Formal APA Paper Guidelines
General Guidelines
Select a non-clinical topic related to the nursing field that interests you. By non-clinical — do not select a specific drug, disease, diagnosis or treatment. Your topic should lend itself to being placed in the form of a question. For example: What is nursing’s role in the field of complementary alternative medicine today? Or does parental education really affect childhood obesity rates? Or should nursing personnel obtain consents for surgical procedures?
The topic you choose should have various perspectives. In addition, your write up should incorporate the following objectives:
- Discuss the issue and its importance to nursing.
- Examine factors that influence thinking about the issue.
- Consider a variety of viewpoints and identify assumptions that may underlie them.
- Describe the influence of race, gender, and class.
- Examine the impact of legal, spiritual, ethical, and cultural factors.
- Articulate various perspectives, citing the advantages and disadvantage of each.
- Develop each perspective, until the issue is well described from many vantage points.
- Establish and articulate your own opinion after reviewing information from a variety of sources.
- Make judgments, without emotional bias.
- Demonstrate well-rounded critical thinking, incorporating previous knowledge.
- Write clearly, logically, and thoughtfully.
Your paper should be written clearly and succinctly. This means that you should use the minimum amount of words that you need to thoroughly explain your topic and incorporate the objectives above. The paper’s length should be 6-8 pages of content, not including title page, abstract and references. Your paper should have a minimum of six current peer-reviewed references. All references must be cited in correct APA format within your paper. There is no firm minimum, or maximum, number of pages; I am more interested in what you have to say, and how well you say it. Additional writing resources are located on the home page.
All due dates for this project are published in the course schedule. Rubrics are located within each assignment link. The assignment tool within the web course will be used to submit the formal paper.
It is expected that you will meet the published due dates. No late work will be accepted.
The Process
Explore your topic choice
- You may find it helpful to begin by exploring some valuable websites, linked here.
- Write your topic choice in the form of a question. Are you interested in finding the answer to the question that you wrote? An interesting, well-written question will help you limit selection of articles and keep you enthused on the topic.
- With your question in hand, search CINAHL or other data base sources for recent articles pertaining to your topic. Don’t go back more than 5 years.
- Read at least 3 articles on your topic. Do you still like the topic? Do you still like the wording of your question? Is this the topic you want to immerse yourself in? If no, select another topic and start over.
Confirm your question
- After you have read a few articles, you may want to refine your topic question. The clearer your question is, the easier this project will be for you!
- Continue gathering peer-reviewed articles, you will probably need to review 8-10 to have a general sense of the topic and its issues.
- Begin a list of common themes that you are finding in the articles. Put the list on paper, not just in your head!
Clarify your understanding of the topic
- Look at the reference list attached to the articles that you read for general information. Do you see other articles you should retrieve for review? Are the other articles current? No older than 5 years?
- Pull articles that you need, and read them. Have you now explored all the common themes of your topic? Can you thoroughly answer your question? If yes, you have enough articles. If no, back to CINAHL or other sources for additional searching. Once you have enough articles to answer the question, quit collecting them and move forward.
- Read all the articles that you have. Really understand them, as it makes the writing process so much easier.
- Articulate your topic and its common themes to someone else. Can you speak to this topic?
- Define all key terms and concepts related to your topic. Don’t just do this in your head, put it in writing.
- Distinguish clearly the central issues related to your topic, and the peripheral issues. Can you verbally speak to these with someone else? Have you written these down?
- If you hate this topic, then start over. If you like this topic, move forward.
The Writing Begins
- Secure an area that you can use exclusively for writing. You want to be able to leave your articles out, so that you can sit down for an hour, without reorganizing each time. You will not believe how much time this saves!
- Post your writing time-line in a visible place, and make every effort to stick to it!
- Some students find it helpful to develop an outline to organize ideas and topic flow.
- Use the topic outline you developed to write a draft of the body of your paper.
- Don’t forget the librarian and the resources for writing they may have.
- Support statements you make with appropriate references. If the thoughts are someone else’s, then give them credit via a citation. Use direct quotes if the information is profound, otherwise paraphrase. Paraphrasing is not merely changing a word here and there; it is taking several sentences or sources and putting the information into your own words.Use current APA edition.
- You now have a good 1stdraft!
- It may be helpful to Visit the UCF Writing CenterLinks to an external site., either in person, by phone, or by video chat. Use their suggestions as you see fit.
Did you fully develop the issue?
- Once you have the draft, the real work begins!
- Have you included all perspectives and assumptions related to your topic?
- Are the perspectives contained in your paper all inclusive? Not just the ones you personally support. If you didn’t cover them all, fill the gaps. If you did, move forward.
- You need to make a point to describe how race, gender, and class influence this particular issue. If you did this, great, move forward. Look for places within your paper that you can add this.
- You are expected to examine the legal, spiritual, ethical, and cultural factors that impact your topic. Did you speak to each of these within your draft? If yes, move forward. If no, fill the gaps.
- You should be getting the idea by now!
- Carefully examine your topic, utilizing the ethical principles of: autonomy, beneficence, non maleficence, justice, and veracity discussed in your textbook. Have you spoken to these in your draft? If yes, great! If no, fill the gaps.
- At this point, you should have an extremely good 2nddraft
- Base your opinions on the evidence
- Now that you developed the topic, and examined all the various perspectives, you should use the evidence to form an opinion on the topic.
- Look back at your introduction. What were you trying to do in this paper? Can you provide a reasonable answer to your question, citing reasons why you believe this is the answer?
- Support your opinion with relevant data, evidence, experience, and any other information that deem appropriate.
- Stay away from “I” messages throughout the paper; research writing is generally done in 3rd person. Avoid any personalization in a scholarly term paper.
Implications for nursing
- Now that you have answered your topic question, and formed an opinion, what does it mean to nursing?
- Will this impact practice, administration, education, research and/or the profession as a whole?
- Describe the implications that you see, and your rationale. Again stay away from “I” messages; research writing is done in 3rd person.
- Address the positives and the negatives. Are the consequences acceptable? To whom? Who or what would be affected if this happened?
Closing Paragraph
- Once you are happy with the paper, write your conclusion.
- Re-read you introduction, and construct a brief highlight of your paper.
- Do not introduce any new material in the conclusion. You are basically “telling us what you have already told us.”
- It helps to lead off this paragraph with. “In summary, “
- Once you have written the conclusion, double check to see that you have not included new information. If yes, back fill the body of the paper to include this, if it is relevant. The conclusion is not the place to give the reader brand new information, but rather synthesize what you have already told them.
- Re-read the whole paper. Does it flow? Have you answered your question? Have you drawn an evidenced based conclusion? If yes, move forward. If no, keep working on it.
- You now have a 3rddraft (almost there….)
Abstract
- Finally, write your abstract, which should be a brief condensation of your paper in 120 words or less.
- Refer to your current edition APA guide for how to write an abstract and to see sample abstracts.
Reference List
- The reference list should include a minimum of 6-8 current peer-reviewed articles from nursing or other scientific journals, which are appropriate to the topic.
- Everything that is cited in the body of the paper should be found on the reference page and there should be nothing on the reference page that is NOT found cited in the body of the paper ( with exceptions as noted in current APA manual).
- Current APA style is required. Use your APA guide carefully-that is WHY you bought it. This resource is used in every nursing course throughout the UCF curriculum.
- This list should be alphabetized by the author’s last name. Do not re-order the authors names within the citation.
- Re-read your entire paper. Does it have a good flow? Correct the problems.
- You now have your 4th draft (the bodyof the paper will probably be 4-5 pages). If you find that the body is longer that 5 pages, you need to identify essential content and trim the rest.Your goal is to clearly and succinctly cover all aspects of the assignment. Number of pages is not as important, as what you say in those pages.
Final Edit
- After letting your paper “rest” a few days, read it again. Do you like the way it flows? Does it make sense? Edit, revise, refine.
- Let someone else read and critique your paper. This can be very telling. If your reader is having difficulty following, then I probably will too. Edit, revise, refine.
- Check your entire paper for current edition APA formatting, and appropriate citing of references.
- If the paper is the best that you can possible do, then it is ready for submission!
- You should now have your final copy.
- Submit your formal paper into the assignment tool of the course.
Formal Paper Final
| Formal Paper Final | ||||
| Criteria | Ratings | Pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeTitle page is correctly formatted with Running head, title in all capital letters, page number in correct location and data centered in upper third of page. |
|
5.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAbstract summarizes the paper’s purpose in 120 words or less. Left margins is blocked. |
|
5.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeIntroductory paragraph with major thesis clearly stated |
|
5.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeFormatting: numbering, margins, spacing are appropriate throughout. Appropriate number of pages. |
|
5.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeFlow of text; topic is developed logically |
|
25.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeImplications for nursing clearly described (practice, research, education or administration) |
|
15.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeSummary paragraph ties everything together. |
|
5.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAppropriate use of sources within text. |
|
5.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAppropriate formatting of citations within text |
|
10.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeConsistent use of grammar, paragraphs and sentence structure |
|
10.0 pts | ||
| This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeAppropriate APA reference list; appropriately formatted; alphabetized; hanging indents; double spaced; includes all references cited in text; does not include references not cited in text |
|
10.0 pts | ||
| Total Points: 100.0 | ||||
