Showing posts with label Documentation. Show all posts
Thursday Thoughts: Live Webinars in May
APA
,
Avoiding Plagiarism
,
Capstone Writing
,
Dissertation
,
Documentation
,
Grammar and Mechanics
,
Organization
,
Paragraphs
,
Scholarly Writing
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Spring is
a great time to build your academic writing knowledge and skills and we have several
live webinars in May to help you do just that! As usual, we have relevant webinars for every
student.
Plagiarism Prevention: The Three Components to Avoiding Plagiarism
In this webinar we will discuss advanced sentence structure errors and how to avoid them, focusing on revising tips and practice. Attend this webinar to learn how to become a better proofreader of your own grammar!
Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 6:00 p.m.-2700 p.m. (Eastern)
It's difficult to fulfill all of the requirements of an assignment if you're not sure what the assignment prompt is asking you to do, right? This webinar takes students through the three sections of Walden assignment prompts, presenting 7 strategies you can use for dissecting and demystifying the writing assignment requirements. We will also discuss what to do when you find an assignment prompt confusing and tips for what requirements are often required but left unsaid (like a thesis statement).
Writing at the Graduate Level
Monday, May 20th. 2019 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. (Eastern)
We are not born knowing how to write academically, and you did not enter graduate school knowing how to write like a graduate student. After all, writing is a learning process. This session will discuss the characteristics of scholarly writing, giving you strategies to elevate your writing to graduate school expectations.
Discussing Method, Procedure, and Study Design
Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. (Eastern)
Your reader not only wants to understand the results of your study, but also how you achieved those results: in other words, the rationale for your design and the methodology for collecting data. Join this webinar for a discussion of common writing issues students face when discussing these elements as well as strategies for overcoming them.
Thursday, May 30th, 2019 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. (Eastern)
Paragraphs are the building blocks of an academic essay, and the strength of your writing and argument depend on developing effective paragraphs. Learn how to develop effective academic paragraphs by using topic, analysis, evidence, and concluding sentences (including an explanation of the MEAL plan). You will leave this webinar with a better understanding of the components of an effective paragraph, as well as tips for creating cohesion between and within paragraphs.
The Walden University Writing Center creates content to help students with a range of topics related to scholarly writing, APA style, and the writing process. We host webinars, and offer paper reviews, live chat, and a podcast.
Plagiarism Prevention: The Three Components to Avoiding Plagiarism
Thursday,
May 2nd, 2019 8:00p.m.-9:00
p.m. (Eastern)
Plagiarism
can be an intimidating concept for many student writers. Everyone wants to
avoid plagiarism, but it can be unclear what exactly plagiarism is and how to
avoid it. Join the Writing Center for our three ways to avoid plagiarism in
your writing. In this session you'll learn how to identify plagiarism, but then
practical ways to avoid plagiarism in your own writing.
Tuesday, May
7th, 2019 12:00
p.m.-1:00 p.m. (Eastern)In this webinar we will discuss advanced sentence structure errors and how to avoid them, focusing on revising tips and practice. Attend this webinar to learn how to become a better proofreader of your own grammar!
Wednesday, May 15th, 2019 6:00 p.m.-2700 p.m. (Eastern)
It's difficult to fulfill all of the requirements of an assignment if you're not sure what the assignment prompt is asking you to do, right? This webinar takes students through the three sections of Walden assignment prompts, presenting 7 strategies you can use for dissecting and demystifying the writing assignment requirements. We will also discuss what to do when you find an assignment prompt confusing and tips for what requirements are often required but left unsaid (like a thesis statement).
Writing at the Graduate Level
Monday, May 20th. 2019 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. (Eastern)
We are not born knowing how to write academically, and you did not enter graduate school knowing how to write like a graduate student. After all, writing is a learning process. This session will discuss the characteristics of scholarly writing, giving you strategies to elevate your writing to graduate school expectations.
Discussing Method, Procedure, and Study Design
Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. (Eastern)
Your reader not only wants to understand the results of your study, but also how you achieved those results: in other words, the rationale for your design and the methodology for collecting data. Join this webinar for a discussion of common writing issues students face when discussing these elements as well as strategies for overcoming them.
Thursday, May 30th, 2019 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. (Eastern)
Paragraphs are the building blocks of an academic essay, and the strength of your writing and argument depend on developing effective paragraphs. Learn how to develop effective academic paragraphs by using topic, analysis, evidence, and concluding sentences (including an explanation of the MEAL plan). You will leave this webinar with a better understanding of the components of an effective paragraph, as well as tips for creating cohesion between and within paragraphs.
If you are unable to attend any of these sessions in person, we post recordings of every live webinar event on the Walden University Writing Center website.
The recordings of these sessions are posted 24 hours after they take place, and
you can watch them free and on-demand.
The Walden University Writing Center creates content to help students with a range of topics related to scholarly writing, APA style, and the writing process. We host webinars, and offer paper reviews, live chat, and a podcast.
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APA How-To: Formatting Dissertations in the References List
A common question that often comes up from our Walden University student writers is about using dissertations as sources in course papers and capstone studies. While dissertations are not considered peer-reviewed literature, they do have a place in a dissertation. And if they are cited in the narrative, they must be cited in the reference list.
The following list of four citation styles covers the patterns: the basic information, the style for dissertations that were not published, and the styles for two outlets: those published on an institutional database and those published on the web. As you can see from the examples, access to dissertations varies considerably. Hence the variation in citation styles.
These examples were taken from APA Style Guide to Electronic References (2012, p. 23). As part of a 5-year update from the 2007 edition, they favor uniformity and simplicity. But they’re still references and references are extremely fussy about things like the placement of periods, italics, and capitalization.
Basic Information
Author. (Year). Title of dissertation (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://xxxxx
Unpublished Dissertation
Patterson, G.W. (2003). Mathematical modeling and decision analysis for terrorism defense: Assessing chlorine truck attack consequence and countermeasure cost effectiveness (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://xxxxx
*Note from the APA electronic style guide: "Either the name of the database and the accession number or the URL of the dissertation or thesis is acceptable in the retrieval statement" (p. 23).
From an Institutional Database
Patterson, G.W. (2003). A comparison of multi-year instructional programs (looping) and regular education program utilizing scale scores in reading (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://www.uf.edu/~asb/thesis/
From the Web
Rivers, J.H. (2008). The best dissertation that ever was written: An experimental study of graduate school. (Doctoral dissertation, institution). Retrieved from http://www.uf/edu/~asb/thesis/
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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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APA Documentation Style in Scholarly Narrative Writing
Some of the trickiest APA questions we receive have to do with how to document sources in narrative style writing. In this style of writing, writers are charged with citing interviews and personal communication and sometimes, even, themselves. This blog post will discuss these types of documentation, commonly found in narrative style writing.
Most important in this style of writing is that your readers know your source's credentials and why their ideas are being included in your text. Think critically about the sources you choose to include in your text and make sure their background makes them a credible and reliable resource, with valuable insight on your topic. Rely on individuals who have credible professional experience or research experience in related to your topic.
Citing an Interview or Other Personal Communication
First, it is important to know that an interview or personal communication is cited in your text only. Interviews and other personal communication will never be included your references list.
In your text, interview and personal communication citation guidelines follow standard author/year APA rules. Additionally, however, you must include your source’s first initial, along with the month and day that your communication took place.
For example, if you conducted an interview with Donnie Edwards on May 28, 2017, you would cite this interview as follows:
In summary, you must include the following information in your in-text citation of interviews or other personal communication.
1. Your source’s first initial and last name
2. The form of communication (personal communication)
3. The month, day, and year that the personal communication took place
And remember, interviews and personal communication sources will never appear in your references list.
Most important in this style of writing is that your readers know your source's credentials and why their ideas are being included in your text. Think critically about the sources you choose to include in your text and make sure their background makes them a credible and reliable resource, with valuable insight on your topic. Rely on individuals who have credible professional experience or research experience in related to your topic.
Citing an Interview or Other Personal Communication
First, it is important to know that an interview or personal communication is cited in your text only. Interviews and other personal communication will never be included your references list.
In your text, interview and personal communication citation guidelines follow standard author/year APA rules. Additionally, however, you must include your source’s first initial, along with the month and day that your communication took place.
For example, if you conducted an interview with Donnie Edwards on May 28, 2017, you would cite this interview as follows:
D. Edwards (personal communication, May 28, 2017) claimed that donuts are better than cookies.
Or
Donuts are better than cookies (D. Edwards, personal communication, May 28, 2017).
In summary, you must include the following information in your in-text citation of interviews or other personal communication.
1. Your source’s first initial and last name
2. The form of communication (personal communication)
3. The month, day, and year that the personal communication took place
And remember, interviews and personal communication sources will never appear in your references list.
Citing Yourself
It is generally recommended that you do not cite your own ideas from previous papers. Walden University (and we at the Writing Center!) know that you’ll revisit your areas of interest again and again during your tenure as a student. Research in your areas of interest will continue to grow during your tenure, which means that you will have new and evolving research to include in your texts. This means that your own analysis of your areas of interest should also be evolving.
The Walden University Student Handbook (2017) builds on this idea, stating that “During their studies at Walden, students might find themselves writing for a second, third, or fourth time on the same topic; regardless, their writing is expected to reflect new approaches and insights into that topic to demonstrate their intellectual growth.”
If you do choose, however, to cite your own ideas from past papers, you can do so by following general author/year APA guidelines. You must include the author’s name (your own name) and the year of publication in your text. For example, if I am citing myself, I might say:
Townsend (2017) claimed that “it is generally recommended that you do not cite yourself in your text.”
Or
“It is generally recommended that you do not cite yourself in your text” (Townsend, 2017).
This is a source that you would include in your reference list, as it adheres to the standard conventions of APA-style documentation.
In summary, due to the continual evolution both of research in your areas of interest and of your own analysis of your areas of interest, Walden University recommends that you avoid citing yourself in your text. However, if you choose to cite yourself in a paper, you must follow standard APA guidelines, and you must also include the source in your references list.
Including a paper of your own in your references list would follow the below format.
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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In summary, due to the continual evolution both of research in your areas of interest and of your own analysis of your areas of interest, Walden University recommends that you avoid citing yourself in your text. However, if you choose to cite yourself in a paper, you must follow standard APA guidelines, and you must also include the source in your references list.
Including a paper of your own in your references list would follow the below format.
Townsend. N. (2017). A query into self-citation. Unpublished manuscript, Walden University.
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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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.
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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Tools for Source Identification: The Choice is Yours
“Standing on the shoulders of giants.” According to Sir
Isaac Newton, that’s what we’re doing when we use accumulated knowledge to
support our own claims. Whether writing a dissertation, doctoral study, or
project study, we owe it to our sources and to our readers to identify any and
all ideas gleaned from other writers. Identification takes the form of a
citation; it is a matter of ethics (legally and morally) and the evolution of
ideas.
In APA style writing, there two styles for citing a source: We can include
the author and year of publication in the narrative (in-text citation) or we
can insert the author and year within parentheses (parenthetical citation). One
is not better than the other. It’s about emphasis.
So, when to use the author in an in-text citation and when
to use it in a parenthetical citation? Usually, an author’s ideas are more
important than the author herself. Thus, a parenthetical citation is called
for. By keeping the ideas in the foreground and the citation in the background,
clarity and sentence flow are improved; the narrative becomes easier to read
and the argument easier to follow. Still, careful writing is needed to avoid
the passive voice.
On the other hand, when the author herself is
important—say, we're discussing theories or using the author as the source for
a paragraph or series of sentences—an in-text citation is called for. This
style also promotes clarity because the syntax is simpler: “Johnson (2016)
wrote….” Still, careful writing is needed to avoid a misperception that the
author is the focus of the sentence.
In practice, the number of parenthetical citations should
far exceed the number of in-text citations. Similarly, the number of paragraphs
with both in-text and parenthetical citations should be few. To ensure this
balance, it helps to concentrate on what is being said (the ideas) rather than
who said it (the author).
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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Documenting Website Sources - An APA How-To
Today we’re going to talk about citing information
from a website. Not only is Walden an online university, but the Internet is
full of informative and useful sources at our disposal for research! With so
much easy access to digital information, we frequently cite website content,
but finding the right information that we need for our reference list and
in-text citations can be a little bit tricky and takes some know-how and
sleuthing. Knowing how to cite a webpage in APA form is very important, so
today let’s look at a visual breakdown of some of those harder-to-find parts of
a web citation so that you can become a web-citing pro!
Reference
Entry
To correctly reference a
webpage, you’ll need the following information:
Authors’ Name (or Organization’s
Name if there is no given author). Year (if you can’t find one, write “n.d.”
like in this example). Webpage title. Retrieved from URL.
Here’s the correct References List entry if we
had used website content from the American Federation of Teachers website:
American Federation of
Teachers. (n.d.). About us. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/about
Now let’s try another webpage
on the AFT site with some visual examples for finding all the necessary
information.
1.Author
First we need the Author/Organization. You’ll see above
that the author’s name isn’t at the top of this article and there isn’t any
author bio next to it. Sometimes the author information is here, but if it
isn’t, check the bottom of the page.
See that name
all the way at the bottom of this page? That’s the author! He was pretty
hidden, and if there hadn’t been a tag at the bottom, we would cite this page
just like the example above with the organization name.
2. Publication Year
Now we need to
find the Publication Year if there
is one. It will usually be at the top of an article, somewhere near the title of the content.
There’s our date!
We’ll just need the year, 2016, for the webpage.
Special Note: Sometimes the
date will be in the form of the copyright date at the bottom of the page. The American Nurses
Association page, for example, has the copyright year 2016 at the bottom of
the page. However, the APA Style Blog asserts that writers should NOT use the copyright date because that date doesn't always refer to the date of publication. Rather, the copyright date usually refers to the website's copyright date, not the source's. If the only date you can locate is the web page's copyright date, you should use (n.d.) in your reference entry.
Remember to also only use the most recent date of publication. So if a website was initially published in 2012 and then revised or updated in 2017, your APA documentation would use 2017 as the publication year.
3.
Title of Webpage
Next we need the Title of the Webpage. You can find this
in the name at the top of the tab. If the name is longer than the tab length,
then look to the page itself for the full title.
In this case, we know that the
full title is “Carrying the message about a threat to worker rights”. Don’t
forget to format the title with APA
reference case.
4.
URL
The URL is the easiest part of
a web citation! You just copy and paste. For APA you do not need to include a
retrieved from date, simply “retrieved from” and then the URL.
Currently for APA links should
not be active in a reference list, so if Word does this automatically, right
click and select “remove hyperlink”.
Also, note that APA states to
break apart URLs at a punctuation mark (like a period, slash, or dash) with a
space so that part of the URL fits on the “retrieved from” line. It’s a little
tricky, but fiddle around with adding a space at different punctuation marks to
see what helps the URL fit best.
5.
Putting it all Together!
Now we have all of our
information:
Name: Mike Rose, Year: 2016,
Website Title: Carrying the message about a threat to worker rights. URL: http://www.aft.org/news/carrying-message-about-threat-worker-rights
Rose, M., (2016). Carrying the
message about a threat to worker rights. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/news/carrying-message-about-threat-worker-rights
Voila! A website citation. Note
that for web citations you’ll need to cite every page you use from that website
separately. So if you wanted to use other pages from the American Federation of
Teachers, you’d need to have a reference entry for each one.
Using
In-Text Citations for your website content
For an in-text citation you use pretty much the
same rules as a regular citation, except that if you use a direct quote, you’ll
need to use a paragraph number instead of a page number (since webpages are
usually not numbered). So if I wanted to quote “On Jan. 6, union
members attempted to deliver more than 100,000 petition signatures to the
Center for Individual Rights in Washington, D.C., which is behind the
Friedrichs lawsuit”, which is in the second paragraph block of the page, my
citation would look like this “Quote” (Rose, 2016, para. 2).
This is a lot of information but I
promise that you’ll get used to where to look for webpage citation information
over time until it becomes habit and you can recognize the patterns. Still
having trouble? Bookmark this post and use it as a guide any time you’re
stumped! We even have a page on the WUWC webpage that outlines this process. Check it out! In other words, don't memorize this info. Instead, become comfortable using all the resources you have at your disposal. That’s what they're here for.
Have other tips or questions
for citing webpages? We'd love to hear them in the comments section below!
Claire Helakoski is a Writing Instructor at the Walden Writing Center and holds an MFA in Creative Writing. She has taught writing and Composition as well as acted as a writer and editor in a variety of mediums. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and enjoys reading, writing creatively, and board games of all kinds
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