{"id":9262,"date":"2025-11-28T10:05:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T10:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/apa-style-essay-format-example-2\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T10:05:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T10:05:59","slug":"apa-style-essay-format-example-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/apa-style-essay-format-example-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Apa Style Essay Format Example"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oh man, let me tell you about my first APA style paper in college. Picture this: 2 AM, empty Red Bull cans everywhere (the sugar-free kind because <em>adulting<\/em>), and me Googling &quot;how to not fail freshman comp.&quot; Spoiler alert \u2013 I still messed up the running head. My professor circled it in red with a note that said &quot;Cute effort!&quot; in that passive-aggressive academic tone we all know too well.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what I wish someone had told me during those panicked library sessions (the ones where I definitely cried near the psychology section):<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>The Title Page Drama<\/h3>\n<p>I spent 45 minutes trying to center my title vertically. Turns out APA doesn&#8217;t care about that \u2013 it&#8217;s just title, name, school, course, date, and that sneaky running head up top. Pro tip: Your instructor probably wants page numbers starting here, not on page 2. I learned this the hard way when my environmental science TA docked points for &quot;formatting creativity.&quot;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>The Abstract That Wasn&#8217;t Abstract Enough<\/h3>\n<p>Fun story \u2013 my first abstract read like a Netflix show teaser. &quot;In this thrilling exploration of sleep deprivation&#8230;&quot; Nope. APA wants 150-250 words of dry facts: problem, method, results, conclusion. Think robot writing a textbook, not Shakespeare. (Though I did slip in a &quot;methinks&quot; once \u2013 0\/10 do not recommend)<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>The Reference Page Nightmare<\/h3>\n<p>Microsoft Word&#8217;s citation tool became my frenemy. One time it formatted my YouTube source as &quot;[Film]&quot; instead of &quot;[Video file]&quot;. My friend Karen (shoutout to the Starbucks study group) showed me Citation Machine \u2013 lifesaver for us non-library-science majors. But you still need to check:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hanging indents (not regular indents!)<\/li>\n<li>Italics for journal names BUT NOT ARTICLE TITLES (why though?)<\/li>\n<li>That &quot;Retrieved from&quot; is dead in 7th edition. Pour one out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<h3>What Actually Worked For Me<\/h3>\n<p>After three all-nighters and one panicked call to my cousin (a community college TA), here&#8217;s my survival kit:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Steal Purdue OWL&#8217;s template<\/strong> like it&#8217;s free Target samples<\/li>\n<li><strong>Double-space EVERYTHING<\/strong> \u2013 even the references page<\/li>\n<li><strong>Times New Roman 12pt<\/strong> \u2013 no Comic Sans &quot;because it&#8217;s friendlier&quot;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Level headings<\/strong> (you know \u2013 bold, italics, indents. Google the chart)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Run it through Grammarly<\/strong> <em>after<\/em> formatting \u2013 trust me<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<hr>\n<h3>The Turning Point<\/h3>\n<p>Last semester, I helped my little brother format his psychology paper. Watching him stress over in-text citations (&quot;Wait, do I put the date before or after the author?&quot;) was like looking in a mirror. We used the Scribbr APA guide while eating cold pizza, and he texted me later: &quot;Got an A. They didn&#8217;t even notice I used 3 meme sources.&quot; (Don&#8217;t be my brother.)<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the real talk: APA style is like riding a bike with training wheels that never come off. Just when you think you&#8217;ve got it, some new edition changes the rules (looking at you, website citations). But keep a checklist, use the student discount for the APA manual app, and for the love of all that&#8217;s holy \u2013 don&#8217;t try to format as you write. Do it last, like adding sprinkles to a cupcake.<\/p>\n<p>Seriously though? Once you power through 2-3 papers, it becomes muscle memory. Now I can APA format in my sleep \u2013 though I still have stress dreams about misplaced semicolons. You&#8217;ve got this. And if all else fails, buy your grader a coffee. (Kidding. Maybe.)<\/p>\n<p>(P.S. If your references page starts on page 3 of a 4-page paper? Been there. Hit &quot;Ctrl+T&quot; for hanging indent and pretend you meant to do that.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh man, let me tell you about my first APA style paper in college. Picture this: 2 AM, empty Red Bull cans everywhere (the sugar-free kind because adulting), and me Googling &quot;how to not fail freshman comp.&quot; Spoiler alert \u2013 I still messed up the running head. My professor circled it in red with a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreateai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}