Walden University Writing Center

Where instructors and editors talk writing.

By Beth Oyler, Writing Consultant

Higher education has drastically changed in the last few years: Technology has permeated almost every aspect, from libraries (online text books and databases) to classrooms (Blackboard and online forums). Therefore, most institutions (including Walden) now require students to have some skills with technology.

Students now write papers almost exclusively in a word processor, with Microsoft (MS) Word being one of the most common programs.  Although there are other word processing options out there (including Openoffice.org Writer and a plethora of others), most students will use MS Word at some point in their education or career. MS Word skills have become so important that community colleges now regularly offer continuing education courses in the subject. MS Word savvy has become an asset, helping to make completing a degree easier.

By Kevin Schwandt, Dissertation Editor

I recently suffered a personal tragedy; my aunt, who taught me some of my earliest music lessons, passed away.  As a gift to her and to my family generally, I am in the process of writing music for her memorial service.  This may seem an odd way to begin a post about doctoral writing, but the experience does, indeed, resonate with capstone writing in surprising ways.

Not unlike—though for different reasons—my memory of writing my own PhD dissertation, writing this music feels overwhelmingly daunting.  In the case of the memorial composition, my progress is impeded by the intense emotions always accompanying grief; in the case of the dissertation, I remember being periodically rendered utterly unproductive by the burden of producing such a substantial document.

By Julia Cox, Writing Consultant

Perhaps it’s because my high school English teacher detested them, but I have been in a love affair with the dash for close to a decade now.

Besides being my favorite grammatical character, the dash is the underdog of the punctuation realm. As dashes are appropriate in only a limited number of APA contexts, they are definitely less prevalent than perfunctory marks such as the colon and comma.

According to APA style, writers should use dashes in pairs, to separate extra information that interrupts a complete sentence. Dashes help the detail phrase stand out and prevent the information from getting lost in the sentence.

When used correctly, the dash is nothing but dazzling.