Introduction
Writing a Research paper is quite common in the academic journey of the students. They come across writing dozens of papers, thesis, etc. in their entire educational career. Paper formatting is equally important as the content of the paper. Paper formatting demonstrates that the writer is paying equal attention to each and every intricate detail of the paper. No matter how correct and compelling the content is, the students will not be able to score well in their papers if the content has not been formatted in a defined manner. Sometimes students even fail for not following the formatting directions, also though they deliver the right content. Therefore Formatting plays a very essential role while writing a paper or any other academic task.
Below mentioned are some of the essential guidelines for creating a perfect research paper format.
Guidelines to develop a perfect Research paper Format:
Mentioned herewith are some of the ground rules that one must follow while creating a perfect Research paper:
- Create a proper Heading:
Just like any other college paper, the research paper also needs an appropriate heading. Although different courses require different headings, but there are certain common things that each heading must have like Student’s/Writer’s name, Instructor’s name, course name and the date. These headings must be mentioned on the upper left hand corner of the first page of the content. Many a time professors do fail their students if they’ve not assigned a heading on their paper in a set format.
- The setting of proper Margins:
The second most important thing is to set the margins around the entire page. Most of the students often forget to set margins. Hence it is always recommended to leave a 1 inch margin around the whole page so that the Professors can do their markings.
It is also a right way for the student to show that they’re paying attention to every intricate detail set by the instructors.
- Create a unique title:
The students must create an original title that defines what the entire paper is all about. Title creation is specifically essential if one is making a mythical criticism or trying to defend any piece of legislature or writing content about history. One must make sure to create a unique title that must be aligned in the central position of the paper.
- Font style, Size, and Spacing:
Deciding upon the font style, its size, and spacing between the words and paragraphs is also a very important point that requires an equal amount of consideration. A general font style in which most of the college papers are created is Times New Roman style. The font size is fixed to 12 with double spacing, to make the format easily readable for the professors.
The students might change the font style and size as per the demand/ requirement of the paper or special instructions of the professors. But by default, they must follow the above mentioned font style, size and spacing if nothing is mentioned in the instructions.
The students must note that the professors might deduct your numbers if the font size and style is not as per the instructions.
- Rechecking the work cited:
All the research papers must have a “work cited” page along with their paper. Therefore citing of the paper acts as a proof that the content is created after referring the reliable sources.
Citing can easily be done by mentioning the direct quotes, statistics or any other data that has been taken from other websites or papers or books and accordingly specify their link in the “work cited” page.
Hence the work cited page enlists the link of all the sources from which the content has been taken in an alphabetical order along with the author’s last name.
It is recommended to follow the MLA format while creating the citation page. But one must consult their instructor in case if they need any specific format, which could be APA or any other formatting style.
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