Hi Margie,
At USG we've had a campus subscription to Academic Writer for about 5 years now, the costs of which we split 50/50 with the department that runs the academic and writing tutoring programs. I don't have exact numbers on usage, but every student who I've demonstrated how to use it has been extremely happy about the formatting and citation functions, and the writing tutors have also reported significant happiness with it overall.
I would say that our most difficult experiences were:
- Getting the word out about it, and getting people to try it
- I've found that 1-on-1 sessions are generally the best method, but we also host workshops on it every semester
- Getting students set up with it (because it requires both a campus login and an AW login that they need to create)
- Getting students comfortable with the large number of options for things like paper type or citation type
On a personal level, I also used it extensively throughout my MLIS, and really appreciate how easy it makes references, call-outs, and section headers. The biggest negatives I've experienced are that formatting can look different on the editor than in an exported Word doc, exported papers don't come with their citations linked in-doc (just regular text throughout), and PDFs don't come with active hyperlinks in the References section. However, all of those can be fixed with fairly minimal effort.
As someone with a background much more rooted in MLA/Chicago style, APA was a bit daunting initially (especially in the days of 6th ed.), but Academic Writer really helped to take the edge off. It's also the only citation generator that I've consistently found to be error-free, though in exchange it's not quite as easy to add citations as the services that have browser extensions.
My one systemic concern about a subscription would be that I'm not 100% sure that it will remain so desirable as more and more faculty permit or encourage AI/LLM use in assignments. Additionally, none of our faculty make use of the function that allows them to put assignments on it (to my knowledge), but USG has an unusual model that makes it challenging to incorporate institutional online resources in classes; I imagine a more traditional institution might see much more of that kind of use.
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Andrew Yager
Access Services Manager
University of Maryland, College Park
He/Him/His
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Original Message:
Sent: Apr 03, 2024 10:23 AM
From: Margie Ruppel
Subject: APA Academic Writer - feedback
Hello, EBSS members.
The U of Kentucky Libraries has a trial subscription to APA Academic Writer. Do other libraries subscribe to APA Academic Writer? And what do you think of it? Have you had feedback from students and faculty members?
I would love to know any feedback you have, to help us make the decision to purchase or not.
Thank you in advance.
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Margie Ruppel
Social Sciences Librarian
University of Kentucky Libraries
She/Her/Hers
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