Introduction
The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association outlines the guidelines for APA referencing style. The manual offers a valuable aid for writing with ease, power, and conciseness. The APA style has been accepted by various disciplines and is commonly used by writers around the globe. An APA formatted paper is comprised of various sections and sub-sections. Analyzing these sections would be an effective way of understanding the citation style.
General Paper Guidelines
APA style commences with the general rules that must be followed in formatting an APA-style paper. These guidelines are: the margins of the paper are set at one inch at the sides of the paper, the whole paper is double spaced, single space should be used after all punctuations within a sentence while a double space should be left for punctuation marks used at the end of a sentence, the entire paper is aligned to the left and all the paragraphs indented, page numbers are inserted at the first line of the paper on the right edge of the page, the Running Head; a short title of the paper is inserted at the top of the paper and is flush with the left top of all pages, and as a general rule APA requires that paper be written in an active voice. APA style requires that all papers be ordered as follows: Title Page, Abstract, Body, References, Footnotes, Tables, Figures, and lastly Appendixes (American Psychological Association, 2009).
Title Page
The title page should always fall on page one. The components of the title page include the Running Head, paper’s title, author or author’s names, institutional affiliation, and the author’s note. All the components of the title page except the Running Head should use both small case and upper case letters and should be centered; the Running Head is flush with the left margin and utilizes the upper case letters only. The author’s note is an optional requirement in APA style and is only used to acknowledge any form of support, provide correspondence address, or the author’s departmental affiliation.
Abstract
This is an entirely optional section of an APA style paper; however, the guidelines for writing an abstract are provided in the APA style manual. The abstract should be a one-paragraph summary outlining the most significant sections of the paper. The abstract starts from a new page from the title i.e. page two of the paper. The title Abstract is centered just a single line after the Running Head and the abstract commences on the line that falls below the Abstract title. Though specific journals set the limits for the number of words in the Abstract, the limit should an average of 150 to 250 words (American Psychological Association, 2009). Additionally, every number that is contained in the Abstract is written in digits apart from those that are used to begin a sentence.
Main Body
The main body starts on a new page i.e. page 3; however, the subsections do not start on new pages. The title utilizes both upper and lower case letters and should be centered on the first line below the running head. The introduction is not labeled and commences on the first line below the title of the paper. The Main Body is structured in headings that utilize both upper and lower case letters and are centered on the paper; nevertheless, the types of headings that are included in a paper are reliant on the respective papers. The sub-headings in this section are flush to the left and use the upper and lower case letters.
Text Citations
APA style states that the ideas and works of other people must be formally acknowledged in the paper; the source of information that has been used in writing the paper must be documented by citing the author or authors and the date of publication (American Psychological Association, 2009). The inclusion of references in a paper is critical in enabling the reader to acquire complete information on the sources that are included in the reference list at the last part of the paper. Inciting any direct quotations that are included in the paper, they must comprise the author, year, and page number.
APA style demands that all the sources that are included in the paper must be included in the references and vise versa. The references page starts on a new page and the heading References appears just below the Running Head and is centered. Furthermore, APA style requires that all the references that are included in the reference page be arranged alphabetically by the last names of the first author, and the second line of every reference entry be formatted with a hanging indent. A significant number of all references comprises the author or authors, the year of publication, reference source, and the electronic retrieval information.
Reference
American Psychological Association. (2009). Mastering APA Style: Student’s Workbook and Training Guide. (6th ed.). New York, NY: American Psychological Association.