Unlike many people in my program, I do not hate APA writing. I treat it much like any other requirement for a class, a journal, a publication, whatever it may be. It’s merely a form to standardize papers and articles. My program is somehow APA haters galore. I remember thinking how odd it is to actually HATE a structured form of writing. I understand that most of them do not work with APA all the time, but I didn’t either. Scientific journal format is not really APA format yet I did not have problems adjusting from one to the other. *shrugs* I guess people just like to complain over everything and over nothing.
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Last week, I handed in my very first intake report to a mock session I had with AlwaysCold, one of Mr Shell’s friend from work. Even though intake reports are relatively easy to write, trying to write one up when I have never seen one in real life, never wrote one before, and my only guide was an annotated version containing sections with short, vague examples of each section proved to be quite a task. Yes, I was pretty much writing it semi-blind. So today, I received my mark on it and suffice to say, I wasn’t really happy with it. But then again, I had no idea I made the mistakes to begin with. It’s a weird feeling to be frustrated yet not at the same time. My prof put in comments on the report indicating my errors and yes, they are quite helpful; however, once again, I had no idea they were wrong or in some that they were even supposed to be there. I’m a little bothered.
Shell's Space 
I don’t get the whole hating a writing style thing either. I come up against this at work all the time. We have writing guidelines we have to follow so that multiple people can work on a gigantic report without it sounding like multiple writers and my co-workers are always trying to rebel against this. Um… it’s not creative writing people, just follow the format.
Sorry about the assignment. It is quite frustrating when you get penalized for not having a good example, clear format to follow.
Keep perspective on clinical assignments – remember the point is to learn how to do it so you can do it on the “job” when you get there, less to get a grade. That will help you be less annoyed. I think learning the technical aspects of being a clinician are hard, but they are really job training. (I hate when profs won’t give examples though!)
Psych PostDoc: Somehow my naivete from not having been in the “working world” yet has made me think that by the time you reach that point people would’ve already accepted APA. I seriously think that some people just like to hear themselves talk so they’ll complain every chance they get.
psycgirl: It’s interesting that you brought this up because, in general, I do not obsess about marks. You are correct though. It is about learning how to do it and I found her comments very helpful. It was def a learning experience. I still can’t help but feel frustrated since I felt that they were teaching with the assumption that everyone has some experience in it. And unfortunately for some of us, majority of the students were working in the mental health field before going to grad school.