NUR 590 What aspects of APA do you still struggle with?
NUR 590 What aspects of APA do you still struggle with?
NUR 590 What aspects of APA do you still struggle with?
Being a part of higher education entails a higher level of professionalism to be achieved. This means we must become proficient in APA style to provide integrity and an increased academic level to all projects being done during the course of the program. GCU provides a wide variety of resources that are available on their website in the Student Success Center. This has tremendously helped to reference material and incorporate it in my papers throughout the course. I still struggle with writing academic papers as it is not my forte, nor is english my primary language. It has been a challenge to overcome the boundary that is formatting and high expectations, however I have learned so much and have throughly enjoyed my time learning and shaping this research project. I will continue to pursue mastering APA but in the meantime I will content myself in knowing I have the basics down!
Grand Canyon University. (n.d.). Student Success Center. GCU Student Success Center. Retrieved August 4, 2023, from ://libguides.gcu.edu/APA
For many years I was interested in attending school, but my fear was writing papers, work and life. I finally made the leap and enrolled and I am so thankful I did. As a student who has been out of school for twenty-one years, I have learned a lot about APA formatting. In the beginning I struggled in my APA formatting and would use my peers to help as well as my professors. As I have moved through the courses, I have gained wonderful feedback and improved my writing with citing and formatting. One thing I found useful from the Student Success Center tools was applying the thesis throughout my paper while properly formatting each section. Utilizing the tools from the student success center has taught me the importance of sharing the main idea throughout the entire paper. I am thankful we have APA checklist to review our papers for errors in typos, citation, and formatting before submitting our work for grading. One area I struggle with is citing book references as many other classmates have mentioned. I also cite peer reviewed articles a lot due to the ease of citing the references for my papers. I refer to the Student Success Center (Grand Canyon University, n.d.) when I need assistance, I do not like to apply direct quotes because I seem to always mess this up in the formatting of my papers. I should not be afraid to make mistakes and learn from these mistakes to improve upon my APA citations. I am thankful we have all these tools and the feedback from professors to help us throughout our journey in school to meet the requirements for professional writing for our MSN.
Reference:
Grand Canyon University. (n.d.). Research guides: Citing sources in APA 7th Edition: Formatting in APA. Formatting in APA – Citing Sources in APA 7th Edition – Research Guides at Grand Canyon University. https://libguides.gcu.edu/APA/Formatting
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APA style provides a good foundation to effectively communicate in a cleat and precise matter. I have learned that APA style is needed to enable readers to focus on ideas that are presented and provides key points, findings and sources. APA style guidelines allow readers to write while avoiding omissions in punctuation, capitalization, references and in-text citations. This allows for ideas to flow with logic, sources are credited appropriately and papers are organized. Finding citations that are up to date and current is where I struggle.
Grand Canyon University (n.d.) Citing sources in APA 7th edition.
In the four courses I have had, I have seen my citation improve tremendously. I have always been intimidated by APA citations. It looks foreign and hard to understand because of the many “rules”. The continued constructive criticisms from my instructors thus far have been helpful and it has made for me a great learning experience. Some of the instructors are meticulous – period placements, spacing, and capital letters, but those are the ones that have truly helped me. I still struggle sometimes and would need to refer back to The Writing Center of our Student Success Center (Grand Canyon University, n.d.). Direct quotes are still tricky for me, as well as the actual paper formatting. I take these all as learning opportunities because I am here to learn and get better at it.
Grand Canyon University. (n.d.). Research guides: Citing sources in APA 7th Edition: Formatting in APA. Formatting in APA – Citing Sources in APA 7th Edition – Research Guides at Grand Canyon University. https://libguides.gcu.edu/APA/Formatting
I agree citations has been a learning curve for me as well. I think without the GCU Citing Sources Guide in the Writing Center (Grand Canyon University, n.d.), I would have spent a great deal more time trying to get my citations done correctly. I think what I appreciate about it the most is the examples as it really matches my learning style. I too also found that occasionally I would have an instructor who didn’t seem to monitor citations closely, but I learned the most when I got the feedback on how to do it correctly.
Grand Canyon University (n.d.) Citing sources in APA 7th edition.
One major thing that I have learned over the course of my MSN thus far is that something as simple as a checklist can be key in ensuring you haven’t forgotten any elements in your writing. The APA writing checklist kept me from forgetting key pieces. There are two resources I use the most out of the student success center, one is the Citing Sources Guide and the other is the APA template, both located in the writing center (Grand Canyon University, n.d.). The examples given have really helped grow my understanding of citations. The APA template takes all the stress out of having to format a paper. As for the best suggestion I was given from an instructor, that came out of this class. I am often (always) way over the word requirement, and it is often do to excess, unnecessary material where I am often repetitive. Dr. Ward gave me the advice to ask peers to read my work to help me cut out excess material. Still a work in progress, but I can see where it is helpful.
Reference:
Grand Canyon University (n.d.) Citing sources in APA 7th edition.
I could not agree more on the check list, it is a simple tool but it has saved me multiple times. I have also gotten the critique that my responses are too wordy, or I put too many thoughts into one sentence. I have found that reading my paper out loud tends to help me condense my writing. I think when I read silently to myself as I proof read my responses, I must become numb to some things. I find when I read it out loud it catches my attention more when I start to hear repetitive data, or that I have gone off on a tangent. Occasionally it has my husband and kids looking at me funny, but it has really helped me to be more concise in my writing.
I have found myself referencing the apa checklist quite often as I advance through my masters. At the beginning I felt as if I completed it just to have it finished with but now I take the time to look through it and truly pay attention to the content it has. APA is tricky but with patience and research we can learn to become proficient at it! Also on a side note Jill, I struggle with the word count however I will definitely try that advise on my next project! Hope you have a good one!
The APA format of writing provides a standard form of writing among Nursing professionals at the graduate and doctoral levels. Adherence to the APA checklist has been a challenging learning experience but it has helped to avoid plagiarism errors and provided a more professional tone to my writing. I have learned that the title page is centered and double-spaced, including the blank lines left at the top before the title. Information such as the student’s name, the course title, and the instructor’s name should be written below in descending order using the standard font. I have also learned that the references should start on a new page with the title “References,” a section label hanging indented, double spaced, and authors should be alphabetized in descending order. Checklists serve as reminders to reinforce knowledge and skills. In general, I have been able to meet the checklist’s standard, despite a few areas where I need to improve. I sometimes forget that if there are more than three authors, I must use et al.
Citation mechanisms are one such area that I need to improve. Although I have improved on the fundamentals of APA in-text citations, I still make some minor errors when determining when to use (Grand Canyon University, 2022) where the date is unavailable. I sometimes make mistakes when citing journal articles on the reference page. I often forget to include the volume and issue number on a few occasions. Practicing and getting feedback has definitely helped me improve at this.
Reference
Grand Canyon University. (2022, August 23). Grand Canyon University American Psychological Association [APA] style guide for writing. https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gcumedia.com%2Flms-resources%2Fstudent-success-center-content%2Fdocuments%2Ftools%2Fapa%2FWriting%2520Center_Style_APA_7th_Edition_Style_Guide.docx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK
