What Are The Best Practices For Formatting A Research Paper?

When you need to convey complex information and support it with reference to sources such as in academic circles, academic research papers come in handy. ‘It may be quite overwhelming when you are writing a research paper especially if you have never written one before’ (BAW, 2022). The most difficult part of the work is to get the right format. The first reaction of the reviewers would always be to toss aside a paper that does not meet the expected format no matter how much useful information it may contain. Foreseeing that in this article; we will go further and explain the proper way of formatting research papers with MLA, APA and the current CMOS styles.

Formatting a research paper: the three styles of writing commonly used in tutorial works, that is, the MLA, APA and CMOS styles.

There are several popular formats for research papers: There are different styles that are commonly used in writing academic papers such as MLA, which stands for Modern Language Association and APA or the American Psychological Association. Some APA styled academic papers do use CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style). Other formats may be used in corresponding fields.

For instance, medical research will use the AMA (American Medical Association) while IEEE for a certain type of technical papers and if you need a little help with this complex format go for dissertation writing services uk. The rules and instances of the most often used formats are as follows:

MLA format

The humanities normally employ MLA formatting; this includes literature, history, and culture. It is also important to take time and look over examples of papers created in MLA format (Caulfield, 2023). However, to make your paper stand out hire dissertation formatting writers. Here are the main rules to keep in mind:

Double-spaced lines.
Begin new paragraphs an indentation of 1/2 inch.
Title case for sections and subtitles, in which most important words in titles of chapters, sections, and sub-sections of books and articles are capitalized as in, How to Write a Research Paper.
Handwrite your notes in a clear style of Font using pen, preferably the most used font such as the Times New Roman Font. This is true for all forms of formatting. Additionally, formatting styles are applied consistently across all styles.
One inch should be the top and bottom margins, and half an inch on the other sides.
Use Arabic numbers like 1, 2, 3, and so on to number the sections of the document.
Include a running head on the upper right-hand corner of each page and this will involve your last name and the actual page number.
Use an in-text citation within the text, using the author’s last name followed by the page number: Heller shares the idea in his working saying, “Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for.”
On the citations to be placed on the specific page, write the full name of the author, book or periodical etc. Therefore, for MLA, you will not be writing footnotes though you only use Parenthetical citation which is also sometimes referred to as in-text citation.
At the conclusion of the work, arrange the citations in alphabetical order on a new page labeled “Works Cited.”
Continuing with the above example from Heller, the listing would be: They rely on tear-jerkers or on depressing stories, such as the ones written by Joseph Heller.
The format for a periodical is as follows: Surname of author followed by first name(s). Title of the work. Title of publication, month and year of release.
When it is time to write the source titles, use the title case for title such as ‘On the Origin of the Species’.

APA format

Generally, the sciences employ APA style, in physical science for instance there is physics while in social sciences there is psychology among others. Examples of APA formatting can be found at the site of Simply Psychology. The rules that are followed in the APA format are explained below.

The first page of the paper should be the title page; although this is not present in MLA format.
Use double-line spacing.
It is recommended that the first line of subsequent paragraphs should be indented half an inch.
Both ends of types of margins should be set one-half inch, page numbers are to be put at the top right corner of every page and the title of the paper in capital letters.
Nonetheless the citations page that should be placed at the end should be labelled References.
In-text citations should include the publication date: The yardstick used in measuring ‘appropriate’ coverage is the logarithmic growth in emergent microinsurance organizations as noted by Smith (1999, p. 50). Closely observe also that there is simply a “page,” while in MLA you write just the ‘p’ of the page you are taking from.
Same with MLA, headings should be in title case like “Most Popular Treatments for Cognitive Disorders.”
For titles of sources, use the sentence case, for instance, History of the decline and fall of the Roman empire; ‘Roman’ begins with a capital letter because it is a proper noun.
When citing in text reference, one can use only the name of the author with the first and middle initials.
In any list that precedes the last item an “and” is to be used, and this is what is referred to as the Oxford comma. The first of these commas precedes the joining term of ‘or’ and ‘and’ in a listing. For instance, ‘I bought Oranges, paper tines and pasta at the store’.

CMOS formatting

Many book publishers and most of the academic papers available employ CMOS formatting which is based on the Chicago Manual of Style. CMOS is also referred to as Turabian, after its author, Kate L. Turabian, who prepared the first manual on this style. Below are some of the formatting of the CMOS style and the way citations are done.

Your submission should contain an untitled page, number one.
Use double-line spacing.
Pages of texts should be aligned such that the first line of every new paragraph should be indented 1/2 inch.
Location Place page number on the upper right-hand corner of the page. The unexpected or too much familiar should not be written in your name or the title of the paper as in MLA or APA formats.
Headings should be in title case same as MLA for both headings and sources.

Finally

When you are writing your first outline, do not bother about the form of the paper. If you try to write it very formally as you write the paper it is rather impossible to get to the next step and have flow of ideas. Again, with the first draft, it is not necessary to be overly worried with how the segments are arranged. They are flexible enough to be moved or changed at later stage if you feel the need to do so.

References

Caulfield, J. (2023, January 20). Research Paper Format | APA, MLA, & Chicago Templates. Scribbr. Retrieved August 29, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/research-paper/research-paper-format/

BAW (2022). How Academic Help Providers Save the Students’ Future? https://bestassignmentwriter.co.uk/blog/how-academic-help-providers-save-the-students-future/