Writing a Paper in APA Style (Social Sciences)

APA style, which is based on the American Psychological Association style manual, is widely used in many forms of academic writing.

Every paper written in APA style has the same basic structural elements. 

APA papers have a title page and a "running head," or a line at the top of every page to identify the paper.

An APA abstract should summarize your entire paper and should be formatted according to the APA style guide.

In APA style, headings are used to organize your writing and give it a hierarchical organization.

In APA style, there are specific formats for series and lists.

In APA style, format quotations of more than 40 words as block quotations.

Because papers using APA style often report experimental data, you must be able to discuss statistics in your paper. 

APA style has specific rules for formatting tables and figures.

In APA style, the sources you cite in your paper are listed all together at the end, in the References section.

In APA style, there are different formats for citing sources at the end of your paper depending on the type of source.

In APA style, there are different formats for citing sources in text depending on the type of source.