Transcription
How to write a paper on any topic using APA formatting. Yes, today I am going to teach you how to take the thing that's most likely giving you the most trouble, APA formatting, and use it to your advantage.
Now, quick disclaimer: for this video, I'm going to assume that you have a basic understanding of how APA formatting works because I'm going to be showing you how to actually write the papers, not format them. So, if you need help with formatting, I'm going to link all the many tutorials, free downloads, and resources that I have on this topic in the description below. Also, if you're using a different formatting standard other than APA, note that this strategy will most likely work for you as well, provided you're not writing some type of creative writing assignment. As long as yours is research-based, scientific, then this strategy will work beautifully.
All right, cool. But let's go ahead and talk about this strategy. So, put simply, the strategy I'm teaching you today is how to streamline the skill of academic writing because that's exactly what academic writing is: it's a skill. And in order to streamline it, you need a repeatable process that you can apply with guaranteed results every time. So, let's start from the beginning. When you receive an assignment, the first thing that you need to do is get crystal clear on exactly what it is your assignment is asking you to do. And so, the method that I like to teach students is what I call the "what" and the "how." The "what" and the "how" are the two most important things that you need to identify in your assignment instructions in order to put yourself in that position to accurately write the paper. And so, simply put, "what" indicates what you're being asked to do, and "how" indicates how you're being asked to do it.
Let's take a look at a couple of examples. So, here we are with our assignment. There's quite a bit of material on this page. We're going to simplify it into these two categories, starting with the "what." So, what you're being asked to do here is write a 12-page paper that critically examines how artificial intelligence is transforming the landscape of academic learning and research. Simple. Now, we need to find "how" we're being asked to do this. So, how are we going to fulfill those 12 pages? In this case, how you're going to do that is by providing an overview of artificial intelligence. You're then going to discuss the opportunities created by AI, followed by the challenges and ethical considerations, and then you're going to close with a discussion of what you believe the future of artificial intelligence to be. Now, for each of those objectives, there are subcriteria that you're going to include to fulfill those objectives. So, in other words, you're going to use these four main objectives and the few subobjectives under each one as a roadmap to fulfill this assignment.
Let's take a look at another example, and I'm going to choose an assignment that is quite a bit smaller because I want you to see how this system works, no matter the size or complexity of the paper. It works across the board. All right, here's our assignment. We need to look for the "what" and the "how." So, what we're being asked to do here is write a five to six-page paper that evaluates the role of leadership in terms of developing a more sustainable and socially responsible business strategy. Great. Now, we need to see "how" we're being asked to fulfill those five to six pages. In this case, we're going to discuss two leadership styles. We're then going to provide two to three examples, and finally, we're going to conclude our paper with an analysis. But once again, we're crystal clear on what we're supposed to do.
So, let's take this understanding and move on to phase two in this strategy, which is going to be organizing our papers. To start this outline, we're going to copy and paste our title as the first section heading. This is a requirement of APA 7th edition. That first section is going to be your introduction, in which the title will signify that. So, once that's out of the way, now we're going to look at our assignment and start with our first official section heading, and it's going to be based off this first bullet point here. So, reading through this, we're being asked to discuss two leadership styles that are inherent for leaders developing a sustainable or socially responsible business model. So, for me, what I would label this main section is something like "Sustainable and Socially Responsible Business Model." Then I'm going to switch to a level two section heading, indicating that there are subsections to this topic, and right now I'm going to type in placeholder headings, which would be "Leadership Style One," "Leadership Style Two." I call these placeholders because I haven't done my research yet. I don't know exactly what leadership styles I'm going to discuss. So, for right now, I'm putting these here as a placeholder so when I write this paper, I don't forget that I have to discuss two of them.
All right, let's go ahead and repeat this process for the rest of the assignment. So, in the next bullet point, I'm being asked to provide two to three examples of organizations who have leaders that have implemented this practice. And so, for my main section heading, I'm going to label this something maybe like "Organizations with Socially Responsible Leaders." Then again, I'm going to use placeholder headings because I'm being asked to include examples, and I don't know what those examples are yet. So, for here, I might include them something like this: "Organization/Leader," just so I remember when I'm writing this paper that I need to include both of these. And I'm going to go ahead and include three headings because I want to write three examples.
Next, we have the last bullet point where here we're being asked to conclude with an analysis on how these leadership characteristics and organizational practices can be integrated. So, I'm going to label my main heading as something like "Leadership Analysis." And then, because I don't have any subobjectives or examples that I have to give, that's fine. I'm going to leave it as this one main section, and then I'm going to include a label for the conclusion. And to be clear, APA doesn't mind if you use it as a level one heading or a level two. For this paper, I'm just going to use it as a level one, like you see I've included it here.
But now that our outline is complete, we have our roadmap. Let's talk about how you are going to convey exactly what your assignment is asking you into these sections. So, as we know, under "Corporate Social Responsibility" is going to be our introduction. So, here you're going to introduce the concept of corporate social responsibility and the points you're going to cover in your paper. Then, moving on to the first main section, "Sustainable and Socially Responsible Business Model," you're going to do something similar, and that you want to discuss these concepts and what they mean as a business model. Then, moving on to the leadership styles, you're going to provide examples once you've done your research of specific leadership styles. Then it's very important that you replace the placeholder section heading with a phrase that indicates what it is. So, in this case, maybe I research "Transformational Leadership Style" and then perhaps "Coaching Leadership Style." That's going to lead you into the next section, which you're going to repeat the same process. Under the first main heading, you're going to start with introductory material where you explain the concepts relevant to that section. So, here it's going to be what it means to be a socially responsible leader and why they're so important to the success of an organization. Just like before, you're going to go through each example, replace the placeholder heading with what the example is, write your information for that section, which is going to lead you into the last part of your paper where you're going to provide your analysis on all of this information. And then, finally, you're going to finish your paper with a conclusion.
And now, this conclusion, quite frankly, should be a mirror to your introduction. Except instead of introducing the concepts and the points you're going to cover, now you're simply going to summarize what you covered. So, basically, your introduction: you explain to your reader what you're going to do. Your main body is where you do that. And then your conclusion is where you simply summarize what you did. Matter of fact, if you want a more detailed explanation of what to include in each section of your paper, I have this full tutorial here. In this video, I walk you through exactly what to include in your introduction, that mirroring I mentioned for your conclusion. I provide some examples of ways you can structure your paragraphs, as well as how to use transitional language to link all of the information together.