Dine-a-Bite

The Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana has a system called the Online Writing Lab (OWL), which makes use of the American Psychological Association (APA) format in writing a paper on social sciences. The APA is most commonly cited for its resources on social sciences. The Perdue OWL APA is used in the university by students who are required to write a manuscript about a discipline in the different fields of social science. The APA formatting style is a writing format devised by the American Psychological Association so that anyone who is going to write a manuscript has a uniform style to follow.

The Perdue OWL APA adapts the APA formatting style for uniformity. Here are some guidelines:

1.    The essay should be typed on an 8 ½” x 11” paper, double-spaced, with 1” margins.
2.    Each section must be started on a separate page.
3.    The manuscript sections are as follows: title page, abstract, text, references, appendices, author note, footnotes or endnotes, tables, figure captions and figures. All of these sections must be in order. No section must be skipped, as it will divert from the APA style format.
4.    Starting from the title page, the manuscript must be numbered accordingly.

When you are asked to write a manuscript on a certain social science field, follow the Perdue OWL APA to the T. Cite all the sources that you used in the references section of your manuscript.  To make citing sources easier, jot down each source right after you cite it so you do not forget to include it in the references section. In writing any form of manuscript or paper, it is very important to remember not to plagiarize any source. While it is okay to cite and extract information from sources, writing the information in your very own words is paramount.

To learn more of the APA writing style, it is best to consult to the 5th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Here everything necessary is covered and you no longer have to consult other books or manuals when writing in APA style. The Perdue OWL APA also makes use of this manual for guide.

Filed under: Informational |