The document outlines various formatting styles for research papers, specifically focusing on MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. Each style has specific guidelines regarding margins, font choices, citation formats, and structural elements such as title pages, abstracts, and references. The document aims to assist in understanding the basics of research paper formatting.

1. The Perfect Research Paper Format
Three Popular Styles to format your Research Paper

2. Popular Research Paper Format Styles
• MLA Style
• APA Style
• Chicago Style
• Harvard Style
• CBE Style
• CGOS Style

3. MLA Style Research Paper Format
• Leave one-inch margin at the top, bottom, left and right of the
8.5” X 11” page while taking printout.
• Choose 'Times New Roman' as the font with '12' as the font size.
• Keep everything aligned to the left.
• Double space the entire research paper, including notes,
quotations, and list of citations.
• Indent first line of a paragraph or a quotation half an inch from
the left margin to set them off.

4. MLA Style Research Paper Format
• There is no title page needed in the Research Paper.
• On the top of the first page, type:
• Your Name
• Your Instructor's Name
• Your Course Number
• Date
• Then, type the Title of the Research Paper in a new line, and
center it. Do not format it in any way.
• Do not use a period after the title or any heading in the paper.

5. MLA Style Research Paper Format
• After the title or a heading, you can start writing the text in a new,
double-spaced line - indenting the first line of the paragraph.
• Page numbers should be mentioned in the upper right-hand corner of
the page, half an inch from the top - aligned to the right margin. Page
numbers should be in the following format:
<Your last name>space<page number>
• Begin your Citations list on a new page, at the end of the paper.
• Begin each entry aligned to the left margin. If it continues in more than
one line, indent all subsequent lines half-an-inch from the left margin.

6. MLA Style Research Paper Format
• Insert a table close to the text it relates to. Label it as:
Table <Number of the table in the research paper>
<Caption of the Table>
• Give source at the end of the table. If you want to include notes to the table, use
lowercase letters rather than numerals.
• Any other illustration, photograph, map, line drawing, graph or chart is labeled as:
Figure <Number of the figure in the research paper>
<Caption of the Figure>

7. APA Style Research Paper Format
• Leave one-inch margin at the top, bottom, left and right of the 8.5” X 11” page
while taking printout.
• Choose 'Times New Roman' as the font with '12' as the font size.
• Double space the entire research paper, including the Title Page.
• In the header of each page, include the title of your paper (or its shortened
version) in all capital letters aligned to the left, and the page number aligned to
the right margin.
• The title of the paper in the header should not exceed 50 characters, including
spacing and punctuation.

8. APA Style Research Paper Format
• In APA style, research paper should have four major sections - Title Page, Abstract,
Main Body, and References.
• On the Title Page:
• Start with the header as mentioned above.
• Mention the title in the upper half of the page. It should be not more than 12 words
long and should be centered on the page.
• Beneath the title, type the author's full name (without any titles).
• Beneath the author's name, type the institutional affiliation of your research work.
• Abstract should begin from the new page. It should include the header and:
• On the first line of the page, center the word 'Abstract'. Do not boldface, underline,
italicize or format it in any way.

9. APA Style Research Paper Format
• Your abstract should be between 150 to 250 words, and is a concise summary
of your research paper.
• The text should start from the new line and must include your research topic,
research questions, participants, methods, results, data analysis and
conclusions. Do not indent the text.
• Below it, type Keywords: in italics, and list your keywords. It will help other
researchers to find your paper easily in databases.
• References list should be included at the end of the paper. Each entry in the list
must be cited in your text too.
• Begin it from a new page, and label it as 'References' (without any formatting).

10. APA Style Research Paper Format
• Each entry on your list should be indented half-an-inch from the left margin.
• Author's name should have the last name first. Each entry can include up to seven
authors. If the work citied has more than seven authors, use ellipses after the names of
first six authors, and then include the name of the last author. The authors should be
mentioned in the alphabetical order (according to their last names).
• The journal title should be mentioned in full, maintaining the capitalization and
punctuation as mentioned in the original title.
• Capitalize all major words in the journal titles, but when referring to chapters, articles
or webpages, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of the title, subtitle, and
the first word after a colon or a dash.

11. Chicago Style Research Paper Format
• Margins of the page should not be less than 1” and not be greater than 1.5”.
• Times New Roman in 12 pt font size works well in this format too.
• Text needs to be double-spaced, except for block quotations, table titles, figure captions, notes, and bibliographies (which
need to be single-spaced. )
• Include an extra line space immediately before and after a block quotation. Do not use quotation marks for block quotations.

12. Chicago Style Research Paper Format
• The entire block quotation should be indented half-an-inch from the left margin.
• Leave an extra line between notes and bibliographic entries.
• Include Page Numbers in Arabic in the header from the first page of the text.
• For long research papers, use sub-headings. Do not end them with periods, and include an extra line just before and after sub-
headings.
• Be consistent in your writing style.

13. Chicago Style Research Paper Format
• On the Title Page, centre the title one-third way down the page. Put a colon after the title and add the sub-title on the next
line. Include your name and class information in the bottom-third of the page.
• Titles mentioned in the text, notes or bibliography should be capitalized in headline-style.
• Italicize the book and periodical titles.
• Enclose the titles of articles or chapter in quotation marks.
• Label the page where you list your sources as ‘References’ for including them in Author-Date style, and as ‘Bibliography’ for
including them in Notes-and-Bibliography style.

14. Chicago Style Research Paper Format
• On the References or Bibliography page, leave two lines between the label and the first entry. Leave one blank line between
each entry.
• Mention all entries in alphabetical order.
• Mention names of all authors up to three authors. For more authors, mention the name of the first author and add ‘et al.’
after that.
• In Chicago –style research paper format, there are five heading levels:
• Level 1 is centered, boldface or italicized, and has headline-style capitalization.
• Level 2 is centered, regular type, and has headline-style capitalization.
• Level 3 is aligned to left, boldface or italicized, and has headline-style capitalization.
• Level 4 is aligned to left, roman type, and has sentence-style capitalization.
• Level 5 is placed at the beginning of paragraph with no blank line after it, has terminal period, boldface or italicized, and has sentence-style
capitalization.

15. Thank You!
We hope that this presentation has been able to help you with learning about the
basics of formatting your research paper.
Be sure to keep a copy of your research paper with you before submitting it.
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