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Do it today!

When you find a file on the Web that you want to use, I recommend that you save it to your computer so you can retrieve it easily later. Right-click on the link and choose "Save As" or "Save Target As" from the pull-down menu. Save it to your computer in a place you will remember. Then open the file from within your computer instead of from the Web site.

If you need to open documents that are in pdf, or portable document format, you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Go to http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html to download the free reader.

Download a couple of free nifty little "down and dirty" handouts that summarize important elements of APA style: APA Quick Guide, APA Electronic Reference Guide, and Recognizing Scholarly Publications.
 
Also, try out http://citationmachine.net/. This free site lets you type in information about your reference (title, author, date of publication, and so forth), and then it gives you the correctly cited reference for your APA-style reference list and also for your in-text citation. All you do is cut and paste, being sure to format your reference list with double spacing and hanging indent, of course (more on that later). It's quite spiffy and super-easy to use. It does MLA style, too, if that's what you need.

Even if you find my APA tips helpful, you need to purchase your own copy of the Publication Manual if you plan to get a degree in nursing. Here's the reference information, done in APA style (without the hanging indent or double spacing, because that doesn't work in this format):

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

You can order it from www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, or at http://www.apa.org/Books/4200060.html, among other places. You can also get "help with APA style guidelines" at www.apastyle.org.

APA wants you to put a "running head" with an abbreviated title on the title page of manuscripts. That term confuses a lot of people, especially since you are also supposed to have an abbreviated title in the page headers. Those are two different things, and the running head doesn't "run" anywhere, but the page header does. While this may not be the only confusing thing about APA, it is certainly one that trips up students.

The running head appears only on the title page, not on any other pages in the document. It is a shortened version of the title, usually the first four or five words (but not always). The running head should not be longer than 50 characters, including spaces and punctuation. To check this, after you type the running head highlight it and click on Tools--Word Count. A box will pop up showing you the number of characters with and without spaces.

Type the running head on the top line of the title page, flush against the left margin, in all uppercase letters. When I say "the top line," I mean the first line below the 1" margin, which means it is below the page header that we will talk about later. Precede it with the words "Running head:" typed just like I did but without the quotation marks--capitalize the word Running, don't capitalize head, and follow it with a colon. Then type your shortened 50-characters-or-less title in all capital letters. This is the only place in your document that this will appear. If your article is published, the publisher will print this shortened title at the top of the printed article pages. See my example, which is the running head for an article entitled "Ten Reasons to Require APA Style in Baccalaureate Nursing Papers."

Running head: TEN REASONS TO REQUIRE APA STYLE

Now, on to page headers. APA even tells you, on page 288 of the Publication Manual, "The manuscript page headers should not be confused with the running head for publication, which goes only on the title page and appears on the published article." The purpose of the manuscript page headers is to identify each page of the document in case the pages get separated. A page header consists of the first two or three words of the title, followed by five spaces, and then the page number. This is typed into the header of the page, which is the top 1/2" of the paper. When done properly, you only type the page header one time. Microsoft Word's automatic header repeats the page header on every page in the document.

To type the page header using Word's automatic feature, go to View--Header and Footer. When you click on "Header and Footer," a dotted line will appear around a rectangle at both the top and the bottom of the page. Your cursor should automatically be set within the top dotted-line box. You are in the header. On your toolbar, click the icon to align your typing with the right margin, or hit the Control key plus the R key (Ctrl+R). Your cursor will go to the right side of the box. Start typing the first two or three words of your title, and don't worry if it doesn't make sense. In my example, I would type "Ten Reasons" (without the quotation marks). Type this shortened title in title case, which means you capitalize all words of four letters or more.

Next, hit the space bar five times. Now, hit the Alt key plus the Shift key plus the P key (Alt+Shift+P). This inserts an automatic page number in the header, which means the page number will now be automatically calculated correctly and inserted into the header of each page in the document. Another way to insert an automatic page number is to hit the page number icon, which looks like a page with a number sign on it (#), on the header/footer toolbar. So, now you have the first few words of the title, followed by five spaces, followed by the automatic page number, all located in the header and aligned on the right side of the page.

You're done with running heads and headers, thank goodness. APA style does not put anything in the page footers. To get out of the page header, double-click anywhere in the document outside the header. Now you're back to normal and can get on with writing your paper.

If you study or write in a scientific field, you probably have to use the 5th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. You don't need to buy templates to easily produce an APA-formatted paper. Set up Microsoft Word to conform to APA style, use a citation engine on the Web, and papers can be a piece of cake.

Let's change a few things that you can, to conform to APA style. You will fix these things one time and save them as the new default format that the Word program on your computer will continue to use forever and ever unless you change them again. The default format is the way Word automatically sets up your documents.

APA requires 1-inch margins all around the paper, right? Just nod your head and say yes. With MS Word 2002/XP or higher open, go to File--Page Setup. Click on the Margins tab. Change the numbers in the left and right margin boxes to 1 inch (the normal default is 1.25 inches). The top and bottom margins should already be set at 1 inch--if they aren't, change them. Be sure portrait orientation is selected, and under Preview it should say "whole document." Now, click on the button in the bottom left corner that says "Default." A pop-up box will ask if you want to change the default settings for page setup. It will inform you that this change will affect all new documents based on the NORMAL template. Since that's what you want (trust me on this), click "Yes." That's all there is to it--now all your documents will automatically have the requisite 1-inch margins all around.

Next, go to Tools--Options and click on the Spelling & Grammar tab. About halfway down you'll see a section dealing with Grammar. "Check grammar as you type" and "check grammar with spelling" should be checked. Under "Writing Style," select "Grammar & Style." Click the Settings button in this section. You will see a list of three things under "Require." The first one says "Comma required before last list item." In the pull-down menu beside this item, choose "Always." For the next one, "Punctuation required with quotes," choose "Inside." For the third one, "Spaces required between sentences," select "1." Click OK, and then OK again.

Now, you just have to pay attention to all the red and green squiggly lines and do something about them. We'll talk more about that later. Enough for now.

I teach nursing informatics in a college of nursing, and I started this blog to help my students, our faculty, and others who are always asking me questions about computers in health care. I will post whatever random tips, hints, and helps occur to me or that come up in the course of a day. I also teach online, and a lot of the questions I get have to do with online education, so you'll see topics about that as well. Feel free to post a question or a tip of your own that you think will help others.