Indicate whether it calls for a topic statement or a purpose statement and explain why, provide an appropriate statement for each, and discuss how you would structure the paper. Would you use headings? If so, what would they be?

Description

Part One: Purpose Statements

When it comes to APA style papers, the terms topic statement and purpose statement are often used interchangeably.

The thesis statement is the backbone of a paper, providing the reader with an idea of what to expect and how the material will be organized. This definition can also be applied to the term purpose statement, but beyond this basic definition, there are important differences

Part Two: Organizing Your Essay

Your essay should be organized according to the structure you signaled in your thesis/purpose statement. For example, if you said you were going to cover point A, point B, and point C, the paragraphs of your essay should flow in the same order (A, B, C). If the paragraphs are out of order, the reader may get confused. Keep in mind, you may need more than one paragraph to thoroughly address a point. As much as possible, try to keep your material balanced throughout the essay, so that if you write two paragraphs for point A, you also write two paragraphs for points B and C respectively.

For a shorter essay, you may not need any headings; however, anything more than two pages might benefit from the use of headings. Here are some helpful resources for working with APA style headings.

This link provides a brief explanation of how to use headings in APA style (you will need to be logged in to myFSCJ to access this link):

https://academicwriter.apa.org/learn/browse/QG-21?group=QG&view=list&sort=asc

This link in the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) APA Formatting and Style Guide gives a helpful chart of the heading levels:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/apa_headings_and_seriation.html

Review these sample papers to see how the students used headings:

basic student response paper that uses level one headings; these were headings the student chose and named ().

student paper that uses the headings required by APA for an empirical experiment paper. This paper has comments throughout to explain various elements of APA style.

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/apa_sample_paper.html

Instructions

For each assignment,

Indicate whether it calls for a topic statement or a purpose statement and explain why, provide an appropriate statement for each, and discuss how you would structure the paper. Would you use headings? If so, what would they be?

Sample assignment one:

There are many self-help groups designed to help people who abuse substances recover. These include SMART Recovery, 12-step programs like Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous, and others.

Choose two such groups to compare and contrast; based on your research, explain which one you think is most effective and why.

Sample assignment two:

You have studied two different research methodologies, quantitative and qualitative research. Describe their key similarities and differences, and for each methodology, give examples of the types of research topics that would be appropriate.

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