December 2019 Live Webinar Events

Join us for our Live Webinar Events in December, 2019. We hope you can join these live sessions, but if not, we archive recordings of all of our sessions. Access our webinar archive here.

Title:	Life Cycle of a Paper
Date:	Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Time (Eastern):	8:00PM - 9:00PM
Audience:	All Students

Title:	Beginnings and Endings: Introduce and Conclude Your Writing
Date:	Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Time (Eastern):	12:00PM - 1:00PM
Audience:	All Students

The Walden University Writing Center provides a broad range of writing instruction and editing services for students, including writing assistance for undergraduates, graduate students, and doctoral capstone writers. 

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There’s a New APA Manual: What Does It Mean for Walden?

As you may have heard, APA released a new, seventh edition of its Publication Manual on October 1. For now, Walden will continue using the sixth edition of the manual, so no actions are needed from students or faculty yet! The Writing Center is working with academic leaders to ensure the transition to the updated manual will be smooth, and to communicate timelines and other details of this transition as they are decided.

Walden Writing Center staff members have all received copies of the seventh edition of the APA manual and are currently doing a close read to understand the changes that come with it. Throughout November, we’ll be assembling a document detailing these changes, which we’ll use to make the needed revisions to our own resources and to develop student and faculty training. Faculty and students will be receiving a communication in the next few weeks with some clarification on this transition and the next steps.

In the meantime, Walden students, faculty, and staff can visit the APA Transition Page on the Writing Center website for announcements related to APA 7 and send any questions about this transition to the Writing Center at APA7@mail.waldenu.edu. 

 

The Walden University Writing Center provides a broad range of writing instruction and editing services for students, including writing assistance for undergraduates, graduate students, and doctoral capstone writers. 

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November Live Webinar Events from the Walden University Writing Center!

This month, our Writing Instructors will be presenting live webinar sessions on practical (and important!) scholarly writing topics. If you're able to join our webinars at the times listed below, great! Be prepared to think about, chat about, and practice scholarly writing skills in an interactive presentation space with plenty of like-minded Walden scholar-practitioners. Writing can sometimes feel like a solitary activity, but it doesn't have to be!

Join us this month for these sessions:

Title:	Practical Tips to Successfully Write in Academic American English
Date:	Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Time (Eastern):	1:00PM - 2:00PM
Audience:	All Students

Title:	Practical Writing Skills: Incorporating Analysis and Synthesis
Date:	Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Time (Eastern):	8:00PM - 9:00PM
Audience:	All Students

If you're unable to attend these sessions in person, no problem! You're free to view the recordings of these sessions, and any of our 50+ webinar recordings. Click here to access our library of fully-accessible, informative, super-helpful webinar recordings! 

The Walden University Writing Center is home to a staff of trained, professional Writing Instructors and Dissertation Editors. The Writing Center's staff works with Walden University students' writing in one on one sessions, but also creates resources that can be used by students to enhance their own scholarly writing skills. As students come to the Writing Center with a variety of learning styles and preferences, the Writing Center's staff supports these students with a resources that appeal to the diversity of Walden U's body of students. 

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WriteCast Episode 57: Steps for Revising, Part I: The Big Stuff

Revision is a major part of the writing process, and different types of revising warrant different strategies. Claire and Kacy give tips and resources for how to revise your writing for bigger patterns and issues in your current drafts as well as your future coursework.

To listen to today's episode, click in the player below. You can also visit our WriteCast Podcast show page to access our complete archive of episodes and view transcripts of all our WriteCast episodes. Enjoy!

Recommended Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• WriteCast Episode 14: The 5 Rs of Revision

• Walden University Writing Center website resources on revision

• Live Webinar Recording of "Improving Your Writing: Strategies for Revising, Proofing, and Using Feedback" 

• Walden University Blog Posts on Revision 

The Walden University Writing Center produces WriteCast: A Casual Conversation for Serious Writers to support the community of scholarly writers at Walden University.

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Thesis Sentences vs. Blueprint Sentences

“Dear, Kacy. This is a blueprint sentence, not a thesis.” 

This succinct comment stands out in my memory because it’s one of the first true pieces of constructive criticism I ever received on my writing.

The sentence was written in the margin of the first page of my first real research paper. As an end-of-year project, each student in my sixth-grade class selected a country to write a report on, and then we created poster boards and made traditional food from the country to share at an international day at my school. I picked Bermuda because at the time I was a little obsessed with the Bermuda Triangle. I remember cutting out pictures of business people wearing shorts with their suit jackets, and baking some really good cookies that seemed like sugar cookies to me but were also apparently very Bermudan.

For the first two weeks, I received every possible point for the project. I’d come to school with six (beyond the requirement of five!) books on the day our sources were required. I’d diligently written out the assigned number of index cards with individual facts. After turning in the outline I’d crafted using my index cards, I was fully prepared to collect another perfect score.

“What?? What’s a blueprint sentence?” Probably I should have asked what a thesis sentence was, because I had an example of a blueprint sentence right in front of me: Bermuda is located on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean and this paper is about its history, economy, and culture. Like the blueprint of a building, I’d provided a layout of the contents of my paper, but I hadn’t produced an argument or put forth any idea. My reader would know to expect a paragraph on Bermuda’s history, a paragraph about its economy, and a paragraph about the culture. But what did I want to say about the country?

I think my thesis statement ended up being something about the Bermuda Triangle, but I can’t say for sure. And I had to double-check that Bermuda is indeed in the Atlantic Ocean while drafting this post. So, the actual information I obtained during the project clearly hasn’t stayed with me too well. But I still think about this experience when teaching, tutoring, or writing myself. It’s great to give your reader an idea about the general format of your paper, but the most important part isn’t a list of the different topics you’ll cover. 

The advantage of hindsight (and a few additional decades of writing experience) tells me I should have realized this from the beginning. After all, I had picked Bermuda because of its mysterious Triangle, so why shouldn’t I use what peaked my own interest to grab my reader’s? And why is it that I can so vividly remember the picture I copied from a book, of a group of men holding briefcases and wearing shorts under their suit coats, but I can’t remember Bermuda’s capital? Or where I left my phone? 

Hmmm. Can someone try calling it?

Kacy Walz is a Minnesota native currently living in St. Louis, MO. She has been a Writing Instructor at Walden since 2016 and spends most of her free time trying to complete her PhD, seeking out adventure, and playing with her puppy dog.

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Set a Writing Goal (and Stick To It!) With This New Writing Center Service

In the Writing Center, we know that improving your scholarly writing skills can be a big challenge. What can make this especially difficult is that developing your writing process can seem so big and complicated that you may not know where to begin. Should you focus on grammar? APA? What about organization and paraphrasing? Should you try to do it all at once? Setting writing goals for yourself (which we’ve discussed previously on this blog) can help you chart a path through this work, letting you focus on your priorities and identify concrete, positive steps you can take.

To further support you and encourage you to set writing goals, we’re offering a pilot program—which we’re calling a Goal Plan—that includes four guaranteed paper-review appointments with the same writing instructor focused on your writing goals. Each Goal Plan is kind of like a cross between our standard paper reviews and a miniature writing course: you’ll set the goals that you want to work towards, and we’ll give you feedback to help you make meaningful progress over time. As with all of our paper reviews, our aim is to help you develop skills that you can then apply to all of your future writing.

If you would like to participate in a Goal Plan, you can get started by completing our Writing Goals and Planning Module. If you have any questions, feel free to email us. We look forward to working with you!

The Walden University Writing Center creates innovative writing instructional services to enhance writers' understanding of the complexities of scholarly writing. The Writing Center's staff encourages writers to take control of their scholarly writing development with resources, instruction, and multi-media & on-demand learning opportunities.  

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Live Webinar Events for October 2019

Here's the schedule for another month of exciting and enlightening Live Webinar Events designed specifically for Walden University writers. Also, we're excited to present a brand new webinar session. Check it out below. To view each of our recorded session, check out our archive page here.

Title:	NEW Webinar: Before You Write: Critical Reading Strategies for Academic Writers
Date:	Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Time (Eastern):	2:00PM - 3:00PM
Audience:	All Students

Title:	Welcome to the Writing Center
Date:	Thursday, October 10, 2019
Time (Eastern):	1:00PM - 2:00PM
Audience:	All Students

Title:	Prewriting Techniques: Taking the First Steps
Date:	Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Time (Eastern):	12:00PM - 1:00PM
Audience:	All Students

Title:	APA Citations Part 2: Nontraditional Sources
Date:	Monday, October 21, 2019
Time (Eastern):	7:00PM - 8:00PM
Audience:	All Students

Title:	Introduce, Conclude, and Write the Abstract of Your Study
Date:	Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Time (Eastern):	2:00PM - 3:00PM
Audience:	Doctoral Students Working on Final Capstone Draft

The Walden University Writing Center is home to a staff of trained, professional Writing Instructors and Dissertation Editors. The Writing Center's staff works with Walden University students' writing in one on one sessions, but also creates resources that can be used by students to enhance their own scholarly writing skills. As students come to the Writing Center with a variety of learning styles and preferences, the Writing Center's staff supports these students with a resources that appeal to the diversity of Walden U's body of students. 

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Grammar for Academic Writers: Can I Begin a Sentence with "And"?

During my 7th grade year, my English teacher conducted a multi-month unit on sentence structure. We learned patterns of sentences with acronyms like SV, SSVV, DC, IC, and the list goes on. These acronyms explained the different structures a “correct” sentence could take, with S standing for subject, V standing for verb, DC standing for dependent clause, and IC standing for independent clause. (There were many more acronyms and structures, but I’ll stop there for now.) The approach was a continual drill practice of sentence construction, which at the time seemed terribly tedious, but all these years later these patterns stuck with me.

When I say “correct” sentence construction, I’m referring to more formal, academic writing and what is deemed correct in that context. I clarify because in our day-to-day use of language, whether it is spoken or written, we often don’t follow these formal, academic patterns. Some of us might think we do, but it’s a rare person who speaks with the same grammatical accuracy and formality with which they write. Additionally, in different genres of writing, a broader range of sentence structures are often used and considered appropriate. 

Here are a couple of ways I wrote sentences this week that didn’t follow one of correct structures I learned in my 7th grade English class:

• I gave my daughter a strawberry. But she said didn’t like it even though she loved them yesterday. So I gave her a peach slice instead. And then she asked for a strawberry.

• I cleaned our front windows in preparation for the party. But then my toddler woke up from her nap. Needless to say, I cleaned them again. (Can anyone else relate?)

The “problem” in these sentences, from an academic writing perspective, is that some of the sentences begin with the words and, but, or so. These words (and other coordinating conjunctions) should typically be used within sentences to connect ideas rather than used to begin a sentence. Beginning a sentence with a coordinating conjunction can lend an informal tone to the writing, therefore impacting scholarly voice. Additionally, these sentences would be deemed incorrect by my 7th grade English teacher.

The best fix for a sentence beginning with a coordinating conjunction is to either make a compound sentence, using the coordinating conjunction to connect the ideas, or to use a different connecting or transition word that is more suitable to begin a sentence. 

Here’s what each situation might look like:

Using a compound sentence instead of starting with a coordinating conjunction 

I gave my daughter a strawberry, but she said didn’t like it even though she loved them yesterday, so I gave her a peach slice instead. Then, she asked for a strawberry.

Using an alternative connecting word

I cleaned our front windows in preparation for the party. However, my toddler woke up from her nap. Needless to say, I cleaned them again.

While I imagine not all of us can remember back to middle school English class, especially if the teacher didn’t use the drill method, there’s plenty of hope to be had. You’re already on the right track to learn about and be on the lookout for sentences that begin with and, but, or so. For a more comprehensive explanation of sentence structures in scholarly writing, including compound sentences, view our Mastering the Mechanics 2 and 3 webinars.   

Amy Bakke is a senior writing instructor and multilingual writing specialist at the Walden Writing Center. She enjoys researching cultural differences in education and considering how students with different educational perspectives and histories experience writing at Walden. In her non-work time, she’s outside (as much as possible in the Midwest) with her husband, toddler, and dog.  

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Grammar for Academic Writers: Essential Clauses

Whether you are a native or non-native English speaker, you may come across situations where you are unsure where to place commas in a sentence. Today, I’ll cover those phrases where you should not use a comma to surround supporting information—essential clauses—and discuss the difference between these and nonessential clauses. The decision to add a comma in these cases often depends on the meaning of the sentence, so it can require some reflection and detective work.

Here’s an example of an essential clause (bolded for emphasis):

The students who visited the writing center enhanced their confidence.

Here, we have an essential clause because we are explaining a specific group of students. Which students? The ones who visit the writing center.

You might be tempted in this example to use commas instead for something like this:

The students, who visited the writing center, enhanced their confidence.

Here’s where it gets tricky because both of these sentences are grammatically correct—they just have different meaning depending on if we use commas or not.

In the first example we mean specifically that the students who visited the writing center enhanced their confidence. This implies that there are other students who did not visit the writing center. In the second example, we mean that all the students visited the writing center and therefore their visit is not essential information to understanding our meaning—it’s nonessential, meaning we should surround it with commas.

Another way to think of this is if you are considering surrounding a clause with commas, try writing out the sentence without the information in the commas. If that sentences still conveys the meaning you intended, then you have a nonessential clause. However, if the sentence makes sense but doesn’t convey the meaning you intended, then it’s likely an essential clause and shouldn’t use commas.

An example will be helpful to illustrate this situation.

The assignment due Thursday was very difficult.

Let’s try the comma test:

The assignment, due Thursday, was very difficult à The assignment was very difficult.

So now we have a decision to make: Do we want to emphasize that it’s this specific assignment? In that case, we’ll keep it without commas. But if the date it’s due doesn’t impact the meaning we intend, we’ll add those commas.

Next time you’re wondering about comma placement and essential or nonessential information, consider your meaning and try this simple test!

Note that essential clauses can also be called restrictive clauses, whereas nonessential clauses can be called nonrestrictive clauses. Read more on our grammar page on this topic as well!

Claire Helakoski is a writing instructor at the Walden Writing Center. Claire also co-hosts WriteCast, the Writing Center's podcast. Through these multi-modal avenues, Claire delivers innovative and inspiring writing instruction to Walden students around the world.

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Grammar for Academic Writers: Conjunction Functions

The overarching expectation of scholarly writing is that scholars provide readers with unique and complex arguments based on their synthesis and analysis of previous scholarship while also writing clear, sophisticated sentences in relation to those complex arguments. If that sounds easy to you, count yourself lucky! Whether English is your native language or not, once you begin to write about complex topics, writing itself can become more difficult because the ideas are more complex.

In the Writing Center, I often work with students on clarifying their complex ideas by providing sentence structure revision recommendations. Some sentence structure issues I find students struggle with are conjunctions and, subsequently, semi-colon and comma use. In this blog post, I hope to help demystify conjunctions and related semi-colon and comma use.

As parts of speech, conjunctions serve to connect words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. The three types of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions, paired conjunctions, and subordinating conjunctions. Let’s take a look at each of these conjunctions!

Coordinating Conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions are part of compound sentences which are sentences that have two independent clauses—independent clauses are complete sentences that have a subject, verb, and object. Since compound sentences have two independent clauses, if a writer wants to bring them together, they can do so in three ways: with a coordinating conjunction and a comma, with a coordinating conjunction and a semi-colon and a comma, and with semi-colon.

In the examples below, the highlighting and font correspond to the parts of the sentence: yellow highlighting in bold type is the subject of the sentence; green highlighting in underlined type is the verb of the sentence; blue highlighting in italicized type is the object of the sentence; grey highlighting in bold, underlined type is the coordinating conjunction of the sentence.

Coordinating Conjunction and a Comma

When two independent clauses—complete sentences with a subject, verb, and object—are brought together with a coordinating conjunction (such as “but” here), a comma is included before the coordinating conjunction.

Example: I like cinnamon lattes, but he prefers straight espresso.

Coordinating Conjunction and a Semi-colon and a Comma

Transition words, such as “however,” or “therefore,” might also serve as a coordinating conjunction in a sentence. When they do, they would be set off with both a semi-colon and a comma.

Example: I like cinnamon lattes; however, he prefers straight espresso.

No Coordinating Conjunction and a Semi-colon 

If two independent clauses are brought together without a coordinating conjunction or a transition word, then a semi-colon would be used.

Example: I like cinnamon lattes; he prefers straight espresso.

Paired Conjunctions

Now let’s take a look at paired conjunctions. Paired conjunctions are two words or phrases brought together to assist with making a point or to express alternatives. Note that paired conjunctions can create wordy sentences, so they shouldn’t be used often. Here are some examples of pared conjunctions:

both / and: Example: I like both cinnamon lattes and straight espresso.

either / or: Example: I could either have a cinnamon latte or a straight espresso.

not only / but also: Example: Not only do I like cinnamon lattes, but I also like straight espresso.

Subordinating Conjunctions

Finally, there are subordinating conjunctions. Subordinating conjunctions bring together a main clause and a subordinate clause to express the relationship between the two. There are two main ways subordinating conjunctions might be placed in a sentence—they might come after the main clause or before the main clause. There are many subordinating conjunctions, such as “until” and “while.”

Main Clause + Subordinate Clause  

I am cranky in the morning until I have my cinnamon latte.

I want a cinnamon latte while I wait for you.

Subordinate Clause + [comma] + Main Clause 

Note that when the subordinate clause comes before the main clause, a comma is used after the subordinate clause.

Until I have my cinnamon latte, I am cranky in the morning.

While I wait for you, I want a cinnamon latte.

Knowing how to use conjunctions, and subsequently, semi-colons and commas, can help ensure that readers are able to follow your arguments. The Writing Center has many resources on sentence structure and grammar to include our Mastering the Mechanics archived webinar series and our grammar modules where you can practice and test your knowledge of sentence structure and grammar.

What sentence structure, grammar, and or mechanics parts of speech do you struggle with? Also, let us know what tips you have for revising and proofreading for sentences for structure and clarity! 

Veronica Oliver is a Writing Instructor in the Walden Writing Center. In her spare time she writes fiction, binge watches Netflix, and occasionally makes it to a 6am Bikram Yoga class.

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September Live Webinar Events!

The Walden University Writing Center Writing Instructors and Dissertation Editors are keeping busy with our normal slate of Paper Reviews, Form and Style Reviews, blog posts, website content, podcasts, residencies, and all the other tools we use to support Walden University writers. As we turn our calendars to the next month, it's shaping up to be a busy September. 

Amidst all of this busyness, we're still producing, presenting, and sharing a full schedule of live webinar events throughout the month. If you join us for one of our live webinars, you will join a like-minded group of Walden writers who are interested in building community while building writing skills. During the session, one of our professional instructors or editors will present a specific writing topic to you, including plenty of examples, activities, and opportunities to learn and communicate with each other. 

If you're unable to join a live session, all of our live webinar sessions are recorded and posted to our webinar archive. Click here to access the webinar archive to find out what topics've been covered. 

Enjoy this month's live webinar offerings! 

Title:	What Is Academic Writing?
Date:	Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Time (Eastern):	8:00PM - 9:00PM
Audience:	All Students

Title:	Successfully Writing Doctoral Capstone Abstracts
Date:	Thursday, September 5, 2019
Time (Eastern):	12:00PM - 1:00PM
Audience:	Doctoral Students Working on Final Capstone Draft

Title:	Plagiarism Prevention: The Three Components to Avoiding Plagiarism
Date:	Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Time (Eastern):	1:30PM - 2:30PM
Audience:	All Students

Title:	Practical Writing Skills: Paraphrasing Source Information
Date:	Monday, September 16, 2019
Time (Eastern):	2:00PM - 3:00PM
Audience:	All Students

Title:	NEW Webinar: Before You Write: Critical Reading Strategies for Academic Writers
Date:	Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Time (Eastern):	2:00PM - 3:00PM
Audience:	All Students

The Walden University Writing Center is home to a staff of trained, professional Writing Instructors and Dissertation Editors. The Writing Center's staff works with Walden University students' writing in one on one sessions, but also creates resources that can be used by students to enhance their own scholarly writing skills. As students come to the Writing Center with a variety of learning styles and preferences, the Writing Center's staff supports these students with a resources that appeal to the diversity of Walden U's body of students. 

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