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Term Paper Format: Keep to the Basic Rules and Succeed!

One of the key success factors for your assignments is your term paper format. Bringing your term paper format in compliance with the standard requirements testifies for your academic competence and earns you extra points. Below you can find some advice on how to format a term paper.

Term Paper Format: Margins, Font, Spacing

1-inch margins on all sides.
12-pt. easily readable font (e.g. Times New Roman, Courier, Arial).
Double spacing.

Term Paper Format: Text Alignment, Paragraph Indentation, and Pagination

Flush left the text, leaving an uneven right margin.
Indent the first paragraph line half-inch (or 5 spaces).
Number every page in the upper right margin, half-inch from the top and flush with the right margin:

in APA style the student’s name is put before the page number;
in MLA style a shortened title of the paper is put before the page number.

Term Paper Format: Title Page

MLA style does no require any. In the top left-hand corner of the first page type your name, professor’s name, course title, and submission date on separate lines. Proceed further with the title and the text.
APA style presupposes the following design of the title page:

below the page number type the running head in capital letters, flush left and precede by the words "Running head:";
below type the centered paper title, your name, school name, all on separate lines in upper and lower case letters.

Term Paper Format: Tables and Illustrations

MLA style requires tables and illustrations immediately in the text they refer to.
APA style allows putting tables and illustrations at the end of the paper.