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Guide to APA Academic Writer

Do I need an account?

Note that while the Reference and Writing Centers in Academic Writer require registering a free account, you can browse the tutorials and examples in the Learn section without one.  If you do create an account, in the Learn section you will gain the ability to favorite specific tutorials or examples for quick access later, under "My File Cabinet." 

What's in the Learning Center?

Think of Academic Writer's Learn section (also called the Learning Center) as an interactive, searchable, website version of the APA 7th Edition manual.  Instead of book pages, it has full tutorials, examples, templates, and rules for every possible thing you may need to cite.  

You'll see the Learning Center has six distinct sections, which can be divided into two major parts:

Lessons:

  • Quick Guides: Short tutorials on a specific topic (ex: Citing books).
  • Tutorials: Longer tutorials covering a larger topic or area (ex: a full introduction to the basics of APA Style).

Examples and Templates:

  • Sample Papers: These are example papers you can use as a template.  The "Merenda" paper is the one most students will want to look at.
  • Sample References: Here you can find quick examples of almost any possible thing you may need to cite.  
  • Sample Tables: This area shows several examples of tables.
  • Sample Figures: Similarly, this area shows examples of how to integrate figures into your paper.  

Academic Writer's Learning Center homescreen

Opening Quick Guides and Tutorials

To open a Quick Guide or Tutorial:

  • Select Quick Guides or Tutorials to find lessons explaining APA topics. 
  • The default sorting option is by Topic, but you can change this to Title.
  • Once you find a lesson of interest, click on the name of it to open it.  
  • Click Start Learning to begin and use the table of contents on the left to skip to different sections.

Animated GIF showing how to open a Quick Guide

Searching for an Answer

You can browse for content in Academic Writer to find what you need, but you can also search.  To do this:

  • Use the "Search the Learning Center" box to the upper right side of Academic Writer.
  • Keep your search simple, but descriptive.
  • Academic Writer doesn't show a traditional search results list like in Google or EBSCO databases.  Instead, the search will filter out content in each section except for anything that mentions your search words.  To navigate, click through the tabs to see what content is available.
  • Remember, Quick Guides will show lessons, but for a fast example, click Sample References.

Animated GIF of search results in Academic Writer