Introduction
The essay basically consists of formats that help a writer to organize an essay in a good way. The essay format is the series of the guidelines which find that how the paper should be presented or arranged. The essay covers the title page, essay outline and essay structure, and conclusion.
College essay needs to use the brainstorming technique for choosing the topic and to make it personal or real. The narrative structure for the writing is a challenging structure. The montage structure for the writing is also an important structure for the essay. The citations are also important to make the essay well designed or organized for the reader.
How to format an essay
To format the paper, the writer should have the title page, text capitalization, essay structure and proper citation. The formatting of the college essay is essential. The writer should know the way how to make a hook sentence at the start of the essay. The essay is the creative process and it doesn’t need to be written in the boundaries.
There is a basic structure that is generally followed in writing an essay. The general structure of an essay consists of introduction, body, and conclusion. The first paragraph of the essay is the introduction paragraph. In this paragraph, the writer introduces the topic with the hook sentence at the start.
The introduction paragraph hooks the reader by drawing his attention. The strategy of writing the introduction paragraph is to engage the reader to ask the question and make themselves clear about the topic of the essay.
The introduction paragraph is very critical to involve the reader in the essay. The essay should have a strong opening which hooks the reader to read more. The body of an essay supports the main points present in the thesis statement. Every point should be developed with more than one paragraph.
The body supports the ideas of the writer in a coherent and logical way by citing the evidence that is discovered in the research. The writer should ensure the transition smoothly from one paragraph to another.
The conclusion paragraph brings the main point altogether and refers back to the main objectives of the essay and leaves the readers with the final sense and though of the closure through resolving ideas that brought up in the essay. In the ending paragraph, new ideas or topics that developed in an essay need to be introduced.
APA essay formats
APA writing scheme is most common in writing college essays and it is crucial with the requirements. It stands for the American Psychological Association. It used in the scientific topic of the essay. The APA structure format follows the guidelines that are:
• Font: Font of APA format should be 12pt Times New Roman
• Spacing: Spacing among the words and lines should be double spaced.
• Page Numbers: The page numbers are inserted in the header at the top left of the page which includes the Running Head along with the page number. The number slap in the right top corner.
• Margins: On all sides of the paper, there should be one-inch margins.
• Title page: The title page of the essay includes:
o Name of student
o Name of institution
o Course title
o Instructor name
o Date
• Citations: The citations list alphabetically form on the reference page.
Example of APA Essay Format
Harvard Essay Formats
Harvard format used in writing research essays and academic essays. This essay format is organized and specific and follows the guidelines that include:
• Font: Font can be Arial or Time New Roman at 12pt.
• Title: The title of the paper placed down a page and it is written in capital letters. The title page also consists of the following information on the upper left corner of the page.
o Student name after title of the essay
o Name of class
o Professor Name
o Date
• Spacing: It should be double-spaced
• Margins: smooth margins of the left side of the page.
• Citations: The titles of newspapers, books, or journals are italicized in the in-text citation and short stories and poems in the quotation marks.
Example of Harvard Essay Format
MLA essay formats
The Modern Language Association MLA specifies the standard college essay format in an academic setting. MLA format of the essay needs to follow all instructions and guidelines.
• Font: The font of the essay should be 12pt Times New Roman.
• Spacing: The spacing among the lines of the essay should be double spaced and it doesn’t require any extra spacing between the paragraphs (Lipson, 2012)
• Heading: Heading on the first page of an essay in the upper right corner.
o Name of the college student
o Professor’s name
o Course
o Date of submission
• Margins: On top, bottom, right and left, there should be one-inch margin
• Page Numbers: Page number is written with the last name of a header of every page of the essay.
• Align: Align to the left side and the writer should sure that it is evenly aligned.
• Title: Format of essay title need be above form fist line and on the center of the page and it should be in the same size or font like an essay itself.
Example of MLA Essay Format
Subheading in APA
The use of subheading and heading in APA provides an idea to the reader that expects to lead the discussion. APA also recommends a different level of the headings that are structure based on level. The levels show the hierarchy of scope and importance of subheading and heading. The levels depend on the complexity and length of the paper.
The college essay use five levels in which level 1 usually encompasses the broader topic and other 2 to 5 levels, it covers the narrow to the detailed topics of the essay. The start of the essay consists of the heading of some specific sections. Level 1 consists of the topic and along level 2 is about the subsection of heading and have subheading at lies in heading to go through points that are important for the topic.
The essay consists of subheading of the subheading of major heading to share the ideas clearly to the reader with the detailed write-up and lies in level 3. To give a good image of the essay, it should consist of the heading levels. Level 4 from the heading levels based on the subheading under the subsection of the major heading subsection.
In APA, heading and subheading are not mostly accompanied by numbers or letters. The last and level 5 consist of the subsection under the heading of three subheadings in the essay. It is the format of the college essay which needs to follows to put the detailed ideas.
Conclusion
The format of the college essay needs to be cleared and organized to clear the ideas to the reader. An essay is informal writing to interact with a specific audience. The main points and objectives need to be defined in the first paragraph of the essay.
The format of the college essay can be APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard as they are the most used academic formats of an essay.MLA format used in the humanities and it is different from different types of other academic writing.
APA format focused on the social sciences. Harvard format essay based on Harvard writing style and generic form which uses the writing style based on reference and text. In APA style of essay format, five levels of the heading are present. The levels are the main or highest heading and subheading levels.