| Writing Abstracts
in APA Format
Many people use APA style to document research papers.
APA requires an abstract that will come after your title page, but
before the first page of text. APA abstracts are very easy to write.
What is an Abstract?
An abstract is really just a brief summary of your research paper.
In effect, you can assume you are writing a 1/2 page version of the
actual research paper. You will summarize all the main points that
you made in your research paper. Be careful, though. In your abstract,
you do not want to just say, for example, that "This paper will
look at the increase in gangs in Victora and will present methods
for effectively dealing with this increase." Rather, you would
actually mention what the increase is and would very briefly discuss
the actual methods for dealing with it that you presented in your
paper.
What are the Guidelines for Writing Effective Abstracts?
Remembering several guidelines should help you write effective APA
abstracts:
- Write your abstract last, after you have written the paper.
- Keep
it short--no longer than 1/2 page.
- Double space your abstract
and do not indent the first line of text. You should have 1 paragraph
with no indentation.
- Use all of your own words and do not cite
any outside sources.
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