Showing posts with label Student Spotlight. Show all posts
Interview with Patrese Nesbitt, Walden DrPH student and 2019/2020 Writing Center Intern
In 2019, Patrese began a 9-month internship with the
Writing Center, during which she learned about writing center pedagogy, giving
writing feedback to students through our paper review appointments, and attending the International Writing
Centers Association conference in Columbus, OH. We are grateful Patrese was
interested in the internship, as she is also working full time as a faculty
member and pursuing her Doctor of Public Health from Walden. She is also now a
published author on the Writing Center blog with her blog posts “The Art of Storytelling: Mastering Paraphrasing” and “How to Manage Procrastination and Brain Fog,”
where Patrese brings her unique perspective as student, faculty member, and
writing center intern to give students writing advice.
Join us in learning a bit about Patrese, how she manages so many responsibilities in her life, and her tips for other Walden student writers.
Writing Center: What are you studying at Walden?
Patrese: Doctor of Public Health (DrPH)
Writing Center: You are also a faculty member at your institution. What do you teach?
Patrese: I am an Assistant Professor and I teach Health and Physical Education at Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Kentucky.
Writing Center: How do you spend your free time?
Patrese: I spend my free time reading, working out, traveling with family and friends, watching make-up and hair tutorials, or studying about mindfulness and health.
Writing Center: You have a lot going on: How do you keep track of everything or keep yourself organized? How do you make time for it all?
Patrese: I have and stick to a “to-do” list! I have a “to-do” list at home which is a dry erase board, updated daily. My “to-do” list is just a notebook at work. As you can imagine, I’ve gone through a lot of notebooks!
Writing Center: What is your approach or goal to one-on-one paper reviews and when giving students writing feedback?
Patrese: I want to make sure the student knows that I am aware of their own personal goals of their paper review appointment. I do so by stating their goals at the start of their paper review appointment. I may also state their personal goals throughout the paper; sometimes I may ask “what do you think?” to the student to show that I am engaged but I am open to their interpretation and suggestions as well. It is a learning experience for the both of us!
Writing Center: Why or in what ways do you think students can benefit from a one-on-one paper review appointment?
Patrese: One-on-one paper reviews are an exceptional way to have an individualized review based on your goals, tasks, and abilities. I’ve benefited from a one-on-one appointment at the very beginning of the DrPH program, and it was superior! While I had the opportunity to attend writing centers at my prior institutions, one-on-one paper reviews, in an asynchronous format, feels as if the writing instructor has time to review my personal information without making me feel embarrassed!Writing Center: What have you benefited the most from or learned the most about during your Internship with the Writing Center?
Patrese: I increased my knowledge base on the number of tools the Writing Center has towards improving writing. The increased knowledge provided from the internship will help with the success of my dissertation.
Writing Center: What’s one thing you’ll take away from the Internship and use in your writing at Walden or your teaching at your institution?
Patrese: Appointments! More students should take advantage of making appointments with the Writing Center to achieve their goals as well as staying on task in their course. I will actually make more appointments! So, Beth, Amy, and Max will certainly see more of me!
Writing Center: What is the most helpful advice you’ve received about writing?
Patrese: I find myself typing how I talk, which is ok, but I firmly believe in the process of proofreading/self-editing. You learn so much about your writing style and it helps to ensure you are on task. One more note: follow the MEAL Plan for your writing as if your life depended on it!
Writing Center: Could you talk about a particular writing challenge you faced and how you overcame that challenge?
Patrese: I procrastinate! I prepared a blog about procrastination and it is something I still struggle with as a doctoral student. As one who has struggled with anxiety, I’ve used procrastination to cope with anxiety due to fearing (or overthinking) that what I am writing about is wrong, or I am off topic, and the worst can happen as a result of poor writing. Having a “to-do” is list extremely helpful and has helped me to overcome that challenge. I can always tell when I operate “away” from my “to-do” list. I am not as focused, and distractions are everywhere.
Writing Center: What’s one writing accessory you can’t live without—or something you couldn’t write without?
Patrese: A college ruled, $0.69 notebook! I carry at least one everywhere!! Especially now as I am getting closer to writing my dissertation!
Writing Center: Describe your approach to writing in three words:
Patrese: Prepare, plan, pray.
Prepare: Get all the tools that are needed; read the material that helps to reference what you are writing, use a notepad to mind-map or outline what your paper will state, and find a comfy sitting area to write your paper.
Plan: Back to the “to-do” list! Break apart difficult tasks or break apart tasks that may be big (or time consuming) and may lead to overthinking and anxiety.
Pray: or be mindful in what you are getting ready to do. Mindfulness to me means being “in the moment”. Praying helps me to get in the moment and put all my focus on the task from start, through the process, and to completion.
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The Art of Storytelling: Mastering Paraphrasing
As an avid reader, I love stories about revolutionaries, abolitionists, orators, or great public speakers. I am particularly drawn to stories pulled from African American history: Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Madam C.J. Walker, and my favorite, Shirley Chisholm, the first African American female to run for President of the United States.
You might have thought I read an entire book about the life of Ms. Chisholm, based on my mentioning she was the first African American female to run for the presidency. I actually did not read a book about Ms. Chisholm. Instead, I pulled various online resources about the life of the former Congresswoman from the Smithsonian and the U.S. House of Representatives websites, as well as scholarly articles about her life and history as an educator.
So, is this how paraphrasing works? You pull pieces of information from different resources and articles and put them in a paper? Well, sort of. As you continue reading, you will find this post is intended to help you get comfortable with paraphrasing by providing some encouraging insight on how to tell a story. Crafting your story from your interpretation of course assignment readings and research articles may appear to be a daunting task. Still, your professor will be impressed by your efforts in understanding the content from the course, which ultimately aids in your application of the gained knowledge to your profession and your passion.
My story is similar to Ms. Chisholm’s—I am somewhat of a revolutionary, or as my mom would call me, headstrong. I have New York and Caribbean roots (Dad was Jamaican American), and I love my current full-time career as an assistant professor. Ms. Chisholm’s facts are easy to paraphrase for me because I so easily relate her life to my own story and experiences. We both possess one key element, which is that we both hold a commitment to social change.
So, when you paraphrase, think of how you can relate the information to your own story. Here are some tips that may be helpful:
1. Determine your interest: When reviewing your course assignments, find information that is of importance to you. The assignment is much easier to interpret when you have interest, even if it is just a small part of a chapter from a course assignment.
2. Consider social change: I get it, there may not be any articles directly applicable to you or your background. Therefore, find content that encourages and inspires you to be a change agent. Ask yourself, what could you or what would you do differently from this article that would contribute to social change in your career field?
3. Use those bright highlighters: Highlight and note parts of articles and chapters that stand out to you the most. Often times, those points will help you to understand the material from the article better. Highlighting also shows your professor that you know the text, which further helps you to understand the assignment with proper execution.
4. Have no fear, my friend: Do not be fearful of words that you don’t know the definition of. Highlight those words and use the thesaurus tool in Microsoft or look up the meaning of the highlighted word. No harm in looking up the meaning of individual words to get your point across in a scholarly manner without copying something directly from the article.
5. And Again, re-read! There may be areas you may have missed or additional areas you want to highlight.
Plagiarism, Citations, and Quotations: In your reading, you may find out that an author’s description of a topic is clear, concise, and well written; therefore, it may be easy and effortless to just directly copy the content into your course assignment. Before you do, ask yourself, “did I give the author credit for their work?”, “did I quote or paraphrase?”, and “is this something I would say in getting my point across about the content?”
1. Professional Advice: Review your work. Ask yourself, “Is this what I want to say about this article?” “How did this article resonate with me?” “Did I cite facts?” “Did I properly give my interpretation of this article?” and the most critical question, “Did I answer my professor’s question?”
2. Be confident: Most importantly, be confident! You are the author, so your text, your interpretation, or your story is vital for the learning experiences, not only for yourself but for everyone else who reads your writing.
As you are crafting your own interpretation of something you read or are paraphrasing, picture it as the most exciting topic one has ever wanted to read. Spare no details and confidently present to the reader, as an author, your interpretation of what you read. Think about who you might be helping as a result of your storytelling.
Patrese Nesbitt is a writing intern at the Walden University Writing Center. She enjoys reading articles that are inspirational, in addition to doing research on how certain physical movement patterns help with mental health. As a doctoral candidate in Walden University’s Public Health Program, she is eager to find ways to intrinsically and extrinsically motivate people to live an improved and upgraded quality of life.
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Student Spotlight: Jessica Meadows, 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 Jessica Meadows, student of the the Richard W. Riley
College of Education and Leadership.
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| Walden University Writing Center | Building Bridges. Making Connections. |
What is your professional and educational background, and what degree are you pursuing at Walden? I earned a BA in Elementary Education in 1993 from American University and an MS in Curriculum and Instruction with a Concentration in Reading in 1997 from Hood College. I am certified as a reading specialist in grades k-12, and I have taught in elementary and middle school settings for 14 years. Currently, I teach at the community college level. At Walden, I am pursuing a EdS in Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. I’m about 2/3 of the way through that program. However, I am considering transferring into the EdD program in the same area now instead of waiting until after the EdS is completed. The EdD was always the final goal. Now it’s just a question of the timing. I decided to pursue my doctorate at Walden because I wanted the flexibility of an online school. Like everyone, I am busy with other aspects of life and I appreciate the ability to work from home. There is also the possibility that I may move during the program making it impossible for me to attend a brick and mortar school.
What are your
professional and scholarly goals, and how is your Walden degree program helping
you to reach these? My overall goal is to impact schools and learning on a
larger scale. I’ve always worked in a
classroom; now I would like to work with new teachers or to develop curriculum
and have a greater ripple effect in education. I want to be an expert in my
teaching craft. I want to be able to
share that with other teachers. Walden has helped me expand my view of
education and leadership which will make me an effective agent for change. I
currently have a 4.0 GPA, and although I disagree with many grading systems in
educational settings, I am proud of being able to achieve academic excellence.
For me, balancing family, teaching, and being in school is the most challenging
aspect of pursuing a higher degree. I
use a calendar program to track assignments and block out periods of time when
I plan to accomplish tasks. I also block
out time for family activities to make sure I don’t miss out on those
opportunities, too. It doesn’t always go as planned, but it serves as a guide.
What drew you to
using the Writing Center, and what Writing Center resources have you found the
most beneficial? Several of my professors recommended to all students that
they work with a tutor in the writing center. I’ve found the paper review service is the most beneficial resource! I’ve watched a few of the webinars,
but the individual feedback is a powerful tool. In my time at Walden, the Writing Center has helped me by providing individualized feedback that has helped me become a stronger writer. I have
become a much better writer of APA citations! I’ve noticed too that there are
characteristics of academic writing that I have not had to incorporate in my
writing for a while and some characteristics that I am including for the first
time as a part of my Walden program.
Having someone with a careful eye to point these out to me is
invaluable. Of course, APA citation review is always helpful too.
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Jessica (right) and her husband (left) dropping their
daughter (middle) off at Eckerd College for her first semester in college.
|
You have had dozens
of paper reviews at this point; how do you find the time to make appointments
each week, and what motivates you to continue to do this? I often schedule writing center appointments well in advance
and use that as a way to hold myself accountable for making progress in
whatever I am writing. If I know that my
tutor is expecting to see my writing, I am more motivated to get it done and
uploaded in time! Also, the reviews are so valuable that I very much want to
have feedback before a paper is due. I strongly recommend the paper review
service. I also recommend developing a relationship with one writing tutor who
can see your writing progress over time.
Through your paper
reviews, you’ve been working on article annotations for your degree program,
and you’ve developed a writing process that seems to be working well for you.
What is your writing process for composing these annotations? Here’s an overview of what I do with some tips for my
colleagues who will be writing annotations too:
- For each annotation, I create a document. I add the headings for annotations sections: summary, analysis, application. As I read the article and come across information that helps build each section, I just start typing those details and my thoughts as I go. Later, I go back and organize into paragraphs.
- I always set each annotation aside for at least a day, then I go back and read it with fresh eyes for revising and editing. Often, I find parts that don’t quite make sense or need to be reorganized.
- I use the library’s resource on verifying peer review to ensure that I’m annotating a peer reviewed source, and I use Crossref.org to find the DOI of the article that I’m annotating.
- I use Grammarly.com as a resource as well. It catches small details for me, like repetitive words, and offers suggestions for changes.
- I make sure to schedule my writing center appointment and, when it comes, I upload as many annotations as I have ready at that time.
- My goal is to do only one annotation per day; more than one annotation feels overwhelming. Sometimes it is unavoidable, though. This is where having a calendar and breaking big tasks into small steps is valuable.
What tips and
suggestions can you offer to other Walden students as they seek to develop and
improve their writing? Write, get feedback, revise, repeat!
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AWA Student Spotlight: Valamere Mikler
The Writing Center’s Administrative Writing Assistants
(AWAs) are at the front line of the writingsupport@waldenu.edu inbox,
performing necessary tasks to make the Writing Center run smoothly. Writing
Center AWAs are an integral part of the Writing Center as they communicate
regularly with students. But, the AWAs are also Walden students, and thus
integral to Walden University itself. That’s why we’d like to share some of
their stories of academic success, professional accomplishment, social change
work, and advice for other Walden students. In this spotlight series, we show
our appreciation for all their hard work so that others can be inspired by
their stories as well.
Today's spotlight is on Valamere Mikler, a student
in
the College of Social and Behavior Sciences
Residing
in Florida, Valamere is a PhD student in the Organizational Diversity and
Social Change specialization of the Masters in Industrial and Organizational Psychology program who began her dissertation during the fall quarter in 2017.
Valamere advocates for social change in her community by serving
on the Opa-Locka Community Development Corporation’s Community Advisory Board
and Citizen’s Advocacy Group where she strives to ensure people in urban areas,
such as youth in Miami-Dade County, Florida, have access to quality job
placement, education, and training opportunities. She chose Walden because
of Walden’s social change mission. Specifically, she believes that her
degree will support her as a candidate to continue addressing
challenges in her profession, where she lives, and in the world around her.
We asked Valamere to share Writing Center resources she
values, writing- and student-related struggles she faces, and her career plans
after Walden.
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| Valamere Mikle |
Walden University Writing Center (WUWC): What are
the most common questions you find in the writing support inbox and what
feedback do you provide?
Valamere Mikler (VM): The most common questions I find
in the writingsupport@waldenu.edu inbox are APA citations, reference
list entries, and questions about paper review services. For APA citations, I
like to provide students with a link to the In-Text & Parenthetical Citations page, and for reference list formatting
questions, I like to provide the link for the page on Common Reference List Examples. If a student is interested in paper review
services, I provide the myPass website
and encourage the student to make an appointment as well as view the videos and tutorials to walk them through the process.
WUWC: How have you struggled as a writer and how
have you overcome that struggle?
VM: I have always had a passion for writing; however,
I struggle with grammatical errors and sentence structure. It is a paradox that English is my favorite subject, but I have
trouble with the mechanics of writing; however, that did not discourage me from
trying to seek ways to improve my writing skills. Over time, my writing skills
developed because I used the feedback and support received from paper reviews
and continued to practice writing skills.
WUWC: As a Walden student yourself, what academic
advice would you give other Walden students?
VM: Take full advantage of all the writing resources, such as paper reviews and webinars,
to help you achieve your writing goals.
WUWC: What challenge have you faced as a student and
how did you face that challenge?
VM: During my master’s program, it was difficult to
excel when my mother became ill and I had to take care of her while also
working full-time. Overwhelmed with personal responsibilities, my grades
suffered. However, I did not allow this to deter my desire to obtain my masters
degree and move on to a PhD program. To overcome challenges, I manage time
by goal setting and planning my schedule, and allowing time for writing, researching, and personal responsibilities. I also
take advantage of Walden University’s support services and
resources, such as the library and
the Center for Research Quality. I don’t quit, regardless of personal crisis, problem, or
frustration may occur.
WUWC: What work do you plan to do after you graduate
from Walden?
VM: I plan to provide consulting services for
organizations regarding best practices for measuring human behavior to improve
employees' work satisfaction and employers’ ability to select and promote the
best people within firms, leadership centers, corporations, universities,
and companies. I also plan to facilitate workshops on corporate social
responsibility, diversity initiatives, and how to make the workplace better
employees.
Thanks, Valamere! We at the Writing Center appreciate your
dedication to and support of students—you are a true asset to us as part of our
support team, and we know that students appreciate your work as
well.
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. Students can email WritingSupport@waldenu.edu and expect a reply from one of our expert AWAs.
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