The Essential Parts of Well-Written APA Research Paper

 

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The Essential Parts of Well-Written APA Research Paper

Writing a research paper is one of the most challenging tasks students face in college. They have to spend weeks planning and researching and end up getting overwhelmed by the hectic workload. Voluminous content isn't the only aspect of research writing students find challenging; there's also the problem of citations. 

Despite having written several essays over their stay in the university, many scholars still fall short of piecing together a proper citation. The following sections reveal helpful information on achieving this feat, highlighting essential parts of a well-written APA style research paper. 

The Title Page 

When writing your research paper in the APA style format, you'll need to have your title be between 10-12 words and provide readers with a clear idea about the content of your paper. It would also have your name and that of your academic institution. Have your text that appears here double-spaced, with subsequent pages after the title page also reflecting your title as a running head in the left column. 

Your Abstract 

The abstract provides a summary of your report or research paper, but to attract the reader's interest in your work. You shouldn't give away too much information here, and keep your text within the range of 150 to 250 words. For formatting style, the abstract heading is centered and not bold. The texts that appear here shouldn't be indented, a single paragraph, and double spaced. 

When writing your abstract, it's best to have at least any of the following information appear in your text. 

  • Research Topic
  • Methods
  • Participants
  • Research Questions
  • Results
  • Analysis
  • Conclusion

The Introduction

Many students often make the mistake of labeling this section as "Introduction", but the right approach is to have an unbolded title text appear here. You'll proceed to summarize, integrate, and critically evaluate your discussed empirical knowledge. This section is often the most challenging aspect of writing, so many students often opt to buy research paper in APA format instead. This way, they save themselves time and stress while still getting a high-quality write-up from a professional writer. 

Time is a valuable resource for students, and given the extensive nature of research papers, getting assistance from a writing service is a popular pick for many of them. Such help can provide them with the period they need to study, make money in college, de-stress, attend to personal tasks, and more. It's best to get timely assistance if you're overwhelmed with your academics, as it would help improve your chances of college success. 

Method Section

This section is where you'll provide the methods employed in your work. You'll prepare it in such a format that readers can easily replicate it. So, don't be shy about the details. Here are the subsections that appear here. 

Materials 

The materials section is a collection of any questionnaire, resources, or stimuli used during your research. Briefly discuss the former here with extra information appearing in the appendix. 

Apparatus 

Here's where you describe specialized equipment you employed during your study, giving critical details of each apparatus. 

The Procedure

Now retell how you performed your study, the actions you had participants perform, and their order.  When listing your control variables, you must provide the reasons for using them in your procedure. So, what elements were they guarding against during your study or experiment? 

Consider keeping your procedure concise but clear and avoid being repetitive. Also, remember to include brief statements of consent and debriefing. 

Results

Here's where you report the outcome of your experiment and discuss the process used in achieving your analysis. It's best to break down your result section into subsections when dealing with complex research. Consider dedicating one section to write your different hypotheses to maintain a tidy work. 

You can prepare a table or figure detailing the results of your experiment, giving it a visual representation. Remember to discuss how your findings connect with your hypothesis, often using a text between one or two sentences. 

Discussion 

Don't analyze the results of your experiment in the previous section; save such information for your discussion page. Here, you'll have to interpret your findings and connect them with the broader context of the literature in the area. Consider starting with a brief reinstatement of your outcomes, their connections with your hypothesis, and then proceed to discuss your study's limitations.

You can wrap things up with a summary or concluding statement. You should avoid trailing off here but end on a positive note. 

References

You'll need to provide an alphabetical listing of your references, alphabetizing your write-up with the author's first name. Remember to stick with the APA style referencing rules here. There shouldn't be extra spaces between them and use a double-spacing format. 

Final Thoughts

Writing an APA research paper can be challenging, especially during resource writing, but with the right help, you can take on this task successfully. You can create a page for extra information, such as large tables and figures and an appendix section if you have one. If you have some unanswered questions you feel are necessary to improve understanding, you can also add them. 

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