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Guidelines for Writing of Research Articles

APA 7th Edition

Summiya Nazeer 1033-FSS/BSPsy/F-18

Alishba Sher 1058-FSS/BSPsy/F-18

Hina Tabassum 1054-FSS/BSPsy/F-18

Department of Psychology, International Islamic University Islamabad

PSY-601: Research Methods-II

Professor Dr. Tamkeen Saleem

March 3, 2021
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Guidelines for Report Writing of Research Articles

APA 7th Edition

Formatting and writing of student’s research papers and articles are to be done according

to the 7th Edition of Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA).

Following are certain guidelines to be followed while composing formal papers. This paper

throws the light on the APA guidelines for report or article writing.

Formatting of Article

Firstly, make sure that margins of the page are set up correctly; APA specifies 1” margins

on all sides. Secondly, Font style and font size should be chosen as either Times New Roman 12,

Arial 11, Calibri 11, Georgia 11, or Lucida Sans Unicode 11. Secondly, line spacing must be set

to 2.0 and all extra spaces between paragraphs should be removed. Page numbering should start

on the title page on the very top right corner. All text ought to be left aligned except if indicated

as in any case, such as in the case of title page which will be talked about shortly. The text

should remain unjustified to such an extent that the left side remains ragged. Following that,

except the abstract, each paragraph’s first line should be indented.

It is to be noted that if reporting any numerical values, values less than 10 should be

written in word form with the exception of if the focus is on the value that is in points. On the

contrary, values greater than or equals to 10 should be written as digits. Furthermore, one space

ought to be embedded after all punctuations.

Levels of the Headings

To divide and organize the body of the paper, various types of headings and subheadings

can be utilized. For this reason, level the headings as indicated in APA style. However, there is

no compulsion to use all levels of headings in the paper and can be used as per necessity.
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First Level Headings

These are generally the main headings which sections, partition or classifies the paper

and are usually bold, centered and title case headings.

Second Level Headings

They will be subheadings that follow up the main headings and will be more towards

bold, left and title case headings.

Third Level Headings

Third level headings will be more flush left, bold, italics and title case headings.

Fourth Level Headings

These will be indented, bold and title case headings, ending with a period. Text continues

from the same line to make up the paragraph.

Fifth Level Headings

Just like fourth level headings they will be indented, bold, italics, title case headings,

ending with a period. But the text of the paragraph continues directly on the same line.

Title Page

Title page is the first page which contains the title, author’s name(s), affiliation, course

name, instructor’s name, and due date.

The title of the article is always centered and is written in bold upper and lower case.

Three-line spaces are skipped before the title is added such that it shows up mainly about one-

third of the page. After the title is added, another line space is skipped before the author’s

name(s), affiliation, course name, instructor’s name, and due date are added in the respectively.

Each of these components or categories are written in separate lines. If there is a case of multiple
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authors then their names can be either added in an alphabetical order in the same line with

commas between each name or each name can be written on a separate line.

Body of Article

The body of the paper or article contains all the information that the paper has to provide.

Generally, it includes the abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion, references and

appendix.

Abstract

The abstract is the synopsis of the whole paper and it excludes any data that is not the

included or the part of paper itself. It appears on the second page of the paper and is no more

than 250 words. The word “Abstract” is bold, centered and written in upper and lower case. The

starter of the abstract’s paragraph is not indented.

Introduction

This section begins from the third page of the paper and introduces the topic and the

theme being contemplated, states the hypothesis of the study and reviews the past researches

with the length of two to three pages approximately. The title of the paper is bold, centered and

typed in upper and lower case. Each new paragraph from the section onwards is indented.

Method

This section describes how the study was conducted, providing enough information for

its replication. Generally, divided into two subsections namely, 1) Participants, and 2)

Procedures. The word “Method” immediately follows the last sentence of the introduction

section and just as above it is also centered, bold and typed in upper and lower case. The further

subsections are then formatted according to the levels of headings in APA style.

Results
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Results are usually the numerical data obtained from the research and aims to narrate the

statistical findings in light of the hypothesis. Promptly followed by the last line of the methods

section the word “Results” is centered, bold and typed in upper and lower case and is

approximately one and half page long.

Discussion

This section generally involves the are examination, comparison, interpretation and

evaluation of the results. Inferences and conclusions are drawn from the findings of the research

and clearly states whether the hypothesis was proven to be correct or incorrect. The word

“Discussion” immediately follows the last line of the results section and is centered, bold and

typed in upper and lower case and is approximately two to three pages long.

References

Last section in which the previous works from which information were utilized are cited

in APA format. All articles and books that were referred to in the article are included the

references. It appears on a separate page at the end of the paper.

Reference lists are formatted in such a way that every new entry or reference is written

from left with the resulting line indented. The last name(s) of the writer will be fully written

while the middle and first name's initials are recorded. The time period of publication of the book

or articles follow the name in brackets. A full stop is added after which the name of the paper is

added alongside the journals or publishers where the article or book is distributed individually.

It is to be noted that at whatever point another author's work is referenced in the content,

the surname(s) of the author and date of publication will be added straightforwardly in the

content with enclosure around the name and date in the event that it doesn't find a way into the
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sentence. The total reference nonetheless, will be included in the references list toward the finish

of the paper.
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References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American

Psychological Association (7th ed). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000