, M., Lastname. The last piece of mandatory data on the title page is the school’s name.

Write your abstract.

After you’ve written the paper, write an abstract. Your abstract should be less than 120 words and people should be able to read it and get the gist of your paper.

Put your paper in order.

Title page

Abstract, less than 120 words, on its own page

The text should start on Page 3

References, each appendix, and the author note should start on a separate page

List the footnotes together but on a separate page

List of tables should start on a separate page

List figure captions together on a separate page

Figures should be on a separate page

Gwen Nicodemus owns and operates Shiny Newts, LLC. Shiny Newts solves technical and documentation problems for its customers in a timely, professional manner–often going “above and beyond”–by providing custom services and pre-packaged services. Visit http://www.ShinyNewts.com to watch videos on how to use Joomla, Photoshop, and Word or to read Gwen’s ebook, “Write a Marketing Plan by Filling in the Blanks.”

©2010, Gwen Nicodemus

APA format term paper takes into account the various rules with regard to citation style, referencing technique, formatting of pages and other writing techniques that are taken into account. APA style is one of the most renowned styles used in universities and professional writing standards. The purpose of incorporating such a style in the writing environment is to classify it among international standards and spread its standard form for better acceptability.

The page formatting in such style is done in a particular manner. The first page also named as the cover page needs to have a running head which is abbreviated on the top left corner of the cover page. It is usually less than 50 characters. This section is to announce the precise definition of the entire paper in the form of the merger between topic and subject.

The page header must be at the top right corner of the every page which includes 2 to 3 words of the paper title followed by 4 to 5 spaces and the page number. This marks a very standard way of formatting the header section. This must be there at every page to denote at any point the topic in precise and the page number.

The cover page must also arrange the various elements in a very subtle manner. The full title must be centered at the cover page denoting the topic in 10 to 12 words. The author information should follow in the next line. It must highlight the name of the person and the educational or professional institution in question. Such details may also include the author’s education details namely the class and instructor name. In no circumstance the details must be in italics or underlined or bold.

The standard format of APA style is to use double spaced text with 12 font size and times new roman as the font style of every page. The margins are to be organized one inch throughout the pages which highlight the text to be fitted into.

The second page namely the abstract should sum up the entire paper proceedings in about 100 to 120 words. It must include the main idea and the problem with a precise hint to its possible solution. The word abstract should also be centered in the page and should be taken care in simple style without any formatting.

The first page of text is very crucial to its beginning as that marks the start of the paper.  The title of the paper must be centered and double spaced at the top of the paper. It should not be formatted at all. The page must also have handling indents set for every paragraph of the paper.

The in-text citations must be done well proving the author name followed by a comma with the year of its publication and the page numbers where it occurs. The headings within the paper must be organized in several styles acceptable. There are 5 types namely the centered, centered italicized, flush left italicized, indented italicized and followed and finally the centered uppercase style.

Finally the references page is the final page of the APA format. The references page must be organized in a subtle manner. The page must have a centered text as references with the references arranged in the last name order and subsequent in alphabetical format. It must have the hanging indent style. The last name is followed by a comma with the middle name and then the first name. The year of publication follows it. The name of the article or the book or the source is mentioned with the number of pages, volume and publications.

The “APA” abbreviation stands for American Psychological Association style the most frequent use of which is found within social science.

According to the most common APA guidelines a work should be printed on a computer on a standard sheet of paper. The text of your paper should be double-spaced and margins set to 1inch on all sides of the document. All pages should be numbered in the upper right-hand corner of the sheet of paper and a 1-2 word version of your title should be stated before it. An abstract might be put in the very beginning of the paper on its own page with the main idea and points of your work.

Headings are not necessary to be put at all, but if you do put them, then you should know that the only level of headings for undergraduate papers is major heading. It should be centered and every word but for articles, short prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions must be capitalized. Any visuals put in your work must be labeled with the help of an Arabic numeral and the name of the visual. A source for the visuals, might it be tables or a graphs, charts or drawings, must be put below it.

List of references should be put on its own page, to be precise – at the last page of your work. It must be double spaced and alphabetized by an author’s last name. In case no author of the work can be found, use the first letter of the title, excluding articles, to alphabetize it. It is important to point out the fact that the conjunction “and” should not be used when providing a number of authors for one and the same source of the material cited. The ampersand “&” should be used instead. Alongside this another peculiar feature of the reference list formatting is distinguished: to indicate the page numbers the abbreviations “p. or pp.” are used.

A) TITLE. On the title page, which is required, all text must be double-spaced using uppercase characters. Center the text both horizontally and vertically. Begin with the name of the educational institution, followed by the title. Next, list the committee to which you’re submitting the dissertation or thesis, along with the department or college for which you’re submitting it. Then include the word “BY” on a separate line, followed by the author’s name. Finally, place the city and state where you wrote the paper, along with the month and year of graduation. Place extra horizontal lines between each section on the title page, allowing you to center it vertically on the paper. Keep in mind that the title page is the first of the “display” pages in Chicago (Turabian) Style, but you do not number it.

B) COPYRIGHT PAGE OR BLANK PAGE. This page is immediately after the title page, and you need to either include a copyright notice or leave the page blank. The blank (or mostly blank) page prevents characters on the first main text page from bleeding through the title page. For the copyright, near the bottom of the page, type “Copyright,” the copyright symbol, the year the paper was written, and the name of the author. On the next line, indent and type, “All rights reserved” with no punctuation marks. Do not number this page, either, but you do count it in your pagination. The next display page will be “iii” in roman numerals.

C) DEDICATION. A dedication page is an optional page. Simply type “To” followed by the name of the person(s) to which you want to dedicate the paper.

D) EPIGRAPH PAGE. The epigraph page, which may contain a poem or quotation, is optional.

E) TABLE OF CONTENTS. The table of contents is an optional page, and it should be numbered as part of the display pages. It is an organized listing of the contents of the paper, providing page numbers to the various sections and headings in the paper. The reader can use the table of contents to jump to a particular section of the paper. When listing chapter headings in the table of contents, make sure they exactly match the chapter headings in the text. Use a leader to connect the chapter heading or section name (aligned on the left) with the page number (aligned on the right). Type “CONTENTS” or “TABLE OF CONTENTS” centered at the top of the page.

F) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND LIST OF TABLES. These optional pages are part of the display pages, and you should only use them if you have illustrations and tables in your paper. List each illustration or table with the appropriate title and page number, connected by a leader. Right-align the page number and left-align the title of each table or figure.

G) PREFACE. The preface is another optional display page. The author can list the motivation for the project and acknowledgements.

H) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS OR GLOSSARY. If you have a lot of odd abbreviations or terms in your paper, you can list them on one of these optional pages.

I) ABSTRACT. Use an abstract page to briefly summarize the contents of the thesis or dissertation. It’s an optional display page.

J) MAIN TEXT. Begin numbering the main text with Arabic numerals, and you should no longer use the lowercase roman numerals from the display pages. Each Arabic page number should appear in the upper right corner of each page. If you have a chapter heading or another type of main heading at the top of a page, you may center the page number at the bottom of the page.

K) APPENDIX. Use the optional appendix page(s) for material that doesn’t quite fit into the main text, such as complex tables or technical notes. You may have more than one appendix. Each appendix should deal with a different idea or topic. Number them either with letters or numbers, such as “Appendix A” and “B” and “C,” for example.

L) BIBLIOGRAPHY OR REFERENCE LIST. Include your bibliography after the final main text page or appendix page on a new page. The reference list page should include all works that you’ve cited in your paper, listed alphabetically. (We’ll discuss citing references in another article.) Make sure you continue the Arabic page numbering throughout the bibliography pages.

APA is an acronym for the American Psychological Association. The American Psychological Association, located in Washington D.C., is the largest association of psychologists worldwide; it consists of 148,000 members. APA is a professional and scientific organization; representing psychology in the U.S. APA format was invented by the American Psychological Association to cite sources within the subject of social sciences.

When using APA format, there are some general guidelines you must follow. For instance, your essay must be typed, double-spaced, on standard sized paper (8.5″ x 11″) and must have 1″ margins on every side. Additionally, you must have a page header on every page at the upper right-hand side. Furthermore, your font must be between 10-12 point and you must use either Times New Roman or font similar to Times New Roman.

When using APA format, your essay must consist of four major sections: Title Page, Abstract, Main Body, and References. Also, reference citations in text are done using Harvard referencing. Harvard referencing consists of the author’s last name and the date of publication within parentheses, separated by a comma. Reference citations in text are placed immediately after the reference. At the end of the essay or article, full bibliographic information is placed in the reference section.

APA is a professional and scientific organization; representing psychology in the U.S. APA format was invented by the American Psychological Association to cite sources within the subject of social sciences.To learn just how to use APA formatting visit workscited4u.com, the online site that can easily cite for you!

HOW TO WRITE AN APA STYLE  ESSAY?

APA is commonly known as “AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION” style of documentation, mostly used in social sciences. APA style is amended according to the 6th edition of APA Manual of the American Psychological Association. APA style essay gives details of the following elements:

Names and order of headings Organization and formatting of references and citations Arrangement of tables Arrangement of footnotes Arrangement of figures and appendices Arrangement of manuscript and documentation features

APA style provides guidelines of citations for both electronic and print resources which include:

CHAPTER 1: Documentation Guidelines:

Margins: One inch on all sides Alignment: Flush left (creating uneven right margin) Line Spacing: Double-space throughout the essay, includes:

v  Title page

v  Abstract

v  Body of the document

v  Footnotes

v  References

v  Appendixes

v  Tables and figures

Punctuation and Spacing: Space once after:

v  Colons

v  Commas and semicolons within sentences

Give two spaces after punctuation ending sentences

Paragraph Indentation: 5-8 spaces Running Head: The running head is a short title that appears at the top of the pages of a paper or published article.  It should not exceed 40 to 50 characters, including punctuation and spacing Pagination: The page number appears one inch from the right edge of the paper on the first line of every page Order of Pages:

v  Title Page

v  Abstract

v  Body

v  References

v  Appendixes

v  Footnotes

v  Tables

v  Figures

Font Size and Type: Times New Roman font 12-pt

CHAPTER 2: Title Page

Pagination: Page 1 Key Elements Paper Title Author(s) Institutional affiliation

CHAPTER 3: Abstract: It is one-paragraph summary of essential elements of the paper.

Pagination: Page 2 Heading Format: Word limit is between 150 and 250 words.  All numbers in the essay should be typed as digits rather than words

CHAPTER 4: BODY:

Pagination: Page 3 Title Introduction Headings Main headings Subheadings

Some examples of citation are as follows:

Single author:

Chang (2007) discovered a possible genetic cause of smoking.

Two authors:

Chang and Paul (1996) discovered a possible genetic cause of smoking.

Three to five authors:

Chang, Paulin and Mak (1990) conducted a study that discovered a possible genetic cause of smoking.

Chang et al. (1990) discovered a possible genetic cause of smoking.

A recent study found a possible genetic cause of smoking (Chang et al., 2005).

Multiple publications, same author:

Recent studies have found a possible genetic cause of smoking (Lie, 1990, 2002a, 2004b).

Lie (1990, 2002a, 2004b) has conducted studies that have discovered a possible genetic cause of smoking.

Above are the essential elements of APA style essay. Preparing a good APA style essay requires lot of work and effort. By following the above guidelines, one can easily write a good APA style essay.

Chicago (Turabian) Style provides the writer with a few different options for breaking up the blocks of text in the main text area of the thesis or dissertation. You may use headings or chapters, depending on the type of paper you’re creating and on how you need to organize the information.

I) HEADINGS

You may use headings to better organize your Chicago (Turabian) Style paper. The organization of headings is a little bit like an outline, with varying levels of headings and subheadings that aid in organization. You don’t number each heading in Chicago (Turabian) Style as you do with an outline, but you can use up to five different levels of headings and subheadings with Chicago (Turabian) Style.

The headings formatting requirements include:

FIRST LEVEL. The first level headings should be centered above their associated text blocks. Use headline-style capitalization, and you may use either bold, italics, or underline characters.

SECOND LEVEL. Type the second level heading centered in headline-style capitalization in standard text. Do not use any italics, bold, or underline characters.

THIRD LEVEL. The third level heading is left-aligned, using headline-style capitalization. You may use bold, italics, or underline characters with the third-level heading.

FOURTH LEVEL. For the fourth level of heading, switch to sentence-style capitalization. Left-align the text, and do not use any bold, italics, or underline characters.

FIFTH LEVEL. With the fifth level of heading, you will indent the heading, using it like a lead-in sentence to a paragraph, complete with a period at the end of the heading. The fifth-level heading should consist of italics, bold, or underline characters. Use sentence-style capitalization with the fifth-level heading.

An example of the formatting for all five levels of headings looks this way.

First Level of Heading (centered)

Main text continues as normal (indented).

Second Level of Heading (centered)

Main text continues as normal (indented).

Third Level of Heading (left-align)

Main text continues as normal (indented).

Fourth level of heading (left-align)

Main text continues as normal (indented).

Fifth level of heading. (indented) Main text follows immediately …

With the first four levels of headings, you should leave a blank line before and after the heading to give it more emphasis. If you use fewer than five levels of headings, you may select any of the heading levels to use, as long as you remain true to the order of the headings. For example, you may use the first and third heading levels, in that order, when you have a two-heading configuration. You may use the second, third, and fifth heading levels, in that order, when you have a three-heading configuration. However, you may not use the fourth, first, and fifth heading levels, in that order, for a three-heading configuration.

Three final rules regarding headings: First, if you are centering the heading and it is more than 48 characters, then you should split the heading into two or more separate lines. The lines should be single-spaced. List them in an inverted pyramid, as shown below.

Investments in Technology in Africa
Will Spur Economic Growth

Second, the left-aligned headings should be divided into multiple lines, if the heading will occupy a line stretching across more than half the page. Single-space all of these lines, and try to divide them evenly.

Investments in Technology on African Continent
Will Spur Unprecedented Economic Growth

Third, never end a page with a subhead; carry it over to the next page.

II) CHAPTERS

If you have a thesis or dissertation that makes use of numerous different ideas and is long enough to need a more complex organizational structure, Chicago (Turabian) Style allows for the use of chapters.

Begin each chapter on a new page. Chapter titles typically are listed in two pieces: The word “CHAPTER” and the number of the chapter as one piece, followed by a more descriptive title of a few words, which gives the reader an idea of the broad topic that will be discussed in the chapter.

CHAPTER ONE

ECONOMIC FORECASTS IN AFRICA

When creating chapters, you can omit the “CHAPTER” and simply list the number designation. Always list chapters in numerical order and do not skip numbers. You also may select one of three ways to list the chapter numbers: Spell out the word representing the number, use an Arabic numeral, or use a roman numeral.

SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER VII

Rather than using headings to discuss subtopics within a chapter, you may divide chapters into parts. Each part should only contain the word “PART” and the number of the part. As with chapters, always list parts in numerical order and do not skip numbers. If you used Arabic numerals for numbering each chapter, you should use roman numerals for each part, and vice versa, as shown below.

CHAPTER I

PART 1

PART 2

CHAPTER II

In your APA Style thesis or dissertation, the reference list provides an alphabetical listing of all the sources you used to create your paper. When creating an APA Style reference list, which some people call a bibliography, you have to follow specific APA formatting rules, depending on the type of source involved.

First, let’s discuss some basic rules about the reference list.

AUTHORS. List the author’s last name, followed by the initials. If you have more than one author for a source, list each one individually, until you’ve listed the sixth author, then use “et al.” for any subsequent authors. When listing more than one author, use an ampersand (&) instead of the word “and” ahead of the final author in the list.

INDENTION. After the first line of each source, indent each subsequent line about one-half inch, creating a hanging indention for each source.

ORDERING. Alphabetize the entire list by the authors’ last names. If you have more than one source from an author, list the earliest source first.

PUNCTUATION. Capitalize all major words in the titles of the works that you’re citing for journals, but not books. With longer pieces of works, such as books and journals, italicize the titles. Do not italicize shorter pieces of work, such as essays.

I. Reference List Examples

Next, here are some examples for listing various sources in APA Style.

BOOKS. Include the year of publication, the book title, the publisher’s location and name, along with the author’s name(s).

*Johnson, T. J., & Smith, X. Q. (2003). Economic growth in Africa. New York: Jones Brothers Publishers.

ELECTRONIC SOURCES. List the author’s name, if known; date of publication, if known; title of the online article or Web page; volume or issue number, if known; date of retrieval; and Internet address. The first example is from an online periodical.

* Johnson, T. J., & Smith, X. Q. (2004). Determining technology’s role in economic growth. Retrieved August 20, 2007, from (website address)

If you’re simply referencing a standard Web page, use this format.

* Tracking the Economy Web site. (2006). Report on technology’s growth. Retrieved May 16, 2007, from (website address)

For sourcing an online lecture or presentation, follow this example.

* Johnson, T. J. (2006). Technology’s role in the economy [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from (website address)

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT. Because such a document usually doesn’t include an author, list the governmental division in the alphabetical list.

* Department of the Treasury. (2005). Economic growth forecast, 2006-2010 (Publication number 2005-10-0032). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

PERIODICALS. When using a magazine or newspaper as a source, list the author, date of publication, article title, name of the periodical, and page numbers used.

* Johnson, J. T. (2006, November 29). Governments invest in technology. New York Times, p. B1.

A journal requires slightly different formatting. Be sure to include the issue number in italics ahead of the page number(s).

* Johnson, J. T. (2005). Technology controls local economies. Journal of Economic Growth, 7, 423-427.

VIDEO. If citing a movie as a source, list the producer, director, date of publication, title, country of origin, and studio.

* David, L., Bender, L., & Burns, S. Z. (Producers), Guggenheim, D. (Director). (2005). An inconvenient truth [Motion picture]. United States: Paramount Classics.

II. Citing a television show follows a similar format.

* Jones, G. (Producer). (2000, Sept. 6). The nightly news [Television broadcast]. New York: Public Broadcasting System.

III. Odd Situations

SAME AUTHOR, SAME YEAR. If you end up with several sources from the same author, some of which were published in the same year, use an “a” and “b” designation to differentiate between the two sources in your alphabetical listing.

* Johnson, J. T. (2006a). Technology in economy. Economist Magazine, 113, 17-18.

* Johnson, J. T. (2006b). Economic conditions worldwide. Economist Magazine, 115, 23.

SECONDARY SOURCE. If you’ve used a secondary source in your paper that references another work, you should refer to the original work and use a citation for the secondary source in the main text. In the reference list, however, only list the secondary source.

IV. Finally, for additional information on formatting sources in a reference list, look at the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or visit the APA Web site, where you’ll find some online resources designed specifically for formatting online sources.

The APA Style rules for formatting a thesis or dissertation are specific, ranging from the proper font size to the proper margins to the type of paper you should use. Here are 14 formatting tips you should follow when creating your paper.

Tip 1: ABBREVIATIONS. Try to avoid using abbreviations in your paper. However, if you have an abbreviation that’s commonly accepted in language and appears in the dictionary, such as AIDS, you may use it.

Tip 2: ALIGNMENT. Always align the text flush left. Do not use the “full justify” setting on your word processor, which spreads the text and aligns it both left and right.

Tip 3: FONT. If using a word processor, stick with a serif font, such as Times New Roman. Use text in a 10- or 12-point size.

Tip 4: HYPHENATION. Do not break and hyphenate words at the end of a line. Instead, leave one line a little short and place the entire word on the next line, or go a couple of characters beyond the right margin to fit the entire word on the line.

Tip 5: INDENTIONS. Indent paragraphs within the main text of the paper one-half inch, if using a computer word processor, or five to seven spaces, if using a typewriter. However, do not indent in the following special circumstances: The abstract, block quotations, figure captions, notes, reference list entries, table titles, and titles or headings.

Tip 6: MARGINS. Use 1-inch margins on all four sides of the paper: Top, bottom, right, and left. Old rules called for some 1.5-inch margins, but those rules no longer are valid.

Tip 7: PAGE NUMBERING. Number almost every page in the paper, including the title page. Place the number in the upper-right corner of the page, and use only Arabic numerals. Place the number “1″ on the title page and the number “2″ on the abstract page. The main text should start on page number “3″. Do not number pages that contain only figures or artwork.

Tip 8: PAPER TYPE. Use standard white, 20-pound bond paper that measures 8.5-by-11 inches. If using a computer, use an inkjet or laser printer to print the paper; if you must use a tractor-feed printer, be sure to remove the pinhole borders from the edges of the paper.

Tip 9: PARENTHESES. Try to limit parentheses to set apart elements that are structurally independent, such as when listing a figure or illustration related to a sentence. If you’re enclosing a complete sentence in parentheses, place the punctuation inside the parentheses. If you’re enclosing only part of a sentence inside parentheses, leave the punctuation outside the parentheses.

Tip 10: PUNCTUATION. In most instances, use one space after all typical punctuation marks, such as periods, commas, colons, and semicolons. Three exceptions exist to this rule. First, do not use a space after periods inside an abbreviation, such as when using U.S. for United States. Second, do not use a space after a colon in a ratio, such as 3:2. Third, some instructors prefer the old rule of using two spaces after periods that end sentences. If you’re using Courier or another mono-space font, APA Style does allow two spaces between sentences, although one is preferred.

Tip 11: SHORT TITLE. A Short Title, which is a two- or three-word summary of the main title, should appear on every page in the top right corner, other than pages that contain only figures or artwork. The Short Title should appear just to the left of the page number.

Tip 12: SLASH MARK. Avoid using slash marks in your paper. For example, instead of writing “red and/or green,” write “red, green, or both.”

Tip 13: SPACING. Use double spacing throughout the entire paper, unless your instructor specifically requests single spacing in certain circumstances, such as with block quotations.

Tip 14: TITLE. Center the title on the title page, using a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters. If the title is long enough to require a second line, double space between the lines. After the title, the student’s name should appear, followed by the institution for which the paper is being written. If you don’t have an institution to include, you may substitute the city and state of the author of the paper. Double space between every line on the title page. The title page should contain the number “1″ in the upper right corner.