APA and Harvard Writing Format

Top Term Papers Websites

APA stands for American Psychological Association. APA style is basically the most common approach to cite sources within the social sciences. It directs general format for writing which includes research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes and bibliography. APA and Harvard have almost same formatting style. It just differs in title page. Below provided guidelines counts for both formats.

Formatting:
The prescribed font for APA/Harvard is double-spaced with size of 10-12 pts in Times New Roman style. Paragraph indention must be 5-7 spaces. Margins you should set one inch each on all four sides. On the right edge of first line of paper you have to put in page number.

Paper Sections:
There are four major sections of APA Format; title page, abstract, body and references. The main part of APA format is reference style. Because this is a portion where you make the reader aware of sources you have used to gather information. Below are discussed sections with their examples.

Title Page:
Your title page will consist of title of the paper, author’s name and name of your institution. On page header you have to insert page number on the right side and page header on the left. It is suggested that title of your page does not exceed more than twelve words in length and should not contain abbreviations or unnecessary words.
You have to write title on the top centered indent.

Example:
 

“TITLE OF YOUR PAPER”
Beneath the title, write author’s full name but you are not required to write abbreviations like (Dr.) or any degree like (PhD).
 

Abstract:
Start a new page for abstract. Write “Abstract” on the first line with centered alignment. But avoid making it bold, italic, quotation marks and underlined. Abstract is basically a summary of your research work which will include research topic, research methods and research questions, participants, analysis, results and conclusion. It must be a single paragraph containing not more than 150 to 200 words.
 

Body:
Body of the paper would also start from a new page but not subsections. There are five levels of headings available to organize your paper which you can place relative to its importance. Body will include all of your findings, analysis and overall theme of topic in detail

In-text Citation:
In-text citation is placed between the text which will state authors name and date of publication. There is possibility that you do not find date of publication in this case you have to mention approximated date abbreviated by “ca”. And if incase you do not even know the approximated date you have to write”nd”. It denotes “no date is available”. Sometimes you do not know authors name then it must be cited as “anon” which means anonymous.
 

Example:
• Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key. ( Alan, 2007)
• There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. ( Einstein, 2008)
 

References:
All the citation you have done in-text, you must also write it in a separate section; called reference. It will also start from a new page where heading “references” will be centrally aligned. In references you will include author name with their surnames and initials. If there is more than one author, you can list those using commas. Incase author is not being identified then reference will begin from the title of document.

After authors’ name, quote the year of publication, if not available write “n.d” which indicates no date available.
After date, you have to write source reference like journal, volume, pages, city of publication, publisher (of book), title of periodicals and periodical volume numbers. For internet sources, give the URL from where you have picked the data.

 

Top Term Papers Websites