Walden University Writing Center

Where instructors and editors talk writing.

By Amber Cook, Senior Writing Specialist

There’s a gym not far from my house. The gym’s marquee last week read like this:

NO CONTRACT MEMBERSHIPS
AVAILABLE

Now, it’s certainly possible that this gym has run out of contract memberships: Perhaps they had memberships that require a contract, and there are no more available. If you’ve ever been to a gym, though, you probably know that contracts are pretty much always available. Just TRY to join a gym without signing one.

It’s probably safe to assume, then, that this gym intended to advertise no-contract memberships (memberships that do not require a contract). Here, that teeny-tiny missing hyphen means the difference between turning customers away and inviting them to try a new type of membership.

Granted, not every driver passing that sign last week was a grammar nerd like me. Maybe most readers made the same assumption I did, mentally supplying the needed hyphen. In communicating, though, one goal is to reach as many people as possible with the clearest possible message. Even if only 20% of the readers were confused by the missing hyphen, that’s still a significant loss of potential customers.

The next time you’re passing by the marquee in front of your workplace (or any other public written work that represents your company), try to see it from the perspective of your potential consumer. Perhaps you can catch an error that will lead to more business. Who knew good grammar could be so profitable?

By Jamie Patterson, Writing Specialist

One of my favorite residency sessions is a 90 minute grammar class that includes a lot of references to pop culture. At the end of the session we include a picture quiz where we ask students to identify the incorrect grammar on a store sign, on a billboard, or in a song. Sometimes we even use celebrity messages to their fans. Is it completely fair to apply grammar and APA rules outside of the classroom? Maybe not. But there are advantages to recognizing the dissonance between the writing standards expected here at Walden and what you are exposed to in your life outside of the university.

Many of the points we go over in this grammar class are meant to be friendly reminders of rules we’ve been learning since our grade school years. In fact, many EdD students leave this grammar class and comment that they’d like to use the same presentation in their own elementary school classrooms. Should it be alarming to you, as graduate students, that material we’re teaching at the graduate level is relevant at your local grade school? I hope not.

Grammar rules are much like APA rules: Many of them should be accessible to the earliest level of learners. After all, including a serial comma was never meant to be rocket science. It was, however, meant to ensure clarity and accessibility to thought. This becomes increasingly more important as you take on multidimensional and complicated research to affect social change.

Considering the accessibility of grammar rules, why is it that even your local grocery store has signs that say “10 items or less” when less should be replaced with fewer? Why are there signs posted that say “no pets, shirts & shoes required” (Better: No pets. Shirts & shoes required)? Why would Christina Aguilera tell fans “Today is a joyful and special day for Jordan and I” (should be Jordan and me)?

We might have been exposed to many of these grammar rules at an early age but there are as many grammar rules as there are words. Pop culture and our everyday environment certainly don’t help us in our struggle to understand the nuances of language rules. For those of us who have dedicated our professional, academic, and personal lives to the craft of writing there is still something new to learn every day. Take advantage of our expertise and drop in on one of our classes at an upcoming residency or email us with questions: writingsupport@waldenu.edu. I’ll tell you now what we tell the students at the end of our residency session on grammar: Being a grammarian is being aware of the details that surround us on a daily basis. Being aware of details is bound to make you a better student, a better researcher, and (our hope) a better writer.

by Brian Timmerman, Senior Writing Specialist

For me, writing is really all about prep work. In fact, I’m guessing that I’ve spent more time preparing to write than I actually have writing. Have a look at my prewriting rituals below and give ‘em a shot. I think they’ll save you some time and anguish.

Take Careful Notes

While reading, make sure that you’re taking copious notes on what interests you. I find it helpful to group these notes by subject as well. This way, I’ll be able to physically see the connections I’m making between the materials I’ve read.
I’d also suggest that you provide a citation (author, year, page number) for every note that you take. This way, returning to the text won’t entirely interrupt the writing process.

Synthesize

Next, you’ll want to synthesize all the literature you’ve read. If you grouped your notes together, this should be easy. What does each individual grouping suggest? Write down a sentence for each. You’ll then want to synthesize again. What is the collective suggestion once you’ve combined all the grouped sentences? Remember too that you don’t have to include everything you’ve learned during this process. There’s nothing wrong with abandoning some of your reading if you find that it doesn’t contribute to a collective whole.

Construct a Thesis

Once you have a good idea of what the literature says (you should have discovered this during the synthesis process), you should be able to construct a thesis, essentially an argument that’s grounded in literature.

Organize the Paper

You’re almost there. To ensure that you’ll have a tightly focused paper, go ahead and outline it before you begin writing it. Start with the thesis in the first paragraph (Point A), the conclusion (Point B) in the last, and then organize your grouped notes to most logically get from Point A to Point B.

By Brian Timmerman, Senior Writing Specialist

Finding yourself stuck, staring at a blank page? I’ve been there. Really. I shed tears on a paper once, an essay about Robert Bage’s novel, Hermsprong: Or Man as He is Not. Real tears. And I was 25. A 25-year-old man shedding tears over a 200-year-old book. No joke.

What I learned from that experience, though, was invaluable. It wasn’t so much that I had forgotten how to write, but I simply hadn’t thought about what I was writing. I was too focused on the blank page knowing that this thing, this paper, was supposed to grow to at least 25 pages plus. What I needed to do was to step away from the computer and just think about the material. What was my argument? What was the purpose of my paper? Why was I writing it (you know, aside from the fact that it was assigned to me)? How was I interacting with the text? Instead, I had jumped in foolishly focusing on the logistics (I need to have a 25-page paper completed by next Tuesday), as opposed to the real task at hand: taking the time to think about what I was going to say about the material I had read. I had put the cart before the horse.

Below are a few things I learned about writing over the years, most of which have helped me overcome writer’s block at some point in time or another.

1. A blank page does not mean that you’re searching for the right word or words to begin your essay. It means you literally have no idea what to say or why you’re saying it (aside from the fact that it’s been assigned). Take the 20-minutes of prep time and construct a thesis. The rest of the paper is then written with that thesis in mind, giving it direction. Trust me. Spend 20 minutes doing the prep work or spend an hour and a half staring at a flashing cursor wondering why nothing’s coming out.

2. If you find yourself stuck midway through your paper (or literally saying, “What the heck am I doing?”), go back to your introduction and make sure that you’re not confusing a thesis with a subject. A thesis is an argument; you can structure a paper around that. A subject on the other hand is a topic, something that has no beginning, no opportunity for narrative, and no way of getting to a reasonable conclusion (thus causing the block). If you find that you have a subject, there’s a good chance you’ll have to go back to the drawing board (which still should be less time consuming than trying to make what you have “fits” into a coherent paper).

3. If you’re stuck, there’s also a chance that you haven’t taken the time to think about what your research means to your essay. In this instance, remove yourself from the paper and return to the literature. As you reread, think of what this information means in the context of your essay’s purpose as well as in the context of the other material you’ve read. You may find that you’ve been trying to write about something that isn’t necessary. You may also discover something new that will jump start the writing process for you.

4. Don’t get caught up in the way your paper sounds. If you find yourself reading and rereading what you do have, listening for the ways that the words dance on page, stop, take a breath, and move on. If you don’t, you’re going to lose sight of the bigger picture (the essay as a whole). You can always address issues of precision during the revision process.

5. If after three or four paragraphs you find yourself stuck, take inventory of what you do have by jotting down a one-sentence purpose statement for each paragraph. This way, by getting a brief synopsis of what you’ve written so far, you’ll know where you are in the argument and what’s needed next.

6. Remember that you’re not working with stone tablets. You can commit anything to paper and delete it later. Go ahead and write something, anything, even if you know it’s a placeholder. You can always go back and change, delete, or revise what you’ve written. At the very least, this’ll keep the process moving. It might even help in just getting a few ideas on the page.

7. It sounds silly, but you might even want to consider using a voice recorder. Some writers are simply more comfortable expressing thoughts orally than through the written word. Once you’ve recorded those ideas, you should be able to fine tune them on the page.