For students writing essays and numerous various papers is a standard routine that requires strong skills. From time to time, this process becomes exhausting. It is not easy to do it all, mainly when each assignment contains new requirements to fit. Task instructions usually include requirements on formatting. Turabian/Chicago and APA formats are the most widespread to date.
Each of these formats contains essentials to keep in mind when creating a paper. Let us speak more on how to make APA essay writing more comfortable with Google Docs.
What is an APA essay?
APA itself is an abbreviation shortened from the name of the American Psychological Association. This organization establishes and unifies official requirements and standards for papers written for particular disciplines.
These standards include requirements for fonts, APA cover page format, sources arranging, etc. APA’s involvement in papers’ standardization dates 60 years back and is connected to its numerous psychological publishing databases.
Among such disciplines are sociology, psychology, economics, anthropology, and other social-related areas of study. Below we will briefly describe some of the vital APA standards that you can apply to your essay, term papers, case studies, etc., using Google Docs.
How to use Google Docs when writing in APA?
You can style your paper in APA in two ways: to set appropriate formatting manually or to use a template. Let us see how to do it properly:
Part 1): Setting APA format manually. You should proceed with the following steps:
1. Pick Times New Roman font and set the font size to 12.
2. Leave the default Google Docs margins as they are already in the proper size of 1-inch.
3. Select Insert Header and add a header to your document. The headings in Google Docs are removable. The font for the title must also be Times New Roman 12 point.
4. Type the title in the upper case.
5. Pick Insert and select Page Count. The page numbers must be aligned with the top-right margin. Pay attention to use the same font as for the whole document.
6. By tapping below the header, choose the Double Line Spacing.
7. Enter your name and then enter your school’s name on the line below.
8. Choose Insert, then select Page Break, and start a new page.
9. Type the title “Abstract,” aligning it in the center.
10. Select Left Align and type the abstract text from the new line.
11. Select Page Break again and start a new page.
12. Press the Tab key and type the text of the paper’s main body.
13. After the main body is ready, choose a Page Break again and start a new page.
14. Write your references in APA format (below, we will give more details on how to do it).
Part 2): Using the Google Docs template that you can find in the web version. The algorithm will be the following:
1. Open a new document.
2. Select a New file and after choose From template.
3. You will see an additional browser tab with the Template gallery.
4. Find Education section.
5. Select Report APA.
A new document will be opened, and it will contain a template text formatted in APA style. All you will require to do is to enter your text instead of existing. If some sections are not necessary in your case, then delete them.
Proper format for references in APA style
When it comes to citations and references in APA, the format requires systemizing them in a strict order paying attention to each tiny detail. Google Docs will be very helpful in making them correctly formatted.
By the way, for you as an author, APA citation style will be an additional instrument to organize your sources and expose your vision effectively. An appropriate usage of sources is one of the essential requirements so pay attention to such peculiarities as:
- For web sources, mention the websites’ address, the author’s name, date when materials were published, the type, and the particular web source title.
- For book quotations, you should list the author’s name, the book’s title, and the name of a publisher, and the publishing year.
- For articles from journals, include the author’s name, article title, year of publishing, and page range.
These were vital pieces of advice on creating essays in APA format using Google Docs. Hopefully, you will find them useful.
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