APA Research Paper Outline

Content apa research paper outline

College involves a lot of writing: persuasive, narrative, argumentative essays and much more. If you are new to making surveys and your instructor is asking you to use APA format do not panic. The instructor will probably provide guidelines that will be of help. In the unfortunate event, there is no available guideline, check out our sample outlines for research papers (APA format).

A correctly written outline is crucial when writing an in-depth text. The outline or framework dictates the details to be included in the article and how the details are explained. A good outline helps you organize your thought and make the writing process easier and faster. The outline includes:

  • The title
  • Thesis Statement
  • The body which includes the major ideas which are represented either in Roman numeral or alphabets.
  • Supportive statements that back up the main idea. The supportive arguments are from a primary or secondary source. The statements are indicated by capital alphabets like A, B, C.

In the article, we seek to help you understand more about essay outline and the use of APA format outline.

What is APA Formatting Style?

APA formatting style is popular in research writing. When you prepare to work on your research paper, the goal is to work on your research skills. Enhance your ability to go through a pile of books in search of information that is relevant to your area of interest.  Psychologist, historians, linguistics, nurses, and entrepreneurs include APA format in most academic pieces. Of course, there exist other formats like MLA, Harvard and others, however, APA research paper outline is preferred.

The Basic APA Format

To write your academic assignment more efficiently use the basic APA format to avoid errors and revisions. The basic format is one of the examples of outline for college research paper in APA format.

  1. All the content on your research paper essay should be in Times New Roman font style.
  2. The size of the font is 12pt
  3. There should be a space of one inch all around the corners of the A4 paper.
  4. The paragraphs should be double-spaced. Use of double-space instead of single-spacing helps the text not to look cramped. Your research will be presentable, organized and attractive to the reader.
  5. A research paper contains several pages of up to 30 pages or more. The first page of your outline contains your name and your instructor’ full name, the title of the work, the name of the course and the date you are submitting the composition.

APA examples for an outline:

  • The main headings for the article are numbered using Roman numerals (I, II, III-IV)
  • The subheading are listed in capital letters of the Roman alphabet (A, B, C, D)
  • If you have subheadings under the main headings, use Arabic numerals 1,2.3,4, etc
  • Are there subheadings for the main subheadings? You still can number them using the lowercase alphabet a,b,c,d,e, etc
  • Further subheadings are written in Arab numerals in parenthesis (1), (2), (3)

The APA writing standard above is the easiest to implement and efficient too.  There is an additional format, the full sentence outline format that requires the writer to plan using complete sentences for every subheading. The numbering and the numerals are similar to the basic writing format. The format restricts you from plagiarizing the author’s content making it highly effective.

If unsure of the formatting style to use while writing your academic assignment, check out the example of research paper outline on the Studicus.com website.

Use of APA Format

a) Observe parallelism between the headings and the subheadings. Parallelism means the use of verbal constructions that are similar in all the headings. When you start the heading of your outline with a noun, the subheading should begin with a noun, and if you start with a verb, the subheading starts with a verb and vice versa.

b) Coordination of the headings - all main headings have equal significance, and the rules to subheadings only apply to subheadings.

c) Make use of subordination between the headings and the subheadings. The heading contains more general information than the subtitles which are more specific.

What to Include in a Speech Outline

A basic APA research paper outline template contains three major parts:

  • An introduction where you introduce the project to the readers and by providing a gist of what is in the paper. The opening includes quotes, statistics, and intriguing questions.
  • The body that focuses on explaining the problem and expounding on the challenges or the cons of the subject.
  • A thrilling summary of the main ideas. It highlights the climax of the work.

Writing a Research Paper

The cover page is the first page, then the abstract, body, and lastly the reference page. While writing the reference page, refer to the APA outline for research paper that will teach you the various citation styles dependent on the book, film, e-books, photography, website, journal, etc. when in doubt consult the APA outline example for research paper on further details about in-text citations.

APA formatting is essential to learn if you are studying in an American system. At Studicus.com, pay for college research paper that requires citations like APA.  The various requirements and rules can be confusing. Need help writing an academic piece in APA?

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November 07, 2018
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