APA-Style Manuscript

http://amandaszapkiw.com/artifacts/resources/tutorials/apa-grammar-lesson/

Welcome to a lesson in writing in style (APA style, that is)!

Do you remember as a child taking play dough (or clay) in your hands and molding it into a masterpiece? Do you remember the feeling of pride that you felt as you looked at your finished masterpiece? In graduate school, you have the opportunity to use words to create masterpieces in which you can also feel a sense of pride and experience success. However, before creating a successful masterpiece, you need to understand how to construct your masterpiece in style (APA style, that is). The purpose of this lesson is to assist you in understanding how to write a paper in APA style.

Objectives

When you are finished with this lesson, you should:

• Understand the importance of editorial styles
• Know how to configure your word processor for an APA-style manuscript
• Understand the organization and parts of an APA-style manuscript
• Be able to construct complete sentences and use sentence variety to increase the quality of your writing
• Be able to provide an orderly presentation of ideas through properly structured paragraphs
• Understand  and be able to apply the basic punctuation and grammar rules outlined in the APA Publication Manual  
• Understand and correctly use the basics of APA writing and editorial style

(Note the corresponding lesson to the "APA style" is the "APA Referencing and Citing" lesson. By completing this corresponding lesson, you should; (a)  Know how to cite works in APA style and (b) Know how to write an APA style "Reference" page (Not a "Work cited" or "Bibliography" page -- these are not APA). Make sure you complete both lessons).

Learning this knowledge and these skills will assist you in:

• Successfully completing the writing assignments in this course (Note: The points highlighted in this lesson are VERY likely the instructors' "pet peeves")
• Successfully complete writing assignments throughout your college career (Be aware: instructors do have writing preferences. Be aware of this and always be sure to ask the instructor about their preferences prior to submitting a writing assignment.)
• Developing good written communication skills that will make you professionally marketable.

Let's get started!

Powerpoint Resources

https://www.presentationmagazine.com

Rewriting dissertation into article

http://jsbhseditorblog.blogspot.my/2016/05/rewriting-your-dissertation-into-article.html

One of the most common questions I receive, as a journal editor, is how do I make my dissertation into an article? This is the first in a series in which I will discuss this issue and offer some suggestions on how to approach this difficult task.

Let's review a few basics of the differences between a dissertation and a published journal article. An article, based on your project will be much shorter than your original dissertation. While a dissertation is often between 100-200 pages, a manuscript for a journal article is rarely over 30 double-spaced pages. A dissertation must exhaustively review the literature, however, the literature in an article is provided to put the study into context; the key issue is to lead the reader to clearly see the need for your study and the gap you are addressing. Much of the information in a dissertation is repeated throughout the paper- it can be characterized more as a book, a journal article should be succinct and to the point. So a few issues we have identified: your article should only have enough literature to put it into context, information should not be repeated frequently, and it should be succinct. Remember the basis of a journal article is the APA manual, so use the format it describes. Do check the journal's website for any exceptions it might prefer over the APA manual.

The first step, I recommend, is to do an outline of the project in an article format. Typically, this will be the following:

Cover page (title, your name, affiliation, and author notes),

Abstract (check journal requirements- typically 200-250 words). Keywords

Body of paper

Title of paper

(1-2 pgs) Introduce the need for the study (why should we care about the topic?)

(2-5 pgs) Literature review discussing variables

             Method

                           Participants

                           Materials

                           Procedure

             Results

             Discussion

             References 

Next time, we will start cutting down your literature for the paper.

Lets start over again !

Today date is 24 Feb 2016, start of my fifth semester as Part Time Research Candidate at UMS, I have rejoined the Methodology Course for the second time and today is Day 2 on Research Framework. I had a few Aha moments and some minor awakening from my dubious dreams. 

POMODORO Technique

I learnt a new word and a new technique recently. Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato. Pomodoro technique is a time management tool to help to maximise concentration, minimise distractions to allow creativity to follow that helps in reading, writing, studying or working on a project. 

I have often wondered why is the kitchen timer often in the shape of a tomato ? Beside being inside a kitchen for timing purpose, I thought it is a vegetable and a fruit and therefore it is selected and very likely because it is round and symmetrical in shape. A tomato is very refreshing and bright colour, very appertising and healthy as a food. And yet, behind this Tomato timer is a tool, a story and a name too. 

This is a Pomodoro Timer. It is more than just making sure our baking or cooking is the right amount of time.  It has a 25 minutes limit helping us to keep time at every 25 minutes cycle. People used it to help them to complete complicated tasks and do them in 25 minutes block of time.

This is the book written by Francesco Cirillo about this Time Management using the Pomodoro Technique he came up with during his studying days. 

The technique or method is quite simple. First, we set the timer to 25 minutes, within that 25 minutes, there shall be no distractions of whatsoever, be it phone, messages, internet or talking unless it is a group Pomodoro time for brain-storming. At the end of the 25 minutes and timer goes off, it is time to stop thinking or reading or writing and take a 5 minutes break. This way, the mind will be kept fresh and concentrated. Creativity is able to flow continuously and productivity will increase. Every 25 minutes task is one n cycle, if a task needs longer than one cycle, we could calculate how many n cycles this will take to complete.

The hardest part of the Podomoro technique is to protect your Podomoro time from distractions. It needs some practices and should the 25 minutes be interrupted with an activity, then it has to be reset and start all over again with a new 25 minutes.

This mind map explains the Pomodoro concept really well.

The Rules :-
1) Assign or decide on a task
2) Block all interruptions
3) Set the timer and start work on the task

The Tasks can be :-
Studying a paper, topical revision, concept write up, making a mind map, planning, tender documents, project management, project blockage, writing an essay, press release, preparing a speech, story writing, problem solving, innovation thinking, creative thinking and many more.

At the end of the Pomodoro time, check on your work if it is really completed or need more time or additional Pomodoro time. Just add to it and take note in future your realistic time needed to complete certain tasks. You could aim to improve the speed by comparing in the future.

It is also very important that at the end of the 25 minutes interval, you reward yourself with a 5 minutes break. For every four Pomodoro time intervals, have a longer break.

This method helps those who procastinate, has a huge task at hand and do not know how to start.


http://pomodorotechnique.com/get-started/