Academic Writer: An Online Resource to Help Your Students Learn to Write in the APA Style

Do you teach courses that require students to turn in papers in the APA style? Do your students have trouble preparing their APA style papers with good format accuracy? In this blog article, I am going to share with you an online resource, Academic Writer, which may help improve format accuracy of papers turned in by your students, and how I use it in a course I am teaching.

What is the APA Style?

The publication style of the American Psychological Association (APA) is the writing style for several disciplines in social and health sciences. If your discipline does not use the APA style, you might still need to write in this style, because it is the publication format for many prestigious journals. Like other publication styles, the APA style has many tedious details that authors need to attend to- so many that it is almost impossible even for experienced writers to remember all the format details.

What is Academic Writer?

Academic Writer, formerly called APA Style Central, is a paid online resource developed by the American Psychological Association that helps people to learn about the APA style. It has video tutorials, self quizzes, and other resources on various topics of the APA Style.

You may store searched references in Academic Writer, which allows you to generate bibliographies in the APA style.

Academic Writer also has a web-based platform that help format papers in the APA style as people write in it. This web-based writing platform is a very useful tool because it saves people from memorizing all the format details in the APA style.

How to Access Academic Writer?

Academic Writer is free for WSSU faculty and students, thanks to O’Kelly Library’s subscription to this service. Take advantage of the free access to browse many useful features that Academic Writer provides.

You will need to create an account with Academic Writer in order to use the web-based writing platform. This account is separate from your WSSU account, and you will need to take note of your username and password for future references.

How to Use Academic Writer in Teaching?

You may send your students to Academic Writer website for video tutorials, self-quizzes, and many more tools. The web-based writing platform allows your students to work on a group paper just like using Google doc. Each of your students will need to each sign up an account with Academic Writer.

Once your students complete their papers, they will be able to export their APA style papers in Academic Writer into a MS Word document, which can be downloaded and submitted to you.

Is It Possible to Integrate Academic Writer into Course Shell on Canvas?

Yes! Academic Writer works with Canvas too. You may create a module or a content page in Canvas to include various learning topics of Academic Writer. This can be done by embedding “Learn” tools of Academic Writer into a content page.

Academic Writer allows integration with Canvas by adding a module with selected “Learn” tools as external tool URL links, as well as integration at the course level. If interested, you will need to submit a RAMSupport ticket for further assistance.

What’s the Difference between Academic Writer and RefWorks?

RefWorks is a reference management program, which is also free for WSSU faculty and students, thanks to O’Kelly Library. RefWorks allows you to store and organize searched references, as well as to generate bibliographies–not only in the APA style, but also in many other popular publication styles including AMA, MLA, Chicago, and many more. RefWorks has a tool called Write-N-Cite, which works with MS Word and formats your paper in a designated style, including the APA style and many other popular styles.

Unlike Academic Writer, which generates papers only in the APA style, RefWorks and Write-N-Cite allow you to prepare papers in many popular styles, and change your paper style from one to another in a matter of a couple clicks.

RefWorks and Write-N-Cite do not have the collaboration feature that Academic Writer offers. For group papers, your students will have to each work with a computer that has Write-N-Cite installed in it.

They will also need to know how to work with RefWorks shared folders. They may share the group paper in Word via, say, OneDrive.

To learn more about RefWorks (and Write-N-Cite), be on the lookout for an upcoming CITI workshop in April.

For More Information about Academic Writer

• About Academic Writer
• Academic Writer resources