Reflection Of Apa Style

When I started my first quarter at Midwestern University, I felt most ambivalent about writing papers. The only writing I had done since I graduated from the University of Arizona consisted of progress notes, risk assessments, and individualized service plans. I thought I had a sufficient knowledge APA format, but I had not written a formal APA paper in at least three years. Needless to say, I was thrilled to see I would be taking a course entitled Fundamentals of Graduate Writing. After the first day of class, I realized whatever knowledge I thought I had regarding APA style was either incorrect or insufficient. Thankfully, I had a wonderful professor who was very thorough and patient. Several weeks later, I have written a number of APA style papers, all of which had their strengths and weaknesses. In this self reflection I intend to describe each of my …show more content…
I struggled with grammar throughout my undergraduate years and worked hard to correct my errors. However, it seems after three years of informal writing I forgot everything I learned. In my undergraduate studies I was a comma-splicer, I overused commas in almost every paper I wrote. My first paper in graduate school had the opposite problem, I did not use enough commas. In addition, I realized I have a hard discriminating between passive and active voice. Although I have not received any feedback stating I have used passive voice, I am aware this could become an issue in the future. In order to fix this concern, I plan on reviewing chapters 3 and 4 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA Manual). These chapters extensively review mechanical style and basic grammar. Additionally, I intend on making a checklist that is comprised of my most common errors. Before submitting each paper, I intend on reviewing this checklist to minimize my amount of grammatical