This includes research papers, essays, lab reports, and other kinds of reports. Use APA format for every piece of academic writing you do for your social sciences, engineering, and education courses. Today, The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is in its seventh edition. The team of academics from the psychology, anthropology, and business fields who developed APA style sought to create standardized style guidelines for scientific writing that would make academic papers in their fields easier for people to read and comprehend. Specifically, it’s used in psychology, sociology, anthropology, and the other social sciences.ĪPA style was developed by the American Psychological Association in 1929. What is APA format?ĪPA format, also known as APA style, is one of the styles used in academic writing. We also give plenty of APA citation examples. Below, we explain everything you need to know about how to write a paper in APA, including formatting guidelines, style choices like whether to use the Oxford comma, and how to cite sources. APA format is usually preferred for subjects in the social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, criminology, education, and occasionally business.īecause each style is different, you may need to learn new formatting or citation rules depending on what subject you’re writing about.

APA format is a set of formatting and citation guidelines for how an academic paper should look, similar to other styles like Chicago or MLA.

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