FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WERE IN CLASS- (and everyone else, actually) Read this ALL the way through. It will really help you out and save you time.
1. Work your way through them as best you can. The second activity that is titled, "How do I find articles quickly?" may seem confusing. That's okay. If it does, skip it, do the others, and then go back and look at it again. It might make more sense AFTER you do the others.
2. Look next at the hand out that has the diagrams showing what your paper should look like. It is in somewhat funky order, but start by looking at the cover sheet directions. Most people find this hand out the easiest to follow.
3. Read through the entire hand out before you start trying to write/type anything. NO skimming- and you know who you are!
Now look at the hand out that tells you what your paper needs to be about/include. (sorry, I don't have it in front of me so I can't remember what it is named.)
4. At this point you should have a good idea what it is you will actually be writing about (your 2 job specializations, and the 2 competencies that you picked.) Type a very rough copy of your entire paper on a Word document and save it.
5. Stop. Walk away. Take a day off. (Just read the rest of this before you do.)
6. Now is the hard part. It is always tough the first time you do it, so give your self LOTS of time. By the way, have you signed up for SMARTHINKING yet? Next you have to find two one-sentence quotations that somehow support whatever it is you said in your paper. (It's perfectly okay to carve up a long quote and only use a part of it.) The quotes can be about anything in your paper, as long as they somehow support what it is that you are stating. This is where the research comes in. It takes a LOT of time to find your quotations, but all you have to find is TWO. "Plug them in" to appropriate places in your paper. (Look at the sample paper and the hand out to see how.) Be careful, they have to make sense in your paper; you just can't plunk them down any old place.
7. Got it? Good for you. It will be much easier next time, I promise. Now, look at the hand out mentioned in #2 above. I think it is on the last page, but it shows you somewhere how to write the quotes as APA citations. Your textbook, the BS VLibrary, and everything I've given you so far has the APA style information for you to follow. Same thing goes for the Reference page. Just follow the examples. Then you are done. Yay. By the way, have you signed up for SMARTHINKING yet?
Good Luck!
