PUBH 6005 Week 5 APA Practice Piece Example

Course	PUBH 6005 Perspectives on Health and the Developing Scholar-Practitioner
Week	Week 5
Paper type	APA practice piece
Length	About 690 words, 5 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Walden University
Program	Master of Public Health (MPH)
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for PUBH 6005 Week 5

Making Citation Followable: An APA Practice Piece Correcting Six Errors From a First Draft on Insulin Rationing, From Missing DOIs to a Secondary Source Cited as if It Had Been Read

Student Name

Walden University

PUBH 6005: Perspectives on Health and the Developing Scholar-Practitioner

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingThe title treats APA style as a way for readers to follow the writer back to sources, which is why the errors are ranked by how badly each one breaks that path.

Making Citation Followable: An APA Practice Piece Correcting Six Errors From a First Draft on Insulin Rationing, From Missing DOIs to a Secondary Source Cited as if It Had Been Read

Why This Matters More Than Formatting

I used to think of APA style as rules about italics. Working through my Week 2 draft changed my mind. A citation exists so a reader can find exactly what I read and decide whether I used it fairly. Each error below is ranked by how much it would stop a reader from doing that, not by how many points it costs.

What this page is doingRanking errors by their effect on a reader's ability to trace a source turns a formatting exercise into a reasoning one.

The Six Errors

Table 1

Errors Found in My Week 2 Draft

Rank	Error in draft	Corrected form	Why it matters \|
1	Cited Rose's 1985 argument through a textbook summary, but wrote "(Rose, 1985)"	Read the original article and cited it directly	A reader would look for words in Rose that I took from someone else \|
2	No DOI for the clinic survey	Added the DOI link	The DOI is the most reliable route to the exact article \|
3	Paraphrase with no page or section reference for a specific figure	Placed the figure next to its citation in the same sentence	The reader can see which source supports which number \|
4	"Gaffney et al. (2022) found that one in six..." followed by a sentence of my own opinion with no signal	Added "In my experience" to mark the shift	Keeps my view from borrowing the study's authority \|
5	Listed all eight authors of the diabetes review in the text	Used "Hill-Briggs et al."	APA uses "et al." for three or more authors from the first citation \|
6	Reference list in order of use	Sorted alphabetically by first author	Readers scan alphabetically \|

Note. Draft errors are my own; corrections follow APA 7th edition.

The Most Serious Error

Error 1 is the one I would have missed without this exercise. I first met Rose's argument about sick individuals and sick populations in a course textbook and wrote about it in Rose's name. The textbook's summary was accurate, but my sentence used its wording, not Rose's. When I read the original, I found that Rose (1985) frames the point around the question of why some populations have more disease, using the comparison of a population's whole distribution rather than its high-risk tail. My draft had flattened that into a statement about individuals. The corrected sentence now follows the original. When I cannot read an original, APA asks writers to name the secondary source they actually read.

An Error That Looked Minor

Error 4 is not strictly an APA rule, but it is a citation problem. My draft followed a sentence about the national survey (Gaffney et al., 2022) with a sentence about patients at my pharmacy, with no signal that the source had stopped speaking. A reader could reasonably think my pharmacy observation came from the study. Marking the change in voice keeps the line between evidence and experience visible.

Error 5 was the easiest to fix. My draft spelled out all eight authors of the diabetes statement in the running text, where APA 7 wants the first surname and "et al." from the very first mention (Hill-Briggs et al., 2021). The fix shortened one sentence by a full line and made it readable again.

Before and After

Draft: "Rationing is mostly about cost and patients feel embarrassed to ask for help (Herkert et al., 2019)."

Corrected: "Among 199 patients surveyed at a single academic diabetes clinic, roughly a quarter said they had taken less insulin than prescribed because of its price (Herkert et al., 2019). In my experience at the pharmacy counter, some patients seem reluctant to mention cost unless asked directly."

The corrected version attaches the figure to its source and moves my impression about embarrassment, which the study did not measure, into a clearly marked sentence of my own.

Habit Going Forward

I now keep a running reference list with DOIs while I read, note whether I read the original or a summary, and check each sentence with a figure against the source before submitting.

References

Gaffney, A., Himmelstein, D. U., & Woolhandler, S. (2022). Prevalence and correlates of patient rationing of insulin in the United States: A national survey. Annals of Internal Medicine, 175(11), 1623-1626. https://doi.org/10.7326/M22-2477

Herkert, D., Vijayakumar, P., Luo, J., Schwartz, J. I., Rabin, T. L., DeFilippo, E., & Lipska, K. J. (2019). Cost-related insulin underuse among patients with diabetes. JAMA Internal Medicine, 179(1), 112-114. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.5008

Hill-Briggs, F., Adler, N. E., Berkowitz, S. A., Chin, M. H., Gary-Webb, T. L., Navas-Acien, A., Thornton, P. L., & Haire-Joshu, D. (2021). Social determinants of health and diabetes: A scientific review. Diabetes Care, 44(1), 258-279. https://doi.org/10.2337/dci20-0053

Rose, G. (1985). Sick individuals and sick populations. International Journal of Epidemiology, 14(1), 32-38. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/14.1.32

PUBH 6005 Week 5 instructions, in plain terms

APA practice assignments ask students to apply the style's rules to their own writing, often by correcting a draft or building a reference list. Instructors expect accurate formatting of in-text citations and references, but many also look for understanding of why the rules exist. Some prompts ask students to explain each correction. Pieces usually include a table or list of errors with corrected forms and a short reflection. Strong submissions go beyond italics and punctuation to address secondary sources, attribution of figures and the boundary between a source's voice and the writer's. Check which edition of APA your program requires; most now use the seventh edition. Instructors often look closely at whether a student's reference list matches the in-text citations exactly, since mismatches are common in early graduate work.

How this PUBH 6005 Week 5 example is built

The brief explains why citation matters beyond formatting. A table lists six errors from the writer's own draft with corrected forms and the reason each matters. A section examines the most serious error, citing an original through a textbook summary, and describes what reading the original changed. A section explains an error that looked minor, an unmarked shift from a study's finding to the writer's opinion. A before-and-after pair shows a corrected sentence. Three working habits the pharmacist commits to end the brief. The ranking by consequence, rather than by rule type, shows the writer has understood citation as a reader's tool, which is the point the course is trying to make.

PUBH 6005 Week 5 rubric: what earns full marks

APA practice pieces are judged on accuracy of corrections, understanding of purpose, attention to attribution and reflection. Accuracy credit requires correct application of current APA rules. Purpose credit rewards explaining what each rule protects. Attribution credit comes from addressing secondary sources and the boundary between evidence and opinion. Reflection credit is earned by naming habits that will prevent repeated errors. The piece's own citations must, of course, be correct. Pieces that show a revised sentence alongside the original make the effect of each correction visible and are easier to assess. A grader who spots one wrong DOI tends to test the rest, so a single careless entry can pull down marks across the whole reference criterion.

PUBH 6005 Week 5 help: mistakes that cost marks

APA exercises often stop at formatting. Read each of your citations and ask whether a reader could find the exact source and passage. Check whether you actually read every work you cite. Make sure figures sit next to their sources. Mark where your own opinion begins. Then fix the formatting. A free APA practice piece built on your own draft can be requested. Keep a log of every source you read, with its DOI and a note on whether you read it in full. That log will save hours at every deadline that follows. Fix the in-text form while drafting rather than at the end, when tired eyes skim past a missing year.

Get a PUBH 6005 Week 5 example written to your instructions

Offer up a cited paragraph you have drafted, or just a topic, alongside the citation exercise and rubric for Week 5. The piece comes with a retrieval trace for every source. Your opening request is free, delivered within 24 to 48 hours; test each trace against your own library access before relying on it.

More PUBH 6005 papers and MPH samples

PUBH 6005 Week 5 questions, answered

Where can I find a free PUBH 6005 Week 5 sample paper?

The full Week 5 APA practice piece is shown above, correcting six citation errors in a draft on insulin rationing and explaining each.

What is the most serious citation error?

Citing an original work in its author's name when the writer actually read a summary of it elsewhere.

How should a secondary source be cited in APA?

Name the source you actually read; APA asks writers to cite the work they consulted, mentioning the original within the sentence.

When does APA use et al.?

For works with three or more authors, from the first in-text citation.

Why mark where your opinion begins?

So a reader does not mistake the writer's view for the cited study's finding.