Archive April 20, 2021

The American Psychological Association (APA) style is very strict with composition and formatting. It can be difficult for some to handle; the style has its own nuances that can make it a true challenge to understand what’s required.

What is APA?

APA is a style manual for writing research papers. If you’re not familiar with the APA format, it is the most preferred standard in writing research papers. It’s used by many behavioral and social science students in schools, colleges, universities, and even organizations. It’s used in all academic fields. It provides guidelines for writing research papers, book reviews, case studies, and similar assignments.

How to write APA Compare and Contrast Papers

There are APA guidelines for writing a Comparative Literature essay. However, not all of them apply to this type of assignment. All you should do is find out your professor’s style and use that in your paper.

When writing a compare and contrast essay, the first thing you need is an exciting topic to write about. You will always rely on specific ideas if you want to succeed with this type of assignment. Make sure that you have some information from at least two different sources. It is the key to success with an essay like this.

When you choose to write a compare and contrast paper, your goal is to present two different things together and compare them and show how they are different or similar.

Here are some essential steps to help you write an excellent APA paper:

Step 1: Orientation

This is the first step in writing a document using the APA style guideline. You will want to understand the major categories in which you can insert information. You should be familiar with your instructor’s essay and consider this when writing your paper.

Step 2: Developing a Thesis Statement

This is where you will come up with a thesis statement or create one on your own. The thesis statement, or the main idea, should guide your writing. It should guide your paper from the intro to the conclusion.

Step 3: Title Page

This is where you write the title of your paper in bold letters. You can also include a subtitle that tells readers more about what your paper is about. You will need to put your name at the bottom of the document, and it needs to be centered.

Step 4: Abstract

In this section of the paper, you will want to write a sentence or two that summarizes your essay. Ensure you’re using the proper language for this section. You will want it to be concise and clear. This paragraph aims to let readers know what you are going to talk about in the main body of your comparative essay.

Step 5: Main Body of the Paper

This is where you will need to insert information about your two topics. Each paragraph should be encouraging, and you should show that the differences and similarities between the two are clear. Avoid using broad terms when writing in this section, as it can make your essay seem too general. Besides, it will be easier for readers to follow your paper if they read something specific.

Step 6: Conclusion

This is the last step in the writing process of your paper. This is where you will sum everything up and provide your readers with a final thought on what you wrote or researched. You will want to close out your paper with a short paragraph that summarizes one last time what you were talking about in this assignment. It can help you accentuate specific points that were important to your essay.

Developing a thesis statement for your APA-style paper can be difficult, especially if you are writing a compare and contrast essay. The main idea of the paper is to show both similarities and differences between two different things. If you were writing about the concepts of time and space, you would want to make sure that both ideas were included in your paper but in different amounts. All of the sentences in this paragraph must be linked directly to your essay’s main idea. They should make sense, and they should be in the correct section of the paper. Remember to keep your paper well-organized so that your reader isn’t confused when reading it.

In case you want your paper to get red from point A to Z, ensure that you write a great introduction. Ensure that your first paragraph is attractive, catchy, and inspiring to hook the audience to continue reading your paper. The introduction helps the reader establish the context, the main idea, and the importance of the research. It also sums up the background data and gives the reader the main aim of the research. The introduction also contains the hypothesis and the methods used. You can also highlight some potential results or go further to explain the structure of the paper and its organization.

What to include

The introduction of a research paper can be very demanding and might be one of the most challenging areas to write. The type of work that you get asked to do will determine the section size of the introduction. The introduction should first define your topic, the Rationale, and the context with a few research questions and their hypothesis. You get to set the tone of your paper through the introduction, and that’s how you’ll grab the readers’ attention.

Goals of a great introduction

To ensure that you provide a concise and understandable summation of the work done previously on the topic to give your readers a better understanding of whatever you will discuss in the paper.

Explain to your readers why the researchers conducted to fill the literature gaps and make additional details of the topic.

To give all the contributions their names and how they’ve gotten used in the research.

Tips of writing the introduction

• Choose the topic

Choosing the topic is a critical part when writing a research paper. You should ensure that you don’t choose any relevant topic or one that is too general or broad because you will lose the motivation and may even drop your assignment anywhere in the process of writing. List all the elements you have an interest in and go-ahead to research to see whether there is critical data for the topic online.

• The background information

The introduction should set the background of your topic and give context to your writing, allowing the reader to join the dots on how your paper complimented previous authors who wrote on the same topic. For this reason, the initial paragraphs in the introduction explain the background of the problem and describe other studies that got done in the same line. You should also ensure that you don’t input too much information and provide only critical and most essential information.

• The Rationale

It is the explanation for using a book or a film or even a method in your writing. The elements include a summation of the paper and the importance on the educational field, the target audience and literature citation, the goals of the research and its application, potential problems that may arise and their Solutions, and some alternative sources that students can explore.

• The sentence Hook

A hook in a sentence gets used to grab the reader’s attention and interest and make them crave for more after going through your introduction in the paper. The hook can either be an allegory, literary quote, facts or statistics, metaphor or simile, famous quotes, or an anecdote.

Tips for writing the thesis statement

In case you want to write the introduction having mind the thesis statement and how you will include it in your work. Without the thesis statement, you’ll have to mean less introduction, and you may get forced to rewrite the whole section.

As you start to work on your outline, write the problem statement to understand the sources and arguments to utilize.

How to write a good introduction

Always remain brief. If you make an introduction too Long, the readers might get the body of your paper. Stick to your outline and make your introduction precise and short.

Define the problem permanently. You should end the introduction section with a thesis statement, a question, or a hypothesis. The reader should understand whatever you’re trying to achieve through the paper. You should also put it in the back of your mind that the conclusion and discussion sections will always offer references to the introduction and support your statement.

Ensure that you get organized when writing your paragraphs and that just everything that you have in the introduction fits a new course.

Internships often come as an exciting subject. Some would argue that college or university training equips a student for the rigors of the daily workplace. Still, the truth lies in the potential disconnect between college training and work demands, especially if a student misses an internship.

Internships always focus on increasing the employability of graduates. It can accomplish this by equipping students with essential soft skills necessary in acquiring and getting retained in a job. Such handy training will prove crucial in enhancing the graduate’s employability besides the knowledge application side.   

Retention and Suitability of Interns in the Work Place

Plenty of companies struggle to retain fresh graduates, which gets aggravated by the high turnover rate of qualified graduates who push for alternative employment besides the low qualified employee supply within the job marketplace. For instance, you might employ a fresh graduate. Still, instead of settling in and giving their all, they will immediately begin searching for a better opportunity in other firms or organizations.

However, it becomes prudent for organizations to retain fresh graduates, especially when they demonstrate skill, suitability and respond appropriately to the on-the-job training. It even becomes more crucial when the need for competent employees exists in the market. Conversely, companies experience a challenge in having qualified graduates but lack the practical skills required to excel in their job. Such companies need the graduates but lack the resources and time to train the graduates on the job.  

So, can it become possible for companies to incorporate graduates and retrain them? It can become possible through the challenge of having many graduates emerging every year (and who lack the practical skills required). Additionally, qualified and skilled employees get poached by other firms, making it difficult, especially when you have to retrain them again.

Soft Skills and Its Benefits

Most organizations rely on soft skills, especially in this current financial situation. Such skills encompass teamwork-related aspects like delegating, appraising, communication, presenting, and motivating, and they make companies more profitable. For this reason, plenty of companies opt to evaluate their staff on such soft skills and not other skill considerations. Companies prefer employees who can balance their personal needs with the firm’s commercial needs, which encompasses where soft skills come in handy.  Other soft skills entail motivation, friendliness, kindness, team cohesiveness, team spirit, negotiation, among many other skills. The reason why most companies place a premium on soft skills entails the ever-broadening close culture impact.

Additionally, most people accredit interpersonal abilities as an essential part of business today. It proves crucial to the extremely focused, downsized, and streamlined organizations of today, where their staff work in small and temporary workgroups or teams. Such teams get organized with short-term objectives.

Additionally, the graduate’s inability to work solo following the workplace’s exposure and experience also proves a vital feature to consider. Some universities, especially those that lean towards technology, have ensured the WIL (Work-Integrated Learning). It represents a preparation prototype that places graduates into workplaces to gain some experience. Further, studies show that graduates often lack the opportunity to get working skills while in the field, as they go for internships pre-graduation. As such, whatever skills they acquire rarely get implemented.

Most companies consider work experience as a critical determinant for the employability of graduates. However, many companies prove unwilling to invest money and time in training graduates as they fear such employees getting poached later on.  Plenty of gains, however, can get derived from getting experience while studying. It includes developing interpersonal and personal skills, improved employee relationships, enhanced environment communication, and etiquette.

Conclusion

Internships prove crucial to the employability of graduates. It would therefore serve you best to consider doing your internship to help your chances of getting employed.