What's so Hard about Creating an APA Paper?

Although a great deal of attention is given to the style used in references, and students spend a fortune on purchasing templates for a given style, in reality that is not where the most attention should be given. The formatting of references is just cookbook stuff which you are smart enough to easily learn.

The real difficulties are

Learning to use headings in the text that act as a title to the overall subtopic of the paper that follows
Using citations and references (Appropriate citation and referencing. http://www.ncsu.edu/labwrite/res/res-citsandrefs.html)
Being somewhat formal in writing

No template can help with these. But you can easily learn how to do these by reading a few nursing journal articles and asking yourself these questions.

Where did the author use a citation?
Where did the author place headings?
Did the heading match the overall topic in the next section?
What levels of heading were used?
Did the citations match the reference list?
Did the citations have words between parentheses, or superscript numbers to mark them?
Which style, AMA or APA is required?
What can you learn about either style by looking at the citations and reference list?

Editing the paper

The beauty of a word processor is that it allows editing. In the days of a typewriter, editing required retyping and was a very painful process.

Unless you are a skilled,experienced professional writer, your paper needs a thorough edit. Preferably a thorough edit after you think you are finished and then 3 to 7 days later when you have forgotten what you thought you wrote. (Most professionals edit!)

Critique the paper asking the following?

Can a person in the intended audiece understand what you wrote? (Ask a person who will provide constructive criticicism to read.)
Is all the information about one topic in one place? See Reverse Outlining.An excellent way to check if your writing holds together. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/689/01/
Has the spell checker led you astray as in approving "no" for "know"
Did you take advantage of the grammar checker in your word processor?
Finally, is the formatting appropriate? (Use the APA Checklist to check this)

Created November 13, 2011 and updated November 11, 2013