Combat Stress

APA Formatting & Notes

Make sure you download and read the how to cite military publication document that's posted on Blackboard. Use the hyperlink at the top of page one for additional examples. Website links are not the only element either of an in-text citation or on the reference page. Purdue Owl is another resource for how to properly cite other types of sources such as web pages, journals, reports, and many more. It requires a little reading on your part. You're only going to get out of the course what you put in. One of the goals of the SMC is to prepare Sergeants Majors to be able to communicate clearly and effectively in writing. Some of what I see is neither clear nor effective writing. Don’t pontificate, write the way people tend to speak, or type air quotes around phrases and cliché statements. Additionally, setting up and using your MS Word's grammar and spelling function will catch all of the simple spelling and grammar issues I see. Review the videos within the writing resource tab on Blackboard. I'll work with you but I can't do the work for you. Hot garbage submitted gets hot garbage grades. To put in perspective, it is possible to receive a 70% grade based on APA, spelling/ grammar, and style errors alone without even evaluating the content. One error beyond that would be a failing grade. I would rather not give anyone a failing grade in general, let alone due to easy formatting fixes. Help me to help you.

(ADRP 3-0, 2010) is NOT a proper citation.

Proper citations look like this:

In-text (first citation): (Department of the Army [DA], 1994)

In-text (subsequent citations): (DA, 1994)

Reference List entry (with a hanging indent):

Department of the Army. (1994). Sniper training (FM 23-10). Retrieved from http://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us-archive/fm_23-10%2894%29.pdf

- If your citations are in between two periods then you are wrong. A citation is not a standalone sentence.

- Multiple publications by the same author , in the same year , are listed alphabetically IAW APA standards, and get a letter assigned to the year of publication.

Department of the Army. (2010a).

Department of the Army. (2010b). etc.

- Multiple publications by the same author , in different years , are listed chronologically, IAW APA standards.

Department of the Army. (2010).

Department of the Army. (2014). etc.

- APA format, thesis statements, and transition sentences. Use them.

- Use a short and concise thesis. A thesis takes a stand and makes a claim that you prove throughout your paper by the evidence you provide to back up your claim(s). Your thesis is the last sentence of your introduction paragraph that is supposed to tell the reader exactly what they will be reading and in the order they will read it. Don’t write your introduction then have the thesis statement as a single sentence, standalone paragraph. A good thesis is the roadmap of your paper and also serves as the first transition sentence of your paper. What you put in your thesis should also be your subsequent level one headers to keep your paper organized. We expect to see your thesis statements formatted like such for each assignment:

· Example: Using A, B, and C to develop and evaluate subordinates results in better X.

Then you should format your paper's level one headings to be:

Paper Title

Intro

A

B

C

X

Conclusion

-Conclusion section: Simply restate your thesis in past tense. Subsequent sentences remind the reader of what you told them, by section of your paper, and in the order they read it.

Example:

Above I demonstrated that A, B, and C are the best strategies to employ to develop and evaluate subordinates. First, I discussed A. Next, I discussed B. Finally, I discussed C. Throughout this paper, I provided vignettes and the results of employing these development and evaluation strategies.

- One or two sentences do not constitute a paragraph either. If you think you’re going to write a bunch of three sentences paragraphs to try to stretch out your paper’s length to meet the minimum page count, don’t. We will reformat your paper to how it should look and grade based on that. Also, do not add additional spacing on top of the required double spacing. We will catch that as well and your grade will reflect.

- Plagiarism of your own previous papers, discussion boards, etc. are the same as plagiarizing someone else's work, which will result in being dismissed from the SMNRC and have further career implications.

- Set your MS Word program’s setting up according to this PowerPoint for proper spelling/ grammar/ and style checking for each of your writing assignments. Recheck your documents prior to submitting them on Blackboard.