About Writing Assistant

Does writing academic papers cramp your style? Are you stymied by writing styles such as APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian or even Seminary? Are you losing points because your writing style and citations are not following the prescribed style rules?

Our goal is to provide tips and help you understand different writing styles so you can write better papers.

Writing Tip of the Week

A new feature of the Writing Assistant! Writing tip of the week will attempt to answer common writing style questions. Please send comments about writing style questions you would like to see addressed and I will do my best to post a tip of the week that will help answer your question(s).

3/10/09 - Chicago style or Turabian style - the difference explained. 

3/17/09 - Citing an Entire Web site rather than a particular article or articles from the site.

3/24/09 - How to cite personal communications.

3/30/09 - When are numbers expressed in words?

APA Writing Style

APA style writing is commonly used for academic essays, dissertations, theses and research papers in the social sciences. The APA style rules allow writing to be organized in a manner acceptable for professional publication and presentation. Adhering to APA style formats seems like a daunting task but it does not have to be.

Tools are available that can format your entire paper and ensure you do not lose points for improperly indenting a heading, using the wrong spacing or citing a source incorrectly. A few tools are even offered for free but, beware, the free tools are only aides and typically do not have paid professionals on staff to interpret the voluminous APA style manual and ensure that all portions of your paper are correct.

APA Online Reference Entry Tips

Citing references from online sources is complicated because you have to include information about where you found the material online. The APA Manual presents examples, but most of us end up scratching our heads about how to cite these sources. Here are some basic tips about citing online sources in APA style

Writing Tips

The internet has a wealth of information about academic writing; following are a few of the sites I find most helpful:

• University of Toronto academic writing support's Advice on Academic Writing
  
  
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  APA Style Tips and Grammatical Hints
  
  
• Basic APA style writing tips that beginner academic writers should not neglect
  
  
• Tips for formal writing such as coursework, research papers, and literature surveys

Other Writing Tools

• APA Style Online Tutorial - an online course designed to teach you the basics of writing a paper in APA Style
  
  
• 3/18 - Newly added: Writing Resources  helps you with information, software recommendations, discounts and editing services for academic documents. We specialize in APA, MLA, and Chicago/Turabian writing styles.
  
  
• World Cat is a search tool for books, music, articles, etc.... that can help locate sources for your paper.
  
  
• If you need to format only one or two bibliography entries, try CarMun, a free tool to help format one or two entries that allows you to cut and paste the results into a paper.
  
  
• The APA Formatting and Style Guide
  
  
  
  

    

When are numbers expressed in words?

According to the Publication Manual, you should use words to express any number that begins a sentence, title, or text heading. (Whenever possible, reword the sentence to avoid beginning with a number.)

For example:

Ten participants answered the questionnaire.

Forty-eight percent of the sample showed an increase; 2% showed no change.

Four patients improved, and 4 patients did not improve.

    

Citing Personal Communications (Interviews, etc.)

According to the APA style, personal communications (e.g., e-mail, nonarchived electronic bulletin board communications, personal interviews, telephone conversations, etc.) do not contain recoverable data and should not  be included in the reference list. Personal communications should only be cited in the text.

Example (in the text):

M. C Higgins (personal communication, March 4, 2009)

(R. Olson, personal communications, Feb 24, 2009)

    

Citing an entire Web site rather than a specific document on that site

When citing an entire Web site, it is sufficient to give the address of the site in just the text.

For example:

Aus Golf is an informative Web site for golfers in Australia
(http://www.ausgolf.com.au/).

    

Chicago style or Turabian style?

I have always wondered, what is the difference between Chicago style and Turabian style? The two styles are so close that they are often interchanged so I thought it would be helpful if I briefly explained the difference.

Kate L. Turabian was the graduate school dissertation secretary at the University of Chicago for almost 30 years. The school required her approval for every master's thesis and doctoral dissertation. Kate Turabian's book , A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, is based on the University of Chicago Press's Manual of Style and its associated style are generally referred to as "Turabian." Her stylistic rules closely follow the University of Chicago Press's Manual of Style; however, Turabian style synthesizes the rules most important for students' papers and other scholarly research not intended for publication, and omits some of the publishing details and options that "Chicago" provides.  

Except for a few minor differences, the overall style promulgated by Turabian is the same as The Chicago Manual of Style. While The Chicago Manual of Style is focused on giving style guidelines for publishing in general, Turabian is focused on student papers, dissertations, and theses. Turabian is very different, however, from the styles that are endorsed by other institutions, such as MLA style and APA style. Turabian's key contrast with the APA style is that it was developed specifically for the purpose of being used in papers written for a class and not for publication, whereas APA was originally developed by the American Psychological Association for use in writing intended for publication in professional journals.

Additional information about Kate Turabian and Turabian style available here.

    

APA style writing is commonly used for academic essays, theses, dissertations and research in Social Scienes. Adhering to APA style formats seems like a daunting task but it does not have to be. << MORE >>