APA format is one of the most common formats for writing papers. Many of your college papers will require the proper use of APA format. You can actually purchase a book on APA authored by the American Psychological Association, which is in charge of defining this format. However, Web guides offer a free means of learning more about the ins and outs of APA format. Purdue University’s OWL is an excellent online guide to APA. This site is regularly updated, so, when you check it, make sure that you’re reading about the most recent edition of APA (which, as of the writing of this blog entry, is 7.0).
In writing papers in APA format, you will want to pay particular attention to the title page, the style of in-text references, and the references page. References are the trickiest part of APA format, as there are very specific formats for citing scholarly papers, books, Web sites, and other sources. However, if you examine online guides’ examples of APA format for these kinds of sources, you’ll find them easy to replicate in your own college papers. Even better, you’ll find that Google Scholar and online journals also provide pre-prepared APA citation formats that you can copy and paste into your own academic papers.
Mastering APA format might strike you as a waste of time, but getting APA format correct can be an important factor in your grades. Achieving APA mastery is an automatic way to get extra points—or at least not to lose points—on your college papers. Moreover, given that you’ll tend to use APA for many of your academic papers, investing time and effort into learning APA format will pay dividends throughout your academic career.
At BridgeText, APA is one of the many formats in which we provide example academic papers.
