Walden University Writing Center

Where instructors and editors talk writing.

When I think about my former college writing professor, Sister Mara, one day in particular comes to mind.

I had made an appointment to visit her office—a room with a desk, sofa chair, and hundreds of books. It was the middle of fall semester, when her students’ final essay projects were just getting under way. A bit behind on my own essay, I once again felt the need to bounce ideas off of the most famous English professor on campus.

As usual, I was buzzing with a mixture of energy and nerves.

Sister Mara is not an intimidating woman. In fact, she has the persona of a caring, unassuming great aunt who happens to have a doctorate in literature and be an accomplished writer. She is usually smiling, and when she’s not, she’s probably thinking about how to best offer her help and advice.

I’m sure you know the feeling—all those ideas, all that research, all the good intentions dancing around your head—all falling out window the moment you face the blank page.

So, braced with a notepad and pen, I sat down on Sister Mara’s couch and attempted to engage her in introductory small talk.

She smiled, and asked the question I was hoping to delay for as long as possible. “So, how’s your essay coming along?”

My response, which I’d rehearsed to no avail, came out like a Slurpee dumped onto the sidewalk. “Well actually, I was just thinking yesterday how my third draft is just not working, and how there’s just something not right, and just this morning I came up with another idea—“

“NIK,” she said emphatically. Not a shout, but a firm plea for me to stop talking (in retrospect, I don’t blame her). “I don’t want to hear about any more ideas,” she said, still smiling. “You have lots of ideas—all very good ones. So now you have to choose ONE, and stick with it.”

And that was that. Our meeting was adjourned. Sensing my eagerness to escape the writing chair, Sister Mara did what all good writing teachers do—she sent me back to it.

I went to a Catholic university (hence the presence of monks and nuns) that stressed the importance of community, hospitality, and the need to trust and rely upon one another. Even with all that support, there were many times that I felt inexorably alone. During one of those times, I had gotten lost while hiking through the 2,400-acre forest that surrounded my campus. During all of the rest, I was writing.

A good writing teacher reminds you of a great irony—that writing is an act both solitary and public, performed behind closed doors and, once encountered by a reader, completely out in the open.

Sister Mara retired in May after more than 50 years of teaching. As she writes in her 2009 memoir Going Blind, she inherited a genetic disease that has blinded many of her family members and that may lead to her own blindness as well.

Even without seeing, she gave the gift of sight to thousands of students like me, who were able to see not only their writing, but also their purpose and existence, in a new light.

Writing instructor Nik Nadeau now lives in Boston. He spends his free time "reading, speed skating, and writing about Asian American topics."

In our fourth and final episode of the podcast pilot, Nik and Brittany discuss maintaining objectivity and academic professionalism in your writing without sacrificing your passion for your paper or study topic.

Listen to the fourth episode via the widget below, and then take our short, anonymous feedback survey to help us decide if and how the podcast should continue. We’re excited about the many topics we could cover in future episodes and the formats the podcast could take—interviews with faculty, students, and Writing Center editors, for example—but we want to hear your thoughts on the podcast first. Taking the survey will not only help us determine the future of the podcast—if you’re one of the first 100 respondents, you’ll receive a $5 Amazon e-gift card!

We want to hear from you whether you’ve listened to just one or to all four of the WriteCast episodes. And if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, or want to listen again (or read a transcript), head to our episode archive.

The Writing Center continues to offer new services to help better meet your writing needs. Thanks for your input!

The podcast pilot is made possible by a Social Media Research Grant from Global Products and Services, Laureate Education, Inc.

When it comes to technology, I am what you might call old school. For example, while I started keeping a blog ages ago—way back in 2007—I still get cranky whenever Blogger decides to “improve” the site and services, because it means I have to adjust my own familiar, comfortable processes to the changes. And—dare I admit this?—I just sent my first text message ever about six months ago, using my old flip-style cell phone, which is almost never on because I never remember to charge the battery.

I am almost daily made aware of my technological hang-ups by my husband, who is pretty much the exact opposite of me. While I typically scorn what I call “bells and whistles” (who needs a GPS device when you’ve got a real map, after all?), he has a serious appreciation for all the latest developments. To illustrate: On my husband’s nightstand rests a slim Kindle e-reader, clad in a leather case; on mine, a stack of no fewer than 10 books, forever in rotation. He once persuaded me to read a screen or two of text on his Kindle, and while I appreciated its novelty and portability, I am happy to report that I still prefer the heft and feel of a real book in my hands over the convenience of a mobile device. Maybe it’s the writer in me, or the college English major, or the girl who spent all her childhood summers slouched against the stacks in the local library, but no e-reader will ever give me the same reading experience as a real, live, honest-to-goodness book.

That said, I’ve recently been convinced that there are times when the e-version of a book might be just as good, if not better, than the original print. A case in point: The American Psychological Association (APA) now offers a mobile version of its 583-page APA Concise Dictionary of Psychology (APA, 2008). When I heard about this app, I borrowed my husband’s smartphone to investigate. Here’s what I discovered: At $30, the app is slightly less expensive than the print version of the dictionary, but with the same content of more than 10,000 definitions and with a few capabilities that the print version cannot offer. For example, the app allows the user to search by keyword or to simply browse terms, and it offers links to other terms within definitions. To experiment, I searched for Freud and got the result Freudian slip, the definition for which provided a link to the phrase slip of the tongue, which led me to the term spoonerism. In addition to these basic search and browse functions, the app provides search history and the ability to add notes about definitions and mark terms as favorites. It also offers the Historical Figures in Psychology listing available in the print version, along with other features unique to the app version, including Word of the Day and Psychologist of the Day (I got cocaine dependence and Lev Vygotsky one day, resolution and John Hughlings Jackson the next).

In sum, this app may be a good resource for students who like the convenience of having a reference work readily available on their mobile phone, without the need to tote around a 2-pound text. And if you’re like me, an added bonus is the extra room the app leaves in your book bag for those treasured books you cannot bear to read in any other form.

A final note: If you are interested in the app version of the dictionary, know that you will need to buy the full version; the free trial version is little more than a teaser, offering a limited selection of terms and no access to the Word of the Day, Psychologist of the Day, and other special features.

For more information about both the print and mobile version of the APA Concise Dictionary of Psychology, visit APA's website.

A common misperception is that you should not change anything in your proposal chapters/sections because they were approved by your committee. There are in fact many things that you will need to revise from your approved proposal for the final capstone document. Make sure to incorporate any revision suggestions and required changes from your chair, URR, and IRB into these early pages. When you return to your proposal after a few months, you should be able to approach it with fresh eyes and clean up the writing for clarity and APA compliance.

Painting by Leonid Pasternak.

Here are specific things to revise in the proposal pages for the final capstone document.

Verb tenses and other proposal language

Introduction

Literature review

Methodology

References

For more suggestions, you can watch and attend our webinars for doctoral capstone students.

Updated 3/10/15

Paul Lai, who joined the Writing Center in 2011, has a background is in teaching college English and editing scholarly journals and literary magazines. His dog's name is Giles.

What do derailed trains, chain link fences, and fruit salads have in common? Find out in Episode 3: Creating a Successful Paragraph. In this episode, Nik and Brittany identify six types of paragraphs to avoid and summarize four essential components of an effective and cohesive paragraph.