May Webinar Update
APA
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Avoiding Plagiarism
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Citations
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Grammar and Mechanics
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Literature Review
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Organization
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Reading & Writing
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Revising
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Happy nearly May, Walden students! We hope the flowers are blooming where you live! This month we have a range of webinars, including a brand new offering on plagiarism prevention.
Every webinar presents
students with a live, interactive setting where you can ask questions of
writing center staff, work on practice exercises and questions, and develop a
better understanding of the topic being presented. This month, our topics range
from literature reviews and reference lists to grammar and thesis statements. We also have a brand new webinar on Plagiarism Prevention that will help you avoid plagiarism in your work! Check out our schedule below. All times listed in EST.
You can click these links to register for the
webinar ahead of time! If you can’t attend live, don’t worry—you can check out our entire Webinar Recording Library here.
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If you have any questions
about our webinar schedule or appointment scheduling system, e-mail us at writingsupport@waldenu.edu. We hope
to see you there!
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APA How-To: Using Footnotes
Recently, during a Paper Review Appointment, a student came
to me with a question about footnotes. They had received some feedback from an
instructor indicating that footnotes were appropriate in their piece, and they
wanted to know how to properly incorporate them. I immediately started to do
some research. I always associated footnotes with other citation styles, but I
hadn’t encountered them in working with scholar-practitioners here at Walden. So,
I turned straight to my trusty Sixth Edition APA Publication Manual. To my
surprise, APA-style research writing allows for two types of footnotes: content
footnotes and copyright permissions.
Before I get too far into explaining these, here’s a word of
caution. Footnotes should not be haphazardly thrown into your writing. They are
meant for these specific instances and are discouraged by APA for general use.
So, use these rarely if ever. But, nonetheless, here are the instances where
footnotes are appropriate:
Content Footnotes: Content footnotes, as the APA Publication
Manual states, “supplement and amplify substantive information in the text” (p.
37). This may sound like an element that could easily be included in many
pieces, but be careful. The manual goes on to stipulate some pretty specific
rules about how to use these. As these distract the reader from text in the
body of your writing, they should be short and convey only one idea. As the
manual indicates, “an author integrates and article best by presenting
important information in the text, not in a footnote” (p. 37). So, if possible,
you want to incorporate ideas into your writing the old-fashioned way, by using
sentences.
Copyright Footnotes: If you are using copyrighted
information, you need to reference that in a footnote. To again quote my
beloved manual, “Copyright permission footnotes acknowledge the source of
lengthy quotations, scale and test items, and figures and tables that have been
reprinted or adapted” (p. 37). The key here is that these have been
copyrighted. Most commonly, this is appropriate when using a table from another
source.
When a copyright footnote is called for, it should be at the
bottom of the page and formatted in the following way:
From a Journal – From [or The data in column 1 are from] “Title of Article,” by A. N. Author and C. O. Author, year, Title of Journal, Volume, p. xx. Copyright [year] by the Name of the Copyright Holder. Reprinted [or adapted] with permission.
From a Book – From [or The data in column 1 are from] Title of Book (p. xxx) by A. N. Author and C. O. Author, year, Place of Publication: Publisher. Copyright [year] by the Name of Copyright Holder. Reprinted [or adapted] with permission.
Other guidelines state that footnotes should be consecutively numbered in the order in
which they appear in the text. They should be superscripted and be followed by
any punctuation with the exception of a dash. They should look like this: Text 1 . In the text of
the document, you should reference the footnote in a parenthetical, like this:
(see Footnote 3).
As often happens, this student’s question launched me into a
research experience that resulted in a discovery of a new nuance of APA style
and formatting. In trying to best manage a specific writing situation, digging
a bit into my APA Publication Manual yielded some interesting results. So, if
you encounter a case where you need to provide copyright information for a
source that you use, format it in this way. If you would like to read a bit
more about footnotes, check out pages 37 and 38 of the Sixth Edition APA
Publication manual.
Michael Dusek is a Writing Instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. He has taught writing at universities in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, and enjoys helping students improve their writing. To Michael, the essay is both expressive and formal, and is a method for creative problem solving. In his personal life, he enjoys the outdoors, books, music, and all other types of art.
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WriteCast Episode 37: Transitioning to Master's-Level Writing
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If you're starting or in the early stages of a master's degree program, then this is the episode for you! Join us for today's WriteCast podcast episode as Beth and Brittany break down differences between undergraduate-level and master's-level writing and share tips on how to transition between them in "Transitioning to Master's-Level Writing". Beth and Brittany discuss their own transitions between undergraduate and master's level coursework as well as ideas to assist Walden students with their transition. Click the play button above to stream the episode. To download the episode to your computer, click the share button on the audio player, then click the download button.
Resources mentioned in the episode:
To access the full episode archive and transcripts, visit our WriteCast: A Casual Conversation for Serious Writers homepage. Happy Listening!
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The WriteCast podcast is produced by Anne Shiell and the staff of the Walden University Writing Center and delves into a different writing issue in each episode. In line with the mission of the Writing Center, WriteCast provides multi-modal, on demand writing instruction that enhances students' writing skill and ease. We hope you enjoy this episode and comment in the box below.
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Student Spotlight: Breanne Ahearn, Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership
The Walden University Writing Center is privileged to work with talented students. In the Student Spotlight Series, we aim to support incredible work our students do, both in and out of the classroom. The goal of the Student Spotlight Series is to provide the Walden community with a place to build bridges and make connections by developing shared understanding of the diverse and varied student journey. Students share stories about their writing process, their efforts towards social change, and their motivations for pursuing higher education. We ask questions, and students generously answer.This Student Spotlight features Breanne Ahearn, student of the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership.
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| The WUWC Student Spotlight Series: Building Bridges. Making Connections. |
I’m originally from California, a small beach town just north of San Diego, to be exact. I spent a better part of my life enjoying things like the playing in the sand, spending time with friends, and bettering myself overall. As I’ve grown older, I have found those passions have only expanded. I’m a big fan of personal fitness. I love marital arts as a workout tool. I love to mediate, do yoga, spend time at the beach, hike mountain sides, and spend time with my friends and my best friend who is also my husband.
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| Best Friend and Spouse |
What is your educational background?
My educational background is bit diverse… I began college several years after many of my friends. I started as a pre-med major and, after having completed a number of classes in my concentration at the community college level, I realized I really wasn’t ready to take the next step and head off to a four-year university in Monterey Bay, California. So I stayed home and took a class in radio fundamentals (just for the heck of it). My first day, I was hooked. I was thrown (metaphorically) into the deep end of radio and found myself on the air my first day of class. Our campus radio station was like no other; we were Federal Communications Commission regulated and CNN News affiliated. In other words, there was no goofing around or child’s play allowed.
I started in the news division then worked my way up over the 4 semesters I was there to having my own show then becoming the station manager. I changed my major from Pre-Med to Communications and, after creating an award winning and nationally recognized radio documentary, I left California and finished my undergraduate degree in Atlanta, GA. While I was finishing my last two semesters of college, I was offered a job with a brand new radio news station with the second largest radio company in the U.S. While there, I took a leave of absence and moved to London, England, where I studied Television Journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London. After a year in the program, I had my Master of Arts degree and decided I wanted to continue my education into the doctoral field. Over the years, I have taught students, peers, colleagues, and I decided, instead of taking the journalism route as I have in the past, that I would study my doctorate under the education concentration and bend my journalism practices into teaching.
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| Breanne's must-haves for a successful day at work |
I grew up a student with a learning disability and, when you're told from a young age that you can’t do something or that the odds are not in your favor, you either accept defeated or you refuse to give up. In my career I am able to bend my practices in a direction that works best for me but, while at Walden, that hasn’t been the case. I have been forced to address issues that have long plagued my studies (statistics) and had to completely relearn how to write. I have used the support of my adviser, the Writing Center, and my professors with each new challenge. Not only has that support group been there to help me when I have a simple question or am completely off the mark, but the support I receive at home also contributes to my “I refuse to give up” attitude.
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| An example of the daily life of Breanne's career in broadcast journalism |
Since my time in community college I have found myself aiding others in their studies. There are areas I succeed at and there are areas that I require additional learning. However, I know, with the skills I have been taught, both at Walden and in my career, that I have the ability, knowledge, and experience to walk into a classroom or an office full of individuals who have that desire to learn more and to teach them. I don’t plan on leaving a newsroom just yet but I do plan on entering into a classroom and teaching the next generation while I continue to do what I love.
In what ways do you hope your dissertation/capstone will contribute to positive social change? Why is that important to you?
It is important for students in the communications concentration to understand the newest and most effective ways of learning in today's digital age. With that said, some four year universities continue to teach behind the times, and their students are suffering upon graduation. Many of them lack the experience to gain employment. Some are successful with getting a job only to find their education is in no way an aid in their chosen field and they must learn tools to be effective in today's field. In today’s world journalist are called amateurs, fake news writers, liars. A positive social change needs to take place, and it needs to start in the classroom. The only way for that to occur is if we, as educators, teach the most up to date and highly sought after practices.
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Revision Strategies: A Three-Part Blog Series
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Reading & Writing
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Revising
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Today we’re here to talk about revision in
your writing. It’s important to build revision into your writing process for a
multitude of reasons, but you may not know how to get started. We bring you this revision blog series to assist you in incorporating revision into your writing
process.
Revision in your academic writing means taking some space
from your work and looking back at it critically. This is an important step
because it can allow you to see gaps in your ideas, where transitions can be
strengthened, and even catch typos. So how can you get started? Check out these
blog posts for assistance!
Revision By Subtraction: Writing Instructor Melissa writes
about tips and tricks to help condense your work and avoid unnecessary words
that can clutter up your meaning.
Be Your Own Best Reader: Editor Lydia writes about some ways
to incorporate revision into your process. Lydia goes over how to build time, space,
reflection, and a support system into your writing process to help you revise
to the fullest.
Developing Revision Strategies for Condensing Your Work: Writing
Instructor Claire discusses strategies to go back through your work after you’ve
finished a draft and some techniques to help you condense or cut out ideas you
may not need.
Use these blog posts to assist you in revising for
sentence-level issues, condensing ideas, and taking some space from your work
for reflection. With the assistance of these tools, you can incorporate
revision as a step in your writing process. Have some revision tips or found
one here that works for you? Share with us below!
The Walden Writing Center provides information and assistance to students with services like live chat, webinars, course visits, paper reviews, podcasts, modules, and the writing center webpages. Through these services they provide students assistance with APA, scholarly writing, and help students gain skills and confidence to enhance their scholarly work.
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Citations and Style: APA Documentation With a Purpose
Most Walden proposals (the first three parts of a capstone study) cover three topics: overview of the study, literature review, and methodology. Because many of the sentences in those chapters present facts or ideas that do not belong to the writer, citations are needed, whether parenthetical or in-text.
Choosing between parenthetical and in-text citations
It is important to understand the difference between a parenthetical citation—where the author(s) and year appear between parentheses, often at the end of a sentence—and an in-text citation—where the author(s) appears in the narrative, often toward the start of a sentence. The difference is one of relative importance. For example, a parenthetical citation is generally used because the authors’ ideas are more important than the authors themselves. By keeping the ideas in the foreground and the authors in the background, the argument is easier to follow and the text is easier to read.
On the other hand, an in-text citation is often used because the authors are roughly as important as their ideas, for example, in a discussion of competing theories. (In-text citations have one other application that is unrelated to importance: They are used to start out a series of sentences that are based on a single source. With the author in the narrative, another citation is not needed until after a new source is used within the same paragraph.)
Purposefully using parenthetical and in-text citations
Although parenthetical and in-text citations are of equal validity, parenthetical citations are virtually hidden in a sentence. Because a given sentence typically carries one idea, and because parenthetical citations appear right after that idea, such citations often appear at the end of a sentence, cloaked in parentheses, and thus easily ignored as readers leap to the next sentence.
In-text citations, on the other hand, are a prominent part of a sentence by design. Often enough, they are the subject. But this means they can easily imbalance a sentence. Here are some words of guidance for developing your own citation style:
1. Using author names in the narrative can overemphasize them when they are used as the subject of a sentence, but the problem is compounded when the names are used at the start of a paragraph: That is where readers need a topic sentence. Readers have still more trouble if a series of paragraphs starts with an in-text citation—common in the literature review. While the author names are important, they should not overshadow the import of their claims.
2. As the subject of a sentence, an in-text citation can retard flow—of both sentence and paragraph—especially if the citation includes multiple authors. If possible, the sentence should be rewritten to move the citation out of the subject position. Instead of “Anders, Berwin, and Cretel stated that,” greater balance is possible with the alternative phrasing, “According to Anders, Berwin, and Cretel…."
3. In-text citations require verbs to characterize what the author(s) wrote, for example, claimed, suggested, conducted, and examined. But for many students, it is not easy to accurately characterize what a source writes. However, it is very important to get close. The simple verbs, “stated” and “wrote” are good places to start. Also keep in mind that verbs describing what sources did should be conjugated in the past tense.
4. Sometimes a sentence that ends with a parenthetical citation is followed in the very next sentence by that same citation used as an in-text citation. For example, “…adapted for homeless populations (Gelberg, Andersen, & Leake, 2000). Gelberg, Andersen, and Leake (2000) suggested that homeless populations are….” Here, the sources are listed back-to-back, once in each sentence. To avoid this logjam, start with an in-text citation. Because the author is given in the narrative, no further citations would be needed in the same paragraph until after a different source were used.
Citations are required for all facts or ideas that do not belong to the writer. While parenthetical citations and in-text citations are equally valid, in-text citations are more visible; they carry more weight and are harder to work with, especially when used as the subject of a sentence or at the start of a paragraph. By becoming familiar with both kinds of citations, students can control the prominence of authors and improve sentence flow: important steps for shaping scholarly style.
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Tim McIndoo is a Senior Dissertation Editor in the Walden Writing Center. He came to Walden University in 2007 with over 30 years of editorial experience, including work as translator and photographer. He lives in Minneapolis with four cats.
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Thursday Thoughts: Writing Refresh—Assignment Prompts as Outline
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Hello, Walden students! Today let’s talk a little bit about
the very first part of an assignment—the prompt. Did you know that you can use
the assignment prompt (often with a little bit of tweaking) as an outline for
your paper? Read on for some tips and resources to help you stay organized and
fully answer your prompts.
As you know, your assignment or assignment prompt lets you know what you need to write about in your paper, right? But with a little bit of tweaking and re-arranging, you can also use it to begin an outline for your paper and as a checklist at the end to ensure you’ve hit all the points.
We have a wonderful webinar on interpreting your assignment that details various strategies and multiple examples of how to interpret and break
apart your assignment prompts. You can watch it, and dozens of other helpful live webinar recordings on our Webinar Archive page.
For discussion posts in particular, we have a great blog post that goes over the steps towards organizing a discussion post from the prompt itself here. You can also use these strategies to help you in larger prompts!
Here is a link to a podcast episode about “Doesn’t Meet Requirements” that goes over what this comment might mean and how to avoid it
by outlining and carefully looking over the prompt.
Essentially, all of these resources recommend that you take
a second look at your prompt and work to visually break it down. This might
involve highlighting, bolding certain words, or creating a mini-outline. Once
you’ve separated out the different elements of the prompt, you can be sure
you’re meeting the requirements! This might take a little practice, since
sometimes one sentence in a prompt might have a few aspects to cover in your
paper, but use these tools to assist you and soon you’ll be outlining from prompts
with ease.
Do you have any tips on using prompts to help you outline,
or find any of these resources particularly helpful? Share below!
The
Walden Writing Center provides information and assistance to students
with services like live chat, webinars, course visits, paper reviews,
podcasts, modules, and the writing center webpages. Through these
services they provide students assistance with APA, scholarly writing,
and help students gain skills and confidence to enhance their scholarly
work.
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APA How-To: Cite A Single Source Throughout A Single Paragraph
This blog post presents guidelines
for citing the same source multiple times throughout one paragraph, specifically
when you do not cite any other source in the paragraph. We have other posts devoted to this topic (like this helpful post written by Amber), but this is a complex rule. When we admit this, academic writers
start asking questions about APA style and its requirements for citation placement in this scenario,
such as:
Is it really necessary for me to
cite this source every time I mention it in this paragraph?
In answering this question, first
consider: APA style strives for clarity. When citing information from sources, a
method for creating clarity is to cite your source in every sentence that
contains outside information. To master the balancing act of creating clarity and
avoiding citation redundancy, incorporate sentence variety in your text. You
can create sentence variety by utilizing all the ways APA style suggests you to
refer to a source: by providing signal phrases in your text, by paraphrasing something
said in your source, and by including a direct quote from your source.
The sample paragraph below is an
example of what not to do when citing one source multiple times throughout one
paragraph. The paragraph features a fictional author, Townsend, who published a
fictional case study about cats. In the below paragraph, the ideas in each
sentence are paraphrased and so require parenthetical citations.
1. A recent case study revealed that cats are often moody (Townsend, 2017). 2. As a result, cats can sometimes make people question their choice to adopt (Townsend, 2017). 3. However, all cats need in order to be enjoyable pets is positive attention from their owners (Townsend, 2017). 4. The researcher went so far as to claim that cats may soon take the place as man’s best friend, dogs (Townsend, 2017). 5. While these claims may be considered bold by some, the study actually promoted cat adoptions at the humane society featured in the study (Townsend, 2017).
As an academic writer, I did not
incorporate strategic sentence structure in the paragraph above. As a result, I
had to include a parenthetical citation after every sentence, which is
distracting for the reader and creates redundancy.
The next paragraph is an example of what
to do to effectively create variety in your sentences using different source
identification strategies. Use this as a guide for citing one source multiples
times throughout a paragraph.
1. In a case study of families who had recently adopted cats from humane societies in a small town in Minnesota, researcher Townsend (2017) discovered that cats are often moody. 2. As a result, cats can sometimes make people question their choice to adopt (Townsend, 2017). 3. However, the researcher claimed that “while cats can be moody, their temperament is often alleviated by playtime, treats, and snuggles” (p. 29). 4. The researcher went so far as to claim that cats may soon take the place as man’s best friend, dogs. 5. While these claims may be considered bold by some, Townsend’s findings promoted cat adoption at the humane society featured in their study.
Lessons to take away from this
paragraph include:
- The first time you cite a source in your paragraph, always provide a citation. I do this in sentence 1 in this paragraph. This sentence also contains a signal phrase. A signal phrase occurs when you mention an article in your text.
- In clause two of sentence 1 of this paragraph, I referred to Townsend as “researcher Townsend.” I used this language as an opportunity to refer to Townsend as “the researcher” in sentences 3 and 4. This makes it so I did not have to begin one sentence with “Townsend claimed,” followed later by sentences with structure beginning with “Townsend said” or “Townsend concluded.” Beginning too many sentences with this sentence structure can create repetition and redundancy. You can consider using similar language in your own writing by referring to the writers of your source as “the organization,” “the research team,” or something similar.
- Sentence 2 in this paragraph presents an instance that must be cited because I chose to paraphrase Townsend’s ideas. Paraphrasing is unique because your readers will not know that the ideas you are presenting are not yours unless you provide a signal phrase in your sentence, such as “the researcher.” I do not refer to “the researcher” in sentence 2, so the reader will not know that these ideas are not my own without the citation.
- In sentence 3 of this paragraph, I provide a direct quote from Townsend’s article. In a signal phrase in the sentence, I refer to “the researcher,” which the reader now knows to be Townsend. This makes it so that I do not need to include the name Townsend again, or the year of publication. However, you will always need to include a page number or paragraph number when you include a direct quote in your text.
- In sentence 4, I paraphrase another idea presented by Townsend. However, I do not need to provide a citation in this sentence because I make a signal phrase to “the researcher.”
- In sentence 5, I refer to Townsend’s findings and results from their study. However, the readers were equipped with the year of publication of Townsend’s article earlier on in sentence 1, and there is no need to provide it again here.
Nicole Townsend is a writing instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. She has worked in writing centers for ten years, with an interest in individualizing support for diverse student populations. While Nicole also enjoys editorial work and teaching English as an adjunct professor, her passion is for the foundation of collaboration embedded in writing center best practices.
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