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Is a 12-page literature review doable with 20-hour weeks?

literature-review ▲ 1 22 views 2026-09-09

I'm juggling a nursing clinical rotation that requires me to work about 20 hours each week, and my professor wants a literature review of roughly 12 pages for my evidence‑based practice assignment. I need to follow APA formatting and include at least 15 peer‑reviewed sources, but I’m terrified I won’t have enough time to draft, edit, and cite properly before the two‑week deadline. I've tried outlining the sections, but the word count and citation requirements keep slowing me down.

1 Answer

Yes, a twelve-page literature review is absolutely doable, even with your twenty-hour weekly clinical rotations. I completely understand why you are feeling terrified right now, as juggling hands-on hospital shifts while trying to dissect complex academic papers is incredibly draining. It feels like trying to run a marathon while carrying a backpack full of heavy textbooks. When you are exhausted from standing on your feet all day, sitting down to format APA citations can feel like staring at a mountain you just cannot climb in two weeks. The trick to surviving this is to break the project down into bite-sized, daily shifts just like your clinicals. Instead of worrying about writing all twelve pages at once, aim to tackle just one or two sources each day. For example, you could spend one evening simply reading three articles and writing a single paragraph summarizing how they connect to your topic. By focusing on synthesizing the research in small chunks rather than obsessing over the final word count, the pages will naturally start to fill up. Since you already have an outline, you are actually in a much better position than you think. Try drafting your body paragraphs first without worrying about perfect APA formatting, and then dedicate one specific block of time near the end just to polish your citations and bibliography. You have already proven you have the dedication it takes to work in healthcare, so take a deep breath, tackle this one page at a time, and you will get this done.

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