How to Format an Essay: APA, MLA and Chicago Style
- Assignment Task Blog
- Nov 22, 2024
- Essay Writing
Since every citation style has its own set of guidelines for structuring, formatting, and referencing sources, it is imperative that essays be written in accordance with these styles. The three most used citation formats are Chicago, MLA, and APA. The differences between the MLA, APA, and Chicago formats will be discussed in this blog.
These can be used for both high school and college essays, and they are the standard structure for college essays. The following guidelines will assist you in structuring your essay in various formats:
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What is the Structure of an Essay Format?
In any kind of essay writing whether informative, academic, or even an extended essay proper structuring is was very much needed. Ex if you are writing an IB extended essay has specific requirements to be followed by the writers. These academic styles include APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.
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Title Page: This is the first paragraph of your essay. This para includes a research question, essay outline and a thesis.
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Abstract: This section consists of 3 paras and is of 100-300 words in length. This is the second paragraph pf your essay and covers the key resources, research limits, scopes, etc. The third para is the concluding part of our essay.
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Content Table: This part must contain the page numbers. This part includes sections like thesis, arguments, introduction, research question, headings, sub headings, appendix, confusion and the bibliography that is cited work.
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Introduction: Here you need to write the research question.
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Body: The subject matter of your essay is to be elaborated here.
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Conclusion: This is the last part of your essay and citation a summary of everything you have already stated in your essay. Do not write anything new here.
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Bibliography or Cited Work: The outline format of any extended essay is a good example to be followed by you especially when you are writing a research paper essay. Here, you need to follow a proper research essay format and is mostly based on MLA guidelines. It is also very important got you to remember that you must keep good track of the resource to be applied in your essay outline.
Must Read: How to Write the Best College Essay Assignment for University?
How to Format an Essay in APA Style?
The APA is one of the commonest essays writing format used by the students Thus, you always need to be very much acquainted with the requirement of writing an essay in APA style.
In a basic APA style format, you can apply the same guideline list as MLA. It is as follows:
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Font: 12point Times New Roman
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Page Numbering: You always need to add a concise header title at the top lest corner of each page with under 50 characters in length
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Spacing should be double spaced
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A page number should also be included in the top right corner of each page
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Title page
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Name of the author
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Paper title
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Course title
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Institution name
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Instructor name
- Date
The format of all the headings should be in bold and title cased. Here you need to apply any additional criteria for various heading levels.
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How to Format an Essay in MLA Style?
Follow is the basic guide to write an essay in MLA format:
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Font: 12 point times new roman
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Double spacing
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No extra spaces in between the paras
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The heading example to be written on the 1st page of your essay in the upper left corner
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Name of the author
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Teacher's or Professor's name
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Name of the class or course
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Date
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One inch margin to be allowed on all the four sides of your page
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Page Numbering: The last name and the page number are to be written on all the pages of your essay as a “header.”
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Title: you always need to write a true essay title format. This needs to be centered and above the first line of your essay with uniform font size.
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Indentation: you need to press a tab at half inch
- Alignment: Align your writing to the lest side and ensure that it is aligned evenly
Checkout Our Latest Blog: How to Write an Analytical Essay
Difference Between APA and MLA Format
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The formatting styles of both are the same with spacing, indentation and citation
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All the used information in the essay needs to be presented within the cited page
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Both use the same parenthetical citations in the “body” part for showing circulation or quote
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All the citations are to be listed alphabetically on the cited refence page
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The MLA style is usually used in the humanities stream while the APA style is mostly used in the social sciences paper. All the listed sources have different names
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The cited work also differs on the display pattern
- While using the in-text citation, you need to list the author’s name within the sentence and write the page number at the end.
MLA Format
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The formatting styles are similar to that of APA like spacing, citation, indentation, etc.
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All the information used in the essay needs to be presented within the cited work
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Here, you can use the parenthetical citations within the essay body for showing quotes or calculations
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The citation should always be listed in a alphabetical order in the reference page
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MLA style is mostly used in humanities while APA style is mostly used in social sciences
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The cited work differs in the way they
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Displayed on the original content
- While you are using the in text citation and the author’ name is to be written within the sentence
How to Format an Essay in Chicago Style?
Applying Chicago Format:
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Use a common font like 12 point times new roman
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Double spacing to be used
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One inch margin is to be used on all the four sides of the paper
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New paragraphs is to be indented by half inch
- Page numbers are to be written at the top right or the bottom center
Title Page: In Chicago style title page is not needed. You can include good title at the top of your very first page. Turabian tool can provide you with proper guidelines on how to present a title.
All the text in your title page needs to be aligned centrally as well double spaced and are to be written in similar font as the rest of your text. The title needs to be written about one third the way down each page and the headline should be in capital letters as well bolded.
If you have a subtitle, the main title needs to end with a colon with the subtitle in the following line. It needs to be written in bold with the same size as the main title. About two third down the page you can add any information requested by your instructor like your name, course name, student code, date, etc.
Each new piece of information should be written in a new line. Your title page should not have any page number but needs to be included in the page count i.e. the page numbering is to state on the page 2.
Headings: Heading is to be written in capital letters. It should contain a summary of the results. If you are using different heading levels like subheadings, section, chapters, etc. makes your presentation clear.
Each heading of 1 level needs to be presented in a similar way with higher level headings needs to stand out more from your text. Ex: you can use a larger font for the heading for each chapter with bolding and italics.
Block Quotes: Prose the quotations of 5 or more lines as the poetry quotations of 2 or more lines to be presented as block quotes.
Tips for Writing an Essay Paper - A Complete Guide
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Introduction: It is one of the major part of your essay. This pat needs to grab the attention of your readers very quickly. The introductory part needs to introduce your essay topic in 2-3 sentences. You need to state the background information your topic in the introductory part. This will help your readers to know about your essay topic subject.
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Stating the Subject: This is the very first step taken by you and should give very clear idea of what you want to say in your essay. Always ensure that the subject choose by you is relevant, interesting and about something that readers can identify with.
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Gather Evidences: Gather relevant evidences from various sources. This can show that a lot of research work has been done by you. Here, you need to quote the ideas and use proper evidences to support them.
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Thesis Statement: In order to write a good thesis statement, first, you need to understand about it clearly. Thesis statement of your essay paper is actually its central argument. It needs to be stared in 2-3 sentences.
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The Body Paras: After writing topic sentences for each of the main ideas of your essay, you need to go back and expand each of these sentences as each body para. Each body para needs to be 3-4 sentences in length. Each of these sentences need to add new idea to your essay.
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Conclusion: This is the final pat of your essay and needs to be presented as a summary of the already stated ideas in the essay. Do not write any new ideas here.
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Editing and Proofreading: Lat but not least, after finishing writing, you need to do a thorough editing and proofreading of your whole work to make it flawless before the final submission.
Final Thoughts
Clarity and uniformity can be ensured by formatting your essay in accordance with APA, MLA, or Chicago style. You can correctly format your essay, reference sources, and acknowledge the original writers by adhering to the guidelines particular to each style. For the most recent formatting instructions, make sure you refer to the applicable style guide.
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