Keys to Successful Writing | Essay, Thesis, Term Paper and Dissertation Writing

Different Types of Formatting Have their Own Peculiarities

When writing essays or research papers, one needs to know not only how to construct argumentation or make a coherent, logical flow of thoughts or ideas within the body of the text, but be knowledgeable in different types of formatting. Talking about formatting of academic writing tasks we refer to citation styles like the APA and MLA formatting styles and other styles, which define the structure of an essay or a research paper.

It is very important to devote enough time for proper formatting of your academic assignment as it will give it some definite structure and system, which allows for quicker and easier understanding of your paper. The most widely used different types of formatting are APA and MLA formatting styles.

Both styles supposes an essay composition of four parts – the Introduction, the Body, the Conclusion and References or Bibliography. The Body part may contain subsections which are the Literature Review, Methodology and Data Analysis parts. The most complicated is the Body as it is the research itself where you introduce your arguments and proofs. The Literature Review gives an in-depth, background knowledge on the problem or issues being explored. Here one gives a summary of all information collected and analyzed after much reading of all possible sources. Research paper methodology contains the information of the tools you have used to do primary research like finding some sample and exploring its outcomes on certain stimuli. It is rather complicated part of research. In Data Analysis section of the research, one tries to analyze data acquired in the process of primary research. It is a description of all findings of the research process.
Different types of formatting vary depending on the method they offer to arrange the sources used in the text. Using different outside information requires its proper referencing and citation style define how these reference items will look like. All citation styles have two components – in-text citations and References page at the end of the research paper. In-text citation is enclosed in a parenthesis basic information of the source used – Author’s name, the publication year and/or page number.

The in-text citations of APA style is like this: (Author 2000) or (Author 2009, pp. 200-202)

The in-text citations of MLA style is like this: (Author, 2000) or (Author, 2009 pp. 200-202)

The reference item of APA style has the following structure:

Author (Abbr.) – Date – Title – Volume – Place of Publication – Publisher – other relevant Information

The reference item of MLA style has the following structure:

Author(s) – Title of Book or Article (Periodical)- Volume – Place of Publication – Publisher- Date – Other Information – Pages

The differences are not significant but these small details should be observed when different types of formatting are required. Lacking experience in formatting academic paper where it is a simple essay or more complicated term paper or dissertation, you can ask for professional help at Samedayessay.com and get impeccably formatted paper.