College papers aim at a very specific look, and in many courses part of your grade depends on getting the format right. Though there are many possibilities, the two most common are MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association). Your teacher will probably tell you which you should use: MLA is most common in humanities courses and APA is most common in business and scientific courses.
All Ashland students can use Google Docs and the online version of Microsoft Word for free. In addition, almost all Apple users get Apple Pages free when they buy their computers. All three of these are set up to use paragraph styles. In general, a paragraph style defines the typeface, spacing, and everything else related to the appearance of a paragraph.
Both APA and MLA need a variety of styles for such things as title of the paper, body paragraphs, and and bibliography pages. The easiest way to type a paper is to open your word processor, find the correct template, and let the paragraph styles do the work of figuring out how things will look. I’ll walk you through this process in the links that follow.
If your paper deals with outside sources, you document them on the last separate page of the paper. The format for APA and MLA are very different, so don’t confuse them or try to mix and match items.
Here is a free service which can really simplify making that last page.
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The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by Ashland University.
Revised 10/19/22 • Page author: Curtis Allen • e-mail: callen@ashland.edu.