APA is more preferred method of referencing

By on March 1, 2012

APA (American Psychological Association) is considered as the most professional format of academic writing than any other other formats. APA deals with scientific writing. Whereas the other format fits in perfectly for liberal arts and humanities.APA manual indicates that all references should be consistently given two space. Firstly space within and Secondly among the references. Similarly only one space follows all the punctuation (excluding the abbreviations which do not have spaces at all), usage of hanging indent format. This means that the first line is flush along the left margin. The subsequent lines for an entry are indented one – half inch. Along with that it should be noted that URLs are not underlined, even though some software will automatically underline.

When contributing to a research paper one has few major styles to choose from – the Modern Language Association (MLA) style, APA style, Harvard referencing format and so on. The popular style used for research papers of social science category is APA style. The general format of APA format includes:

A title page which also includes the running head utilized for publication, a title and by – line.

  1. Page numbers
  2. Abstract
  3. Headings
  4. Visuals
  5. List of References.

In comparison with other formats the APA style appears to be more formal by its structure. This is because it is easier to locate the author or publications or book by the page number mentioned in the research. The in – text space and the spacing in the reference area, Title presentation, sentence and figure location all appears to be more professional than other styles.

While writing research papers, one may come across many different and unique styles. All these styles appear to be important in their rights in presenting the research conducted. MLA style and Harvard style which are the other popular styles, than APA. The structure used in the APA style appears to be more professional. This focuses on the need to analyze important scientific literature. In addition to this the APA style also includes an abstract, visuals, heading for sub – topics, and a neat and vivid reference section in it.


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