Buying my first book:) APA book question

[BeeGeeRN]

I'm buying books for my first semester of FNP school. My required is the APA 6th edition book, I've matched the USBN numbers...read that the "older" one has MANY errors, then they reprinted another one with corrections. How do I know which is which? One us a lighter blue, one is a darker blue.

thanks! ~b. Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

[rninme]

Check the published date

[heliconiabay]

According to the review dates on Amazon the bad reviews were coming mostly from posts dated in 2009. If you click on 'newest reviews first' then it looks like the customers have been getting the newer corrected version. I guess you could also call the APA directly to see if Amazon (or wherever you are buying it from is currently carrying the corrected version).

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition

APA phone # Contact APA

[NJprisonrn]

Since I use a formatting program, I hardly use the book at all. I do use it occasionally, so please get the correct one. Mine says copyright 2010. Do yourself a favor and get a program. Why waste all that time worrying about formatting? I use PERRLA but there are plenty of other ones out there. $35 well spent!

[Barinbass]

I also use a formatting program, and my school required the 6th edition as well. I used the formatting program as it was so much easier and I figured that the specifics re the 6th edition had been included in the program. My book says copyright 2010 like the post above. I had read that there were errors in it, but I was not aware of a revision to correct them. I agree with the above poster that the formatting program is the way to go as it places your heading properly and Abstract page etc etc. Mine is RiverPoint Writer.

[RainieRN]

The sixth edition copyright 2010 is the most current one.

[zmansc, ASN, RN]

My school will not allow you to turn in a paper that was generated in PERRLA, double check if yours will have a problem with that.

I have been dinged several times for very minor formatting issues in citations that were either generated by EBSCOhost or by citation machine, so now I have to use the book to make sure the citations are perfect, sigh.

I think in general there is a vast over emphasis on formatting instead of content of the papers, and I think it reflects very poorly on Nursing in general. Of course, I also believe anytime you have a book that is many hundred pages long just to tell you how to format a paper that should be an indicator that we have a problem right there! lol

Oh, and BTW, congrats on getting accepted! Enjoy the ride! :)

[BeeGeeRN]

thanks for the feedback! Thank you ZmanSC...I will double check on if my school allows the formatting programs. Yes, I also believe that they focus so much on format that it towers over the content but *sigh* it is what it is!

[Jazzy3317]

I used a program called StyleEase for my undergraduate program. All my papers had to be in APA formal.It was great, but make sure you get the right edition, we were using 6th. Check it out and see what you think, your life will be so much easier.

I used PERLLA but had to augment it with the APA manual because it had some idiosyncrancies. I finally had to crack the program and tweak its guts to get it to behave itself.

If you buy your APA book new through Amazon, you should end up with the latest version.

[ICURN7]

You can buy PERRLA which is very useful in the graduate school because of all those papers.

[IrishIzCPNP, MSN, RN, APRN, NP]

My school will not allow you to turn in a paper that was generated in PERRLA double check if yours will have a problem with that. I have been dinged several times for very minor formatting issues in citations that were either generated by EBSCOhost or by citation machine, so now I have to use the book to make sure the citations are perfect, sigh. I think in general there is a vast over emphasis on formatting instead of content of the papers, and I think it reflects very poorly on Nursing in general. Of course, I also believe anytime you have a book that is many hundred pages long just to tell you how to format a paper that should be an indicator that we have a problem right there! lol Oh, and BTW, congrats on getting accepted! Enjoy the ride! :)[/quote']

And how do they know? Seriously? If you write it with PERRLA and save it as a regular document they have no way of even knowing. I don't understand why a facility would even care.