APA denotes American Psychological Association. This is a referencing style which is commonly used to cite sources within social sciences.
In APA referencing, the essay should be double spaced and typed in times new roman font with 10-12 pt. further, the standard paper size is (8.5 × 11) with a margin of 1’’ on all sides of the paper. In addition page header should be included in all pages of the paper. The sections which need attention in referencing are the title page, the main body, the abstract and the referencing page.
Title page
The title page should provide details of the author of the essay, the institution of affiliation and the title of the paper whereby there appear at the center of the tile page. At the top is the header which gives the detail of the title of the page denoted as running head. Note that the page number should be on the right side of the paper while the running head is on the left side. The header of the title page should appear as follows.
Running Head: TITLE OF THE PAPER. ` PAGE NUMBER
The title at the centre of the paper should be written win both upper case and lower case whereby the first letter of each word is capitalized whereas the others are in lower case. After the title the name of the author should be written at the beneath followed by the institution of affiliation. The details of the author should be written as in the following order: first name, initials of the middle name and the last name. In this case, the details of other title like Mr. Mrs. Dr, Prof should not be included.
Abstract
The abstract section is common in term papers and research papers. The header of subsequent pages including the abstract should appear at the right side of the page. The title ‘abstract’ should be centered void of bold, italics or underlining. Then, the rules of writing an abstract are followed whereby it is short and inclusive of general details of the paper. The key words of the essay are written at the centre of the paper in italics. Note that the first line of the abstract should not be intended.
The main body
When writing an essay headings may not be required however in research papers and term papers headings are used. In this case all the headings are centered and double spaced but not bolded italicized or underlined. The first line of every paragraph in the main body should be indented.
The basic format in in text citation is (the last name of the author, year of publication) in other cases the page number may be required to include the page numbers. To cite the information that has been retrieved from the secondary source the format is (cited in, name of original author, year of publication).
References page
This is the section which gives full details of all the sources.
Book by a single author
The format of citing book by a single author is last name, first name initial. Middle name initial. (Year). Book Title Place of publication: Publisher. The book title should have first letters capitalized.
Book by more than one author
Last name, initial of the middle name and initial of the last name and last name, initial of the middle name. Initial of the last name. (year). Book title. Place of publication: Publisher
Article in a reference book
Last name, initial of the middle name. initialsof the last name (year) article title. Book title ( volume number, pages). Location: publisher
Article from a journal
Last name, initial of the middle name. initial of the last name. (Year). Title of the article. Journal title, volume, volume, pages.
Article from a magazine or newspaper
Last name, initial of the middle name. Initial of first name. (Year, Month Day). Article title. Magazine/newspaper title, pages
The references should be arranged in alphabetical order specifically in ascending order.