How to Write an Executive Summary in APA

Writing an executive summary in APA style is often needed for scientific or medical documents. The APA style of writing, which is attributed to the American Psychological Association, outlines what is expected from a literary piece of work at the scholarly level. An executive summary is the synopsis of a longer piece of work, usually written for executives with a short amount of time, with a focus on allowing them to grasp the ideas of the longer piece of work without having to read the whole document.

Instructions

    • 1

      Outline the major points of the larger piece of work. Highlight the topic sentence of each paragraph, then list one or two major facts supporting the sentence. Executive reports are not supposed to include all the information, but they must be formatted to provide as much information as possible in a quick summary.

    • 2

      Build sentences within the outline based on the previous one or two major points supporting each topic sentence. Each point of the outline will be a brief paragraph, to coincide with the longer piece. To format the work under APA guidelines, make sure the first sentence of each paragraph is independent, or can stand on its own.

    • 3

      Create paragraphs based on the sentences in the outline. Format the sentences to follow APA guidelines: do not use contractions, ensure the spelling of all words is correct, and if mistakes are noticed after printing, correct them by striking through the error with a pencil line and the noting the correction above it. The use of a pencil is unique to APA style, as MLA style requires a black or blue ballpoint pen.

Learnify Hub © www.0685.com All Rights Reserved