APA Citations: The Method to the Madness
Does it ever feel as though the American Psychological Association made
its formatting rules especially complex, just to frustrate poor students like
you? Often, it’s hard to understand why italicizing
this line or capitalizing that word is so important. Shouldn’t you be spending
more time and energy on the content of
your writing—your ideas?
Believe it or not, there are clear
reasons for these guidelines that are directly related to the content of your
work. APA rules are actually designed to help you communicate your ideas more
clearly. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through a Q & A based on a reference
in APA style, highlighting how APA formatting rules are designed to help social
scientists communicate.
First, take a look at this sample
article reference. (This source is made up, so don’t go looking for it in the
library!)
Kallman Arneson, B. (2012). Chocolate as a critical
component of effective paper-writing. Journal of Writing and Dessert, 5(2),
12-16. doi:10.1027/0269-8803.20.4.253
Catering to the Short Attention Span in Syntax
By Rachel Grammer, Writing Consultant
I'll be the first to admit that I have a short attention span; on
certain days, it’s incredibly difficult for me to sit quietly at my desk and
focus on the appointment in front of me because my mind craves variety. When I
finally get myself settled down with my cup of tea and a paper on the computer,
though, my condition is only exacerbated by what I often read:
The researchers chose adult participants between the ages of 35 and 60. The participants worked as engineers, chemists, and biologists. The researchers completed the study
within 3 days. The researchers found
that 33% of the participants still slept with their teddy bears. The researchers also found that 13% of
the participants admitted to needing the bears in order to fall asleep.
Okay, so I haven’t read any studies on adults
and teddy bears (though that would be
a fun topic to explore!), but you can see how this paragraph might intensify my
desire for variety; all the sentences sound the same: The researchers chose, the participants worked, the researchers
completed, the researchers found.
Colloquialisms Part I: Clichés
A couple weeks ago, I received an email from a student who was curious about a series of comments I left in his paper, warning against colloquialisms, slang, and informal language. The student wanted to know if there was an online resource that would comprehensively list all forms of slang not allowed in APA-style papers. Unfortunately, like the English language itself, the nature of what is considered formal and informal language is constantly changing, and sometimes correct word choices in an APA paper come down to little more than your instructor’s individual preferences. Ultimately, it is impossible to compile a list of every single article of slang because once a list is started, it would probably never stop.
This blog post will be the first in a series that will tackle the many ways colloquialisms and slang can creep into your paper. And creep is right—a lot of the word choices we make in papers are done imperceptibly, so it is normal for even the best writers to not give much thought to worn-out phrases like on the other hand when comparing one source’s argument to another.
Act As If
Cliché advice can get people into trouble, but I have decided to apply at least one such overused idiom to my own writing practices: Act as if…
I am not a published novelist. Not yet. But when I sit down at my desk to write, I act as if I am that novelist. I scratch in my notebook or type on my computer as if I am composing the next great American novel. I act as if what I am writing will be a candidate for the National Book Award, will win the Pulitzer Prize, and will finally give this country its next Nobel Laureate. I act as if there are a host of readers lined up outside of their local bookstore, waiting to get the first printing of this book because, clearly, there will be later editions and this is the one that the collectors will want. When I write, I act as if.
Although there is probably a novel in all doctoral students (I see a mystery set in the dark halls of a library or a romance that blossoms at an academic residency or a horror story where the committee members are actually vampires, werewolves, or more likely zombies who have trouble returning e-mails), most are spending more time writing their dissertation. Students often ask for advice about writing their manuscript. My advice is act as if.
Presenting With Prezi
One of the most impressive presentations I’ve ever seen involved a PowerPoint with only one image per slide, and often no text. The presenter chose one visually stimulating photograph to represent each main point, and he let his message rather than his slides drive the presentation. No one in that audience fell asleep.
The presentation was successful because it combined image
and discussion in an effective way, but also because the new approach—so
different than the “death by PowerPoint” we are often subjected to—caught and
kept the audience’s attention.
Many Walden students use PowerPoint, and use it well, for
class projects and work presentations. Trying a new style or approach can
sometimes bring new life and new ideas to your work, however. For today’s Tech
Tip, I’d like to introduce you to a tool for jazzing up your presentations:
Prezi.
Is Your Short Attention Span Showing?: Using a Reverse Outline (Writer's Workshop #5)
By Amber Cook, Senior Writing Specialist and Faculty Liaison
I’m going to date myself here. When I was pursuing my
degrees, there was no Facebook. My computer did not have Internet access; in
fact, I used my university’s computer lab because I didn’t have my own machine.
As you can imagine (and many of you may know from your own experience), this
scenario made research much more difficult and tedious, but it came with an
upside: my ability to concentrate was first-class. The only thing on my screen was
my document. There were no accessible means of procrastination, so I just wrote,
and my writing had a cohesion that reflected my focus.
Now flash to the present. As I wrote the first paragraph of this
blog post, I wandered away from my Word document three times: to check e-mail,
respond to an IM, and find the Lumineers station on Spotify. I also fought against my now-innate urge to write in the short, pithy form of a status update
or a text. In short, writing longer-form work is harder than it used to be, as
it likely is for many of you. For adults returning to school after writing
primarily in chunks of 50 words or less, the task of writing a cohesive
multi-page paper can be a challenge. The strategies for this type of
composition are different, and the longer attention span it requires is often a
little-exercised muscle.
Unsure whether cohesion is a problem in your writing? I have
a test for you. Grab your most recent, completed piece of writing. Go ahead. I’ll
send a quick text while I wait. You’re back? OK, here goes.
Becoming Your Own Grammarly
By Matt Smith, Writing Consultant
In my
last post, I discussed the benefits of incorporating Grammarly into your
writing process. Grammarly is a great resource, but it can’t do everything; its
core function is only to quickly analyze your writing and provide details about
the grammar issues it identifies. Unfortunately, it has no speedy, high-tech
way of ensuring that you learn and retain this information.
You can best internalize these grammar rules—to know them so
well you use them as automatically as you walk, without having to think about
putting one foot in front of the other—by using them over and over again. The
most natural way to do this is simply to write, which you already do in your
coursework and capstone projects. Just like critical reading, however, you’ll
learn more from this experience by engaging your writing critically, actively learning
from your mistakes and improving over time as a result. In other words, you can
more fluently understand grammar by, essentially, becoming your own Grammarly.
Remembering Your Reader (Even in the Methods Section)
By Jeff Zuckerman
Dissertation Editor and CSS Faculty Member
One of the most challenging and important sections that
capstone researchers need to write is the methods section. In your proposal
it’s critical to describe what you plan to do and why, or once the research is
completed, what you did and why you did it.
In Walden doctoral studies, that’s Section 2. In
dissertations, it’s Chapter 3. Your task is twofold: You must show enough
details of the research method so that the study can be replicated, and you
need to show that what you did made sense and that your work was conducted
ethically and soundly.
Too often, though, students forget they are writing for a
reader rather than crafting a textbook. As Booth, Columb, and Williams (2003)
advised, put yourself in the shoes of a reader who pleads, “Just tell me
something that I don’t know so that I can better understand the topic of our
common interest” (p. 25).
D-O-I & Y-O-U
By Tim McIndoo, Dissertation Editor
A reference tells us who wrote what–when–where (author,
year, title of article, journal, volume, issue, page range). If we take those
data to a large scholarly library and attack the journal stacks, chances are
good we’ll find it. But how slow and cumbersome!
In the 21st century, filing and retrieving scholarly
articles (including abstracts) has become much simpler and much faster. That’s
because all the standard data (author, year, title, etc.) are now commonly encoded
into a unique, permanent, alphanumeric string called a digital object identifier or DOI. Here’s what a reference looks
like with the DOI in position after the period that follows the page range:
Nance, M. A. (2007). Comprehensive care in Huntington’s disease: A
physician's perspective. Brain Research
Bulletin, 72(2-3), 175-178.
doi:10.1016/j.brainresbull.2006.10.027
Weathering the Storm . . . of Problem Statements
by Nik Nadeau,
Writing Consultant
There are people who prepare for emergencies, large and small, and then there are people who are less prepared. A simple power outage for the day can overturn all their plans. Not knowing what to prepare for when it comes to your problem statement can result in a problem statement that leaves your readers feeling
flustered, confused, and unsure about how to proceed.
To write a clear
problem statement, start by identifying a single, unique problem. To do so,
follow these rules:
1. Rely
only on your own words (rather than on quotations or paraphrases).
Your readers expect you to identify a problem no one else
has identified before, at least in the way that you spin it. For example, if
you are researching the health effects of alcoholism, make sure you identify a
problem that other health scholars have not already addressed.
2. Be
as specific as possible.
Your readers need a specific image of the problem and who it
affects.
Writer’s Workshop #4: Know Your Stuff
By Beth Oyler, Writing Consultant
At the Writing Center we talk about writing with students
all the time. It’s what we do for (at least) 40 hours a week. When students approach
us, though, I sometimes wonder if they might be asking the wrong questions.
Becoming a proficient writer is, of course, an important skill you’ll learn in higher
education. But before you can write a phenomenal paper, you have to—simply put—know
your stuff, which starts with strong critical reading skills. How we approach
reading as scholars matters; if you are able to become adept at critically
reading, your writing will improve. Trust me!
Think about the last article or piece of research you read.
How did you approach that text? If you’re like me, you probably have a stack of
reading material you need to get through when you find a little time after work
or between other commitments. Time crunches like this can cause us to rush
through research, reading just to get through it. Instead, we need to be aware
of what type of reading we should be
tapping into.
To get technical for a minute, there are two different types of
reading, as discussed by Rosenblatt (1982):
Aesthetic reading: Reading to gain the feeling of a text, often
referred to as reading for pleasure.
Efferent reading: Reading to use and
apply information from a text, like reading for academics.
Correlative Conjunctions: Words in Pairs
By Jonah Charney-Sirott, Writing Consultant
Some words travel as pairs. Where we use one, we must use the other.
Take the word both, for example.
When two subjects are considered together, most of us use the word both to discuss the items as a group.
Though we all think we know how to
use this easy four-letter word, there are a whole lot of rules governing its
usage, and a whole lot of us don’t always follow them. Let’s start with a
little background:
Both is a correlative
conjunction, a fancy way of saying that it’s part of a select group of words in
the English language that must always go in a pair. In the case of both, our sister word is and. Think of these two words as a team. If you use
both, you have to play her teammate and as well, or else you’ve got a
problem.
Take, for example, this sentence: Both
a dog as well as a cat would make a great pet for my grandmother.
Expert Advice: On Motivation
By Writing
Center Staff
By this point
in the fall, perhaps you are feeling a bit weary. Am I right? The excitement of
the new term has begun to fizzle, and you’re not sure if you can sustain the
long hours of work, school, and family time. In this week’s blog post, Writing
Center staff lift your dragging feet. Pat you on the back. Say in unison, “I
think you can. I think you can.” That’s right; the tutors and editors are musing
about motivation—how to get it and how to keep it. For a pick-me-up, check out their answers below.
How do you stay motivated to write?
- Beth and Amber recommend “chunking” to see progress:
- Beth Oyler: When I have a large project to complete, I split it up into chunks, which helps it feel more manageable. For example, if I’m writing a research paper, I think about the different steps I need to complete (research, notes, organization, drafting, revision) and focus on each step in order. That way, I have the satisfaction of feeling like I accomplished something if I’m able to check off even one step.
To AutoRecovery, With Love
By Julia Cox, Writing Consultant
On August 21, 2009, tragedy
struck. My MacBook crashed, exactly 11
hours before I was to begin a fresh term of graduate classes.
The next day, I stood petrified in the
Apple Store, ready to pen a “dear Steve” letter (to late Apple founder Steve
Jobs) bemoaning that my overpriced, allegedly immortal MacBook had come undone,
my personal history interrupted, my Alexandria burned.
Indeed, the digital age has conjured
new forms of personal crisis, where a frayed motherboard wire can extinguish
vacation memories, silence a music collection, and destroy a canon of
professional and academic documents in the space of a few seconds.
For students, technological catastrophe
can be especially traumatizing, as it always strikes with an impending
deadline. Microsoft users will recognize the blue screen of death. For Mac
patrons like me, disaster starts with the rainbow wheel of pain. Regardless of
which team you click for, the feeling of loss, pain, and nausea is the same.
AutoCorrect: The New Shorthand
If you want to speed up your work and improve the accuracy
of your typing, you might try using Word’s AutoCorrect feature. It can store
and paste up to 255 characters.
To access this function,
Using AutoCorrect in Word 2007
To access this function,
1. Click on the Office button in the upper left corner of
the screen. A screen pops up.
2. Click on Word Options at the bottom right.
3. From the menu bar on the left, click on Proofing (third option from the top). Then look for the first heading on the page and click on the box labeled "AutoCorrect Options." The AutoCorrect dialog box then appears. Here is a screen shot of the AutoCorrect dialog box, ready for entry of a new item:
2. Click on Word Options at the bottom right.
3. From the menu bar on the left, click on Proofing (third option from the top). Then look for the first heading on the page and click on the box labeled "AutoCorrect Options." The AutoCorrect dialog box then appears. Here is a screen shot of the AutoCorrect dialog box, ready for entry of a new item:
Argue Is Not a Dirty Word: Taking a Stand in Your Thesis Statement
By Kayla Skarbakka, Writing Consultant
Like many high schoolers across the country, I was assigned
in my junior year to write a paper for the National Peace Essay Contest, a fantastic program that promotes education and
conversation about peace and conflict resolution. My year, the contest’s theme
was reconstruction. I chose my topic (the Croatian War of Independence),
conducted my research (involving a bit too much Wikipedia—hey, I was 16!),
drafted my essay, and submitted to my teacher, feeling pretty darn confident.
I got the essay back the next week with a middling grade and
a big red X in my introduction, next to my thesis statement, which was
something like “Reconstruction is a complicated process that can take years to
complete.”
“But it’s true,” I complained after class.
“It also doesn’t say anything,” my teacher told me. “Where
do you stand? What do you have to
say?”
On Choosing Your Words Carefully
By
Tim McIndoo, Dissertation Editor
In
scholarly or research writing, evidence is presented to substantiate an
argument. To make an argument cogent requires precision. Precision means choosing
the right words and then properly assembling them into a sentence. Throughout your
paper or study, you are offering your readers characterizations, descriptions,
explanations, interpretations, and analyses. If they are inaccurate or imprecise,
you will misrepresent and perhaps fail to make your case. Here are seven common
word-choice issues, in alphabetical order.
ability /
capability
Some
words look similar and have the same root but have different meanings: ability refers to people and means a
natural skill, talent, or expertise; capability
suggests qualifications or credentials and points to a maximum. While John’s ability to read is below grade level,
his capability of succeeding in school remains good.
Writer’s Workshop #3: Cut It Out!
By Hillary Wentworth, Writing Consultant
I admit it. I’m one of those people who delays cleaning just
to see the great pile of dust I can sweep up with my broom. I also compile long
to-do lists just to strike things off. It’s that satisfying swipe of getting
things done. Are you with me?
I approach my own writing with the same philosophy: write it
all out in glorious, long sentences, and then rip it to shreds. Some of us
write with such delicacy and heart that we become too close to the material. We
write a paragraph and it becomes our baby, our friend; we cannot see it any
other way. My suggestion, though, is to view the paper analytically, like a scientist.
In fact, pretend it’s someone else’s writing entirely.
To achieve this sense of detachment you might need to write
a paper and then forget about it for a day or two. Then, when you have your
scientist cap on, sit down at your desk and read. If you have access to a
printer, flip through the physical pages and grab a pen to cross out words. If
you don’t own a printer, read on the computer with the Track Changes button
engaged. When you delete a word, a strikethrough line will appear. See how many
extra words you can remove.
The Argument for Articles
By Rachel Grammer, Writing Consultant
As I wandered through tourist traps and tea shops of a
foreign city a few years back, I stumbled across this sign. The grammar geek in
me had to smile. Would you like to ride on camel? A nice experience, isn’t it? Even as I chuckled, I knew that the
omission of the word a in the sign
represented one of the greatest challenges of learning the English language:
the use of what we writing nerds call articles.
Articles are actually not arbitrary.
Despite the seemingly arbitrary nature of articles, there
are grammatical rules that govern their use. The category of articles generally
consists of three words: a, an, and the. While these are small words, they
can make a world of difference in writing. Articles do have a purpose and can provide clarity. Allow me to explain.
Articles give specificity and number.
Articles fall into two categories: Definite and indefinite.
Too Weaselly for Academia
By Tim McIndoo, Dissertation Editor
In everyday conversation, it’s common to be polite. We may not
say what we really think. So we pussyfoot:
Well, if we don't leave ‘til noon, we probably won't arrive on time. We don't want to
seem too positive because we don't want to alienate whomever we are talking to and,
well, we could be wrong. So we equivocate:
No, I suppose it won't be a problem if you leave later. Politeness is a useful
strategy for sustaining conversations and relationships—but not for generating
knowledge, which is the business of research. To generate knowledge, you must
be straightforward. Thus, it’s important not to dodge, fudge, hedge, waffle, and tergiversate.
According to the Oxford
English Dictionary, a weasel word is “an equivocating or ambiguous word
which takes away the force or meaning of the concept being expressed.” But in research, why pull punches? According
to The Free Dictionary,
it’s “a word used to avoid
making an outright assertion.” But how
can research be executed without assertions about what is known and not known?
How RSS Changed My Life . . . or at Least My Reading Habits
When I worked in public relations, my responsibilities
included keeping an eye on the Internet for certain trending topics. I read
numerous blogs and news sites every day to stay up to date. Like many Internet
users, I had marked the websites that I read regularly as favorites (or
“bookmarks,” depending on which browser I was using) so I could access them
easily. The trouble was that to see if the websites had updated since I had
last checked them, I needed to visit every single one. Doing so often led to
wasted time, as many of the websites had not yet updated, meaning I had to
spend even more time checking them again later.
Then I found RSS.
RSS stands for really
simple syndication or rich site summary, and it’s a way to easily access and
manage web page content that changes frequently. Many websites, including the
Walden Writing Center blog, offer RSS feeds. To find a site’s feed, use the
shortcut CTRL+F to search for RSS, or
look for the universal RSS symbol (on the right).
Welcome to the Academic Writing Community!
By Rachel Grammer, Writing Consultant
Recently, as I
sat staring at the blank computer screen, I felt myself shrinking from the
keyboard. I knew what I wanted to
write in this email to the director of my department, but I also knew that it
had to be different than the one-sentence emails with emoticons that I shot off
to my colleagues frequently. I struggled to find the words that meant precisely
what I wanted to say, and I started to feel that familiar self-talk creep in: I must be incompetent or incapable. I’ll never learn how to navigate this world
of corporate language.
It is times
like these when I have to remind myself of the truth: It’s not a deficit in me. It’s a new discourse! And I’m not alone.
You're Engaged?!
By Sarah Prince, Writing Consultant
Recently, my two nieces came to our house for a slumber
party. After our very late night and the ridiculously early morning that
followed (only 7-year-olds think it is fun to rise before the sun), I was
thoroughly exhausted. For close to 48 hours, I had been assaulted with all
sorts of hard questions. Why do I only walk the dogs on some days? How come I
don’t know how to make pancakes? What is my favorite Disney movie? Who do I
think is cuter, Justin Bieber or Joe Jonas?
Watching the girls ride off in my sister’s minivan early
Sunday morning, I remember thinking two things: (1) Any day of the week, Joe
Jonas is cuter than Justin Bieber, and (2) I wish there was some way I could
channel those kids’ enthusiastic curiosity. That curiosity seems to be a
special gift only children possess. They want to know why things are the way
they are, how things came to be, and what their own place is within the
existing order. They ask questions, they categorize, they seek out patterns and
connections. In this way, children are always actively engaged with the
surrounding world.
Writer's Workshop #2: Exercises From a Live Tutoring Session
By Amber Cook, Senior Writing Specialist and Faculty Liaison
Many of Walden’s writing tutors—myself included—used to work
in brick-and-mortar writing centers. We sat next to students at actual desks,
looking at documents on printed sheets of paper. The online tutoring we do here
at Walden allows us many options that were unavailable to us in that setting:
We can instantly pull up useful links, review larger areas of text, and provide
students with advice in print that they can study on their own schedule. There
are some helpful exercises used in live sessions, however, that online students
can replicate on their own. Take a look!
Read your work aloud.
This is often the first step in live tutoring sessions. Reading your work aloud
can help you identify issues like redundancy, grammar errors, or rough transitions.
Most people write more slowly than they speak, so they might not notice those
issues during the writing process. Your ear will catch many problems that your
eye (or your grammar checker) missed. When reading aloud in consultations at
Walden residencies, most writers stop themselves after the first few sentences
to say “Wait! That part sounded weird” or “Oh! I see the problem!” Find a quiet
room and give it a try!
Using Find and Replace: A Quick MS Word Tip
Let's say a writing tutor reviewed your work. One of the tips she mentioned was to italicize the titles of books within your paper. You--the ever-diligent student--want to make sure you catch every instance of those book titles and change them from regular type to italics. Here are the steps to use the Find and Replace function in MS Word.
1. Press
Control H. The Find and Replace dialog box will appear with the Replace tab
overlined in red.
2. In
the Find What box, insert the word or phrase you want to italicize.
3. Leave
the Replace With box blank, but be sure the cursor is blinking inside it.
4. Click
on Format at the bottom of the dialog box and select Font.
5. Among
the three tabs, Font should be overlined in red and there should be a blinking
cursor in the Font box.
6. Click
on Tab to move from the Font column to the next column, Font Style. Select
Italic. At the bottom right of the box, click OK.
7. Now
make sure that the Replace With box is still blank, but that below the box,
the phrase “Font: Italic” appears.
8. Click
on Find Next. When the next instance of the word or phrase appears, it will be
highlighted. If it is an instance you want to change, click the Replace button.
If you want to skip over it, click on Find Next.
9. Once
you’ve changed all the instances you want, close the dialog box at the X in the
upper right corner.
Incorporating Grammarly Into Your Writing Process
You might already be familiar with Grammarly, but if you aren’t: Grammarly is a grammar-checking program that is available to you for free as a Walden student. In the Writing Center, we recommend Grammarly in a number of situations; if a student’s paper contains a great deal of sentence-level interference (i.e., the student’s meaning is obscured by grammar issues), for example, or if a student wants help immediately and we have no openings in our schedule, we’re likely to point him or her toward this software. We also recommend that students use Grammarly as an early step in their revision processes, because it can help them improve their paper in the short term and, more importantly, strengthen their writing skills in the long term.
To get started with Grammarly, click the big green Grammarly button on our home page. Instructions for logging into Grammarly should appear in your browser, and, once you’re in, you should see a screen like this.
The 20-Minute Lit Review
By Jeff Zuckerman, Dissertation Specialist and CSS Faculty
Member
At a dissertation intensive earlier this summer, a
student—let’s call him Daniel—asked me to give his literature review a quick
look for APA style and anything else that caught my eye.
“I’ll be glad to go through it,” I said eagerly. I really
was happy to read Daniel’s revision. He had already impressed me with his clear
writing in an earlier draft. Now, after several days of fine-tuning and hard
work, he was ready to show me what he hoped was the final draft.
After skimming the entire literature review in about 20
minutes, I suggested a few places where Daniel could have organized things a
little differently, and I explained a few APA style and punctuation corrections
I had made.
“So that’s it?” Daniel said, a little sadly.
“It read well!” I said. “Those really were the only problems
I saw!”
“In other words,” he said, “I put 3 months into the
literature review, and you just read it in about 20 minutes.”
So much hard work, and here I was with a cheap-sounding
compliment and a dozen or so corrections. As Peggy Lee sang, “Is that all there
is?”
How to Think (and Write) Like Your Instructor
By Nik Nadeau, Writing Consultant
Are you confused about how to
meet your instructor’s expectations? Here at the Writing Center, we receive
lots of questions about assignment prompts and instructor comments, with some
simply asking “What do I do?” For the majority of these situations, we like to
recommend the following:
For questions relating to the content of your assignment or capstone
work, check with your instructor. For example, if you are unsure what your
instructor means by holistic learning,
send him or her an email and ask! Make sure you read the assignment carefully
and express your concerns or confusion—after all, your instructor will be
grading you on how well you read and interpret the guidelines as well as on the
writing itself. Or, if you are unsure about what to do in the Delimitations
section of your dissertation proposal, ask your committee chair and consult the
rubric (to find the appropriate rubric for your doctoral program, see
the Center for Research Support –Office of Student Research Administration
homepage).
Writer's Workshop #1: A Bird's-Eye View
This post is the first in our new monthly Writer’s Workshop series, which provides students with activities to improve their writing.
When I talk about the revision
process, some students look at me blankly, wondering What process? Don’t worry if you’re one of those people. If you
don’t usually revise your papers (or even if you do), know that revision is
just what I say: a process. You’ll develop
your own revision process as you develop your writing, and I hope that the
Writer’s Workshop series will help.
The most useful revision strategy for me has to do with organization and getting
a bird’s-eye view.
Once I’ve completed a first draft of a paper, I take an inventory of the
information I’ve included so far. This helps me better understand whether I’ve
fully supported my thesis, developed all ideas fully, and organized my information in a logical manner.
To take an inventory, read through
the paper paragraph by paragraph, summarizing
each paragraph in one sentence (that’s right, just one—or even a phrase if
you can swing it!). Don’t let yourself get too wordy. If you can’t summarize
the paragraph in a short, simple sentence, star* the summary for that paragraph
so you know to come back to it later.
Transcribing Audio Files From Interviews and Focus Groups
By Tim McIndoo, Editor
Qualitative studies are common at Walden, but many students publish their transcriptions unedited. While it’s true that most of an interviewee’s words are sacrosanct, some of them can be edited to improve readability and clarity. This blog will suggest what should and should not be done while you are transcribing from the recording and then right after you’ve finished typing the interview.
Qualitative studies are common at Walden, but many students publish their transcriptions unedited. While it’s true that most of an interviewee’s words are sacrosanct, some of them can be edited to improve readability and clarity. This blog will suggest what should and should not be done while you are transcribing from the recording and then right after you’ve finished typing the interview.
Introduction
The
data in qualitative studies typically comes from interviews or focus groups. Both
yield audio files that must be transcribed to make the data accessible and facilitate
analysis. Transcribing is a task you’ll need to do or hire someone else to do
for you. Either way, you are responsible for its accuracy and clarity.
To transcribe is to make speech readable.
But it is not a matter of just recording all of the speaker’s utterances. Some sounds
and some words convey little or no meaning, while some wordless gestures—a
pause, a smile, or shrugged shoulders—can be evocative. Thus, transcribing requires
vigilant listening, careful note taking, and sensitive interpretation.
Grammar, Style, and Absolute Phrases
By Jonah Charney-Sirott, Writing Consultant
When revising your work, it’s important to proofread for
grammatical errors, as well as for stylistic concerns. What is the difference
between the two, you might be wondering? A grammatical error is one that breaks
a rule of the English language, an error that can be definitively noted as right or wrong. Style, on the other hand, is much more subjective. Take
passive voice, for example. Rules-wise, there is nothing incorrect when it
comes to the phrase “A qualitative approach was utilized to conduct the study.”
Government officials, for example, speak this way all the time (“mistakes were
made”). However, APA prefers students
write in the active voice instead.
Now that we’ve got the difference between grammar and style
out of the way, let’s discuss what are known as absolute phrases. An absolute phrase is an example of a grammatical
rule, not a style issue, because if you use an absolute phrase incorrectly,
your sentence will likely confuse your reader.
Community: Your Secret Weapon
By Jamie Patterson, Dissertation Editor
I don’t
want you to be afraid, but only a little over half of all students who enroll
in a doctoral program actually complete the program with a degree (Wao & Onwuegbuzie,
2011). Those who do complete the degree tend to take about double to quadruple
the amount of time prescribed by most programs, with the delay occurring during
the dissertation writing process.
As a
dissertation editor I work with student writers who are at all stages of writing
the dissertation. They all approach me with the same plea: tell me how to write this monster of a document.
I’m
afraid the only advice I can give to them, and now to you, is simply: write.
Seek out help and write. The seeking out help part is the key, and here at
Walden we’re trying to develop services that will provide relevant help at just
the right time. For instance, we have been piloting capstone study writing
groups and are hopeful that this will be a service available to all students in
the near future. For now, if you are an EdD student in your first course of
8090 we have a pilot writing group beginning July 16 and running for 6 weeks.
If you’re interested in learning more, email us at writinggroups@waldenu.edu. If you
don’t meet the criteria for this pilot, not to worry, there are options for you
too.
Calling All International and Multilingual Students!
By Kayla Skarbakka, Writing Consultant
Every so often, we tutors receive e-mails from students
expressing concerns about writing in English. “Some of my issues are related to
translation,” a student recently noted. “My first language is Spanish, so you
can imagine how difficult it is to write a paper in English.”
As someone with an embarrassingly limited knowledge of other
languages, I certainly can imagine the challenge. There’s no way around it:
scholarly writing is tough. The sophisticated vocabulary, tone, and structure
needed to write clearly about complex ideas can prove arduous even if you’re writing
in your first language. When you’re writing in a second (or third or fourth)
language, the challenge is, of course, all the greater.
Free Yourself in the First Draft
By Julia Cox, Writing Consultant
American writer Isaac Singer once lamented, “The wastebasket
is a writer’s best friend.” Even though we now have a metaphorical wastebasket
via the delete button, Singer’s sentiment remains true. Sometimes the best
route to a good piece of writing is a truly horrible and scattered first draft.
There is a grand illusion that writing of any kind is a
singular event—that The Great Gatsby
was written in one sitting, or that Will Smith composed the lyrics to "The Fresh
Prince of Bel-Air" on a whim. All forms
of writing take time and revision, academic papers included. Setting aside the
pressure to produce an immediately perfect piece can actually create a more
effective drafting process. Here are
some tips for getting that first draft down—minus the pressure:
The Northwest Passage, or Why You Should Cite Yourself Only Sparingly
By
Matt Smith, Writing Consultant
To attain a graduate degree,
especially a terminal degree, is to specialize in a chosen field. When you
begin your study, you move from the general (an interest in teaching, let's say,
or psychology) to the specific (enhancing your classroom methods with
differentiated instruction, for example, or studying the use of
cognitive-behavioral therapy in treating substance abuse).
Developing your
capstone project necessarily involves the discovery of new scholarly terrain,
and it makes sense that, as an explorer in the wild, you would strive to be as
resourceful as possible in these efforts; after all, you have no idea whether
there’s water or sand over the horizon. In this spirit, students working on
their capstones or other large projects often want to use work they’ve already
created (course papers, capstones from prior degrees, etc.) as building blocks
for the work they’re really interested in.
For example, rather than rereading Bandura’s
writing on social-cognitive theory, which you read two semesters ago and wrote
a five-page paper about, you might want to reuse your ideas from that paper and
get down to business researching the cutting-edge stuff recently published in
major journals. As an intrepid explorer, you must have faith in your powers of
deduction and reasoning—after all, that’s how you managed to navigate your way to
this new territory in the first place.
However, your understanding of
something—anything—shifts over time and depends greatly on your perspective and
circumstances; how you think about a place you’ve never been to is inherently
different from how you think of it once you’re there. In other words, you should avoid relying on your previous work because
the way you look at a subject now will almost certainly be different from the
way you looked at it before.
On Whose Authority?
By Tobias Ball, Dissertation Editor
While
interviewing a candidate for an editor vacancy, I asked about something from
his work history, the job of writing instructor. I asked how he taught writing.
After a long pause, the candidate offered some of the tips that most writers
have heard, such as setting time aside every day specifically for writing, sharing
work with others, and one of the most popular bits of advice, writing what you
know. Although it is often the case that fiction and academic writers share
techniques for getting words on the page, this last method is less applicable.
When
faculty are working with students to develop a problem statement, they ask them
what it is about their topic that they do not know. One of the functions of a
dissertation is to fill a gap in the literature, that gap representing
something unknown about a topic. The fact that the topic is something unknown
means that writing what you know is not really possible. This may leave the
academic writer of a dissertation at a loss for inspiration and with concerns
about writing with any sort of authority. There is a solution.
Muddled Modifiers
By
Rachel Grammer, Writing Consultant
Confession #1: I am a grammar geek.
Now go ahead—say it.
You know you want to, and I know you’re thinking it: Her last name is so appropriate! I mean, with a last name like
Grammer, I must have been destined for a career in English, right? Perhaps it
was fate, but that’s beside the point.
Confession #2: I giggle
audibly at unusual sentences (sometimes much to the frustration of those
coworkers whose cubicles are next to mine).
I can’t help it. I
mean, who can avoid laughing at the idea of a duck with pigtails? Well, let me
explain. Modifiers are
descriptive words or phrases, and they often end up in the wrong spot. Take
this example sentence:
The girl ran after the
duck with pigtails.
This is a classic example of a misplaced modifier. The
phrase with pigtails is really meant
to describe the girl. However, the
writer separated the modifier from what it was describing, so the sentence
seems to be talking about a duck with pigtails.
How to Become Teacher’s Pet
By Amber Cook, Senior Writing Specialist and Faculty
Liaison
So, show of hands: Did you do anything special for your
instructors during teacher appreciation week last week? If your hand isn’t
raised, I have a list of suggestions that will make up for your oversight.
As the Writing Center’s faculty liaison, I have frequent
conversations with instructors, all of whom are eager to help students refine
their scholarly writing skills. Without exception, these faculty members are
inspired and impressed by your hard work and passion for contributing to your
field, and they care about seeing you succeed. There are some steps you can
take to make their job easier, though, and the bonus is that you’ll also see
improvement in your own work!
- Read all of your instructor’s feedback. I know it’s tempting to just glance at the grade and then move along to your next task, but you might be missing out on some great advice. Many instructors embed resources, comments, and recommendations that will help you with your next paper, so be sure to take the time to read and use them. Nothing makes an instructor (or a writing tutor!) crazier than seeing the same errors from the same student, paper after paper. If you have trouble with the feedback tools themselves, see the MS Editing Tools section of this link for help. Bonus brownie points if you send a message to your instructor thanking him or her for the helpful advice.
Put What Where? Lost in the Turnitin Vortex
By Hillary Wentworth, Writing Consultant
Many students are scared of Turnitin, others are angry that
they have to use the program, while still others are utterly mystified by it
all. Turnitin is an interesting tool—if
you know what it really does. It’s
important to remember that a high Turnitin percentage does not necessarily
indicate plagiarism. The software is simply
matching your paper—word for word—to other documents in its database. These documents (literally millions of them)
are journal articles, college papers, web pages, and books. Amongst those millions, there will be
matches. After all, there is no truly original
way to refer to differentiated
instruction or evidence-based practice,
right?
So, when you are looking at a
Turnitin report, don’t scream and run around the room or dissolve in
tears. Instead, take a long, deep
breath, sit down on the couch, and read these tips:
A Letter from the Director
Greetings, students, faculty, and staff.
We’ve heard your concerns about editor availability, and we’re
restructuring our services to better meet demand. Come May 14, if you’re a
student working on your capstone, and if you find the editor schedule to be
full, go ahead and sign up with a tutor. The tutors, all writing professionals
who are already working with students on proposals and prospectuses, are eager
to assist you in your capstone endeavors.
A few things to keep in mind as you work with a tutor on
your capstone:
- Unlike the editors’ 1-hour chapter review offering, a tutor’s review is 30 minutes. Like the chapter review, however, the paper review is an asynchronous session; it does not include a phone call or live communication.
My Personal Journey With Microsoft Word
By Julia Cox, Writing Consultant
Amid the emotional maelstrom of my third grade year—which
included maddening multiplication tables, a painful introduction to cursive
writing, and one truly subpar season of TV’s Friends—I met Microsoft Word.
Greeted by the exuberant paperclip assistant “Clippy” (a 1990s
animation retired after Windows 95), I knew my days of handwritten assignments
and crayon embellishments were coming to an end. I had to pick myself up by the fuchsia overall
strap and soldier on—into the territory of word processing.
Microsoft Word has been my fair-weather companion for over 15
years now. Even though I grew up with the program, it still manages to throw me
a curve ball at the worst of moments. To
possibly lend some support, or maybe just tell a fellow sufferer’s tale, I have
enumerated a top 5 list of MS Word annoyances.
Assumption Junction, What’s Your Function? Making Sense of Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations
By Jen Johnson, Dissertation Editor
A common area of confusion for students at the proposal
stage (or even at the final Form and Style review) is understanding what,
exactly, should appear in the Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations
sections of chapter 1 (or section 1, for EdD and DBA students). As an editor,
I’ve seen a wide range of student responses to the challenges of these
sections: some that have been spot-on, some that have been perplexing, and many
more that have fallen somewhere in between. So how do we begin to make sense of
assumptions, limitations, and delimitations?
First, let’s start with some rubric definitions. The DBA
rubric defines assumptions as “facts assumed to be true but not actually
verified.” Similarly, the PhD qualitative and quantitative checklists describe
assumptions as “aspects of the study that are believed but cannot be
demonstrated to be true,” with the added injunction to “include only those
assumptions that are critical to the meaningfulness of the study.” In the DBA
rubric, a limitation is a “potential weakness of the study,” and delimitations
are the “bounds of the study.” And the PhD checklists define limitations as
those items “related to design and/or methodological weaknesses” and
delimitations as “boundaries of the study.”
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