Week 3 6001 Discussion

As a nurse embarking on an advanced degree, you are developing the characteristics of a scholar-practitioner, which includes strong communication skills. Writing in a scholarly manner involves supporting your thoughts with evidence from the literature and appropriately using APA formatting.

One of the challenges of scholarly writing is paraphrasing the thoughts of others in your work. Paraphrasing, and correctly citing the original author for his or her ideas, allows you to take the ideas of others, summarize them, and incorporate them into your own writing. When summarizing the ideas of others, it is important to avoid plagiarizing (copying the words and ideas of others as though they were your own). In addition to expanding your knowledge of APA, this week’s Learning Resources help you to distinguish between paraphrasing and plagiarizing.

To prepare:

Think about the sometimes subtle difference between plagiarizing and paraphrasing.
Read the following paragraphs, which were written by Patricia O’Conner:
A good writer is one you can read without breaking a sweat. If you want a workout, you don’t lift a book—you lift weights. Yet we’re brainwashed to believe that the more brilliant the writer, the tougher the going.

The truth is that the reader is always right. Chances are, if something you’re reading doesn’t make sense, it’s not your fault—it’s the writer’s. And if something you write doesn’t get your point across, it’s probably not the reader’s fault—it’s yours. Too many readers are intimidated and humbled by what they can’t understand, and in some cases that’s precisely the effect the writer is after. But confusion is not complexity; it’s just confusion. A venerable tradition, dating back to the ancient Greek orators, teaches that if you don’t know what you’re talking about, just ratchet up the level of difficulty and no one will ever know.

Don’t confuse simplicity, though, with simplemindedness. A good writer can express an extremely complicated idea clearly and make the job look effortless. But such simplicity is a difficult thing to achieve because to be clear in your writing you have to be clear in your thinking. This is why the simplest and clearest writing has the greatest power to delight, surprise, inform, and move the reader. You can’t have this kind of shared understanding if writer and reader are in an adversary relationship. (pp. 195–196)
Source: O’Conner, P. (2003). Woe is I: The grammarphobe’s guide to better English in plain English. New York: Riverhead Books.
Paraphrase this passage from O’Conner using no more than 75–100 words. Remember that paraphrasing means summarizing the essence of the original text. It does not mean creating a thesaurus-based revision of the author’s original words or copying the piece, or any part of it, word for word. For this activity, do not use any direct quotes.
Turn your paraphrase into Grammarly and SafeAssign.
Review your reports.
Review the other tools, resources, and services available to you through the Walden Writing Center that support your growth as a scholarly writer.
Consider which of these resources you find to be most useful.
Review learning resources on APA formatting rules and information within the Walden Writing Center on APA

Post a description of your experience of using Grammarly and SafeAssign and share at least one insight you gained about paraphrasing and avoiding plagiarism as a matter of academic integrity. Recommend at least one other online resource that supports scholarly writing, and explain your rationale. Lastly, share two APA formatting rules with the class and a specific page number in the APA manual where this rule can be located

Support your Discussion assignment with specific resources used in its preparation using APA formatting. You are asked to provide a reference for all resources, including those in the Learning Resources for this course.
Walden University School of Nursing Faculty, September, 2010

Study Notes: Common APA Style and Formatting Challenges

The following guidelines are followed by most faculty members on most Walden coursework. 1. Font: Use a 12-point serif font, such as Garamond, Times Roman, or Palatino. Titles, headings, and table titles and copy should also appear in the same 12- point type. 2. Spacing: Double-space all of your work. Per APA’s revised 6th edition, you may insert either one space or two spaces after a period. 3. Margins and page numbers: All margins should be 1″ from the edge of the paper. Page numbers go in the upper right corner, 1″ down and 1″ in from the edge of the paper. The first line of text should start 1.5″ down. (Note: MS Word defaults the first line of text at 1″.) 4. Italics: Use italics, not underlines. APA does not allow bold type except in headings, tables and figures. 5. Punctuation: The APA nuance most commonly missed by students follows: In a series of three or more nouns or noun phrases, you must insert a comma before the word and or or, as in the following examples: bacon, lettuce, and tomato; Tom, Dick, or Harry; eating lunch, going to the gym, and then going home. Use a semicolon to combine two independent clauses or to separate elements of a list that contain a comma, as in the above example. Add an apostrophe + s for possessives of names: Smith’s; Jones’s. Do not hyphenate most prefixes: semistructured, nondenominational, multimedia, antisocial. 6. Capitalization and spelling: Do not capitalize job titles unless immediately preceding a person’s name: the superintendent, but Superintendent Williams; the president of the school board; Vice President Agnew. Use a lowercase letter after a colon unless introducing a complete sentence.

In general, do not hyphenate words with prefixes: pretest, posttest, antidiscrimination, bilingual, codependent, multinational, underserved, overextended.

Walden University School of Nursing Faculty, September, 2010

When a colon is part of the title of an article in the reference list, the first word after the colon is capitalized (Health policy: The new era).

7. Lists (Seriation) and Bullets: Within a paragraph, list items using (a), (b), (c), and so on. The teachers identified three challenges: (a) teaching hungry children, (b) making do with outdated books, and (c) organizational bureaucracy. In a vertical list, list the items like this: 1. Teaching hungry children is difficult. 2. Using outdated books creates misconceptions. 3. Organizational bureaucracy limits access. Bullets are also used.

The following are barriers to education:

• Teaching hungry children; • Making do with outdated books; and • Organizational bureaucracy.

8. Numbers and percentages: The rules for numbers are tricky and should be studied. In general, numbers 10 and higher appear as numerals; nine and lower are written out. There are exceptions: elements of time, distance, ratios, and percentages always appear as numerals, unless at the start of a sentence. Use a percentage sign unless at the start of a sentence:

There was a 4% increase in the price of lettuce. Seventy percent of the children were malnourished. We administered 4.15 mg of peanut butter.

9. Use respectful language: The Pocket Guide to APA Style (pp. 59-62) offers important information on language use with respect to gender, race, disabilities, and so forth. Avoid the generic pronouns he and she, or he/she, when possible, by using they:

Wrong: When a nurse has a bad day, she feels like screaming. Better: When nurses have a bad day, they feel like screaming.

Formatting In-text Citations These basic rules relate to in-text citations.

1. Use the author/date system. Be careful with punctuation.

Walden University School of Nursing Faculty, September, 2010

Others (Duncan, 2003; Evans & Barker, 2004) challenged Gould’s (1999) analysis.

Separate the two pairs of studies with a semicolon. Use an ampersand (&) as a substitute for the word and when inside parentheses.

2. Do not plagiarize. Just changing a couple of words or rearranging a sentence

is not paraphrasing. For direct quotes, identify the page number or paragraph number of the original source. When paraphrasing, identify the author, date and page number.

Original of Latham (2006): Luxury boxes and other amenities aimed at affluent fans are one way to attract new revenue to a stadium, but the public dollars that fund them benefit only the privileged classes, not the common good. Plagiarism: Luxury boxes and other amenities aimed at rich fans are a way to get new revenue at a stadium. However, the public monies that fund them benefit only the wealthy—and not the common good (Latham, 2006). Paraphrased: Latham (2006) argued that spending public dollars on comforts enjoyed solely by wealthy fans is not in the overall public interest (p. 432).

3. Normally, the final punctuation after a direct quote comes after the page

identifier while the final/closing quotation mark comes right before page identifier, as in this example:

Jorgenson (2005) indicated that the price of coffee rose “dramatically” during the previous decade because of “consumers’ lust for an overpriced buzz” (p. 513).

4. When directly quoting a source of 40 or more consecutive words, format

the quote in block form. The final punctuation comes before the parenthetical element.

If this were a direct quote, indent about five spaces on the left. This is in block form because it contains 43 words. The final period is before the parenthetical element, not after it as in the Latham examples. (Rachmaninoff, 1936, p. 3)

5. Cite different groups of authors in alphabetical order using the first author’s

surname. Separate groups of authors with semicolons. Several authors found that students enjoy reading stories about real people (Hart, 2008; Iksic & Holmes, 1995; Melnick, Ek, & Fazio, 2010).

Walden University School of Nursing Faculty, September, 2010

6. et al. should not be used the first time a work is cited unless that work has six or more authors. For works with fewer than six authors, list all authors in the first citation, then use the surname of the first author and “et al.” and the year in subsequent references. Be careful with the punctuation.

As noted earlier, Melnick et al. (2010) suggested that. . . .

7. With two or more authors in a parenthetical citation, use “&” rather than “and” before the last author.

Stein and Hernandez (2005) but other authors (Gomez & O’Hara, 2007). . . .

Formatting the Reference List Several software companies have created programs to automatically format your reference list per APA (including APA itself). Students have spoken highly of Zotero, Perrla, and several others. Check the Walden Writing Center (writingcenter.walden.edu) for information. The following examples are formatted with hanging indents. Commas separate all authors, and use an ampersand (&), not the word and. Only surnames appear in full; otherwise, use initials. Use italics or underlines—but choose one and be consistent. Book titles appear in sentence case—not title case. Include the postal code for state abbreviations with the city. 1. An entire book. Melnick, A., Ek, S. A., & Fazio, M. J. (2010). Finishing high school without trying.

Erie, PA: Peach Street Press. 2. A chapter in an edited book. Pogoff, S. (2008). Hair and nails to match. In L. Rubenstein & A. Perl (Eds.),

Preteen survival guide (pp. 48–56). New York, NY: Gordon Books. Note that in the above example, Pogoff, the chapter author, gets the in-text citation—not the book editors. 3. A journal article. Latham, M. (2008). The future of stadiums is not the past. Sports Economics, 17,

431–468. Note in that the title of the article is written in sentence case, and no quotation marks are used, nor does pp. appear before the page numbers.

Walden University School of Nursing Faculty, September, 2010

4. A magazine article, no author. Enough scandals for one day. (2009, May 19). Newsweek, 46. When the author is not provided, indicate the title of the author in the first spot. In the in-text citation, the article title is shortened, in quotation marks, to lead the reader to the right spot in the references. (“Enough Scandals,” 2009). 5. Newspaper article found online. Bartlett, S. (2010, March 3). Schools helpless against nursing shortage. Press-

Republican. Retrieved from http://pressrepublican.com/0100_news/x1726192028/Schools-helpless- against-nursing-shortage

7. One author, two publications in the same year. Whittemore, A. (2009a). Finding a path toward recovery. Journal of Zen Studies,

15, 314-345. Whittemore, A. (2009b). Loss of hair and the effect on the aging white male.

Coping Today, 13, 25-29. In text, note the first publication by citing it as (Whittemore, 2009a), the second as (Whittemore, 2009b). 8. A reprinted version of an earlier text, in an edited volume. Watson, M. (2004). Balancing family and work. In H. Simon & F. Parker,

Psychological despondence (pp. 135–150). (Original work published 1915).

If you read something that was originally published in a different book or journal, cite both dates in text, separated with a slash: (Watson, 1915/2004) 9. A secondary source—meaning, you didn’t read something that the author you read has referred to. Suppose you read the following on page 203 in a book by Hassan (2006), and you want to refer to the work by Reynolds that you did not read firsthand: Economic and political conditions in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s led to a large increase in the number of African immigrants to the Upper Midwest (Reynolds, 2003). In your paper, you will write Reynolds (as cited in Hassan, 2006) stated that struggles in sub-Saharan Africa near the end of the 20th century resulted in an

Walden University School of Nursing Faculty, September, 2010

increase in the native African population into the American Upper Midwest (p. 203). 10. Personal communication. Per APA, references to personal communication, such as letters, memos, email messages, or phone interviews, show up only in-text and not in the reference list.

The drop in crime among youth may actually increase the need for mental health services in Aitkin County (M. Lemieux, personal communication, February 1, 2005).

Citing Web-Based Articles Citing documents. To cite a specific document on the web, start by following the format of other documents as noted in the APA manual. Below are two common examples. The first is an online version of a print article, unchanged, that you find on the journal’s website Lippold, L., & Johnson, B. (2010). Religious intolerance in the health care

profession. Issues in Atheism, 5, 146–157. doi: 10.8902143875cxuyg1. The in-text citation would simply refer to Lippold & Johnson (2000). If you have no doi number, then show the URL of the journal’s homepage. Bodine, J., Clampett, J., & Clampett, E. M. (2004). Management practices of the

recently wealthy. Journal of Accumulation, 18, 345–378. Retrieved from www.joa-wealth.com.

For a “permanent” website, meaning one that is likely to be around for a long

time: Sainio, D. (2001). Writings on the tranquility of catching walleye. Retrieved from

http://www.rsi.edu/journals/sainio. NOTE: this inactive URL is for example purposes only

If referring to the entire text, the in-text citation would simply refer to Sainio (2001). Refer to http://apastyle.apa.org/ for examples of other online references.

http://apastyle.apa.org/�
APA Basics Checklist: Citations, Reference List, and Style

By the Walden University Writing Center

Writing Center staff created this APA checklist to help students remember the basics of APA citations,

reference lists, and style. It is not meant to be comprehensive, but students should use it as a reminder

of the various APA rules that academic papers follow. If students are not sure what a particular item in

the checklist refers to or entails, they should follow the link for more information. Additionally, the

Writing Center can always help with APA questions at writingsupport@waldenu.edu.

Citations

Citations are included in each sentence a source is used

Sources used and cited in the paper are included in the reference list

The abbreviation “et al.” is punctuated appropriately

Parenthetical citations:

Author(s) and publication year are always included

Page or paragraph number is included for all quoted material, using the appropriate

abbreviation: (p. xx) or (para. xx)

Citation is included within the ending punctuation for the sentence

In-text citations

Author(s) is included within the sentence

Publication year is included in parentheses immediately after the author(s)’ name

Publication rule is followed: publication years are included the first time a source is used

in a paragraph; all subsequent uses of that same source does not include the publication

year (Note: Rule starts over with a new paragraph)

Reference List

Title of the list is centered but not bolded

Sources listed in the reference list are used at least once in the paper

Reference entries:

Each entry has an automatically formatted hanging indent

Each entry has the basic information (as available): author(s), publication year,

title, and retrieval information

Each entry has been compared against the common reference entries and

reference entries FAQs on the Writing Center website, checking for:

Punctuation: periods and commas

Formatting: italics is used only when needed

Parentheses and brackets: used only when needed

Appropriate electronic information is included

mailto:writingsupport@waldenu.edu
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/11.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/11.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/34.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/Documents/APA/How_and_When_to_Cite_in_a_Paragraph6thed.pdf
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/35.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/353.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/428.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/36.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/706.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/355.htm
APA Style

Past tense is used whenever literature or sources are talked about (i.e., Smith discussed)

Serial commas are used for all lists of three or more items (i.e., lions, tigers, and bears)

Hyphens are:

Used to join words that work together to modify another word (i.e., evidenced-based practice)

Used to join “self” compounds (i.e., self-esteem)

Not used with prefixes such as non, semi, pre, post, anti, multi, and inter

Block quotes (of 40 or more words) are formatted as such

Headings follow proper APA style (i.e., level 1 headings are centered and bolded)

Numbers:

10 and above are expressed using numerals

Nine and below are expressed using words

Expressing specific numbers and time use numerals

Expressing approximate time use words

Complex lists of items follow seriation rules (using letters within the list)

Bulleted and numbered lists are used for specific reasons

The third person editorial we is avoided (including us, our, and you)

Capitalization rules are followed (i.e., names of models and theories are not capitalized)

Formatting:

Template is used

Running head is inserted properly

Title page follows the template

Double spacing is used throughout the paper (including the reference list)

Two spaces (and consistently only two spaces) is used between sentences

http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/14.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/539.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/498.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/341.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/169.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/493.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/171.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/171.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/711.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/489.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/57.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/436.htm
http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/432.htm