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Walden University Writing Center

Where instructors and editors talk writing.

Calling All Grammar Groupies!

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By Writing Center Staff

Do you ever get really annoyed with grammar and spelling mistakes you see in advertising? Do you ever just wish you could fix them? Well, back in 2007, friends Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson traveled across the country in search of mistakes, misspellings, and typos in public signage. Once they found a problematic sign, they actually corrected it—with permanent marker, Wite-Out, anything that was on hand—in the name of the greater good. Last fall, Deck and Herson released a detailed log of their journey as The Great Typo Hunt (read more about it here).

With inspiration from these guys, we at the Writing Center are embarking on a little project, but we need your help. When you’re walking down the street, visiting a new town, or otherwise going about your day-to-day life, look around you at the signs. If you notice a misplaced apostrophe, unnecessary quotation marks, misspelled words, confusion of there/their/they’re, or any other grammatical error, snap a picture with your digital camera or phone. Send it to writingsupport@waldenu.edu, and each month we’ll post the best photograph on our blog (with proper credit to the author, of course). Just remember that in doing so, you agree that (a) you are the photographer and (b) we can do what we wish with your image. No snagging from another website; we want real-life snapshots from your surroundings! And please don’t correct the typos yourself. As Deck and Herson discovered, you can get into a lot of trouble for that.

We’ll post the first photograph on March 15th. Let the hunt begin!

Favorites

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An Interview With Jessica Barron, Writing Tutor

The Walden University Writing Center is expanding. In the past few months, in fact, we've added five new tutors and editors to better serve the student population. And we are now assisting undergraduates as well as master's and doctoral level scholars. To keep our services personal during this time of change, we're presenting a series of blog posts about our writing consultants--both tutors and editors. Here they talk about their favorite words, books, and writing techniques. In this particular installment, Tutor Jessica Barron, a native of Minnesota, lets loose.

Jessica, what is your favorite...

word in the English language?
Currently, I enjoy the word prowess, though I can rarely find a sentence in which to use it properly. I am also a fan of all homophones.

foreign language word?
I love the Japanese word oishii, which means “delicious.” Whenever I hear it, I know that either I or someone nearby is eating something scrumptious.

first line from a novel?
I can’t think of one – suggestions other than anything from the Harry Potter novels?

last line from a novel?

My favorite novel’s conclusion is George Orwell’s (1949) last line of 1984: “He loved Big Brother.” The book could not end in any other way, but rereading that line still makes me so sad.

author?
My favorite author would be a tie between David Sedaris, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tennessee Williams. Their styles and genres are so varied that my mood depicts whom I enjoy reading on a particular day.

thing to do while writing?
When I write, I always need a beverage (typically sparkling water) and white noise. I can block out anything when I get in a writing groove, though a fan is usually less distracting than a Law & Order marathon.

topic to write about?
I love to write about myself. It’s a topic I know well, and it’s always fun to pretend to be an outsider to experiences that were so personal.

writing rule to discuss with students?

The thing that I enjoy discussing with students the most is variety: word choice, sentence structure, and overall format. We all can get comfortable with one style of writing, and it’s fun to help students become aware of their favorite.

writing location?
My parents’ old library table that I use as a desk.

proofreader?
My husband. He forces me not to get too attached to any piece of text.

For complete bios of the tutors and editors, head to the About Us page of our website. To make an appointment for a paper review with Jessica or another tutor, see our Tutoring Center page.

Transitioning Into Better Writing

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Sarah Prince
By Sarah Prince, Writing Tutor

For most of us, our lives are filled with transitions, both epic and mundane. In the span of our lifetimes, we transition from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to experience, and from immaturity to maturity. Daily, we transition from breakfast to dinner, from work-mode to couch-potato-mode, and from enthusiasm to exhaustion. Ultimately, these transitions become the ways we bring structure to our days and organization to our lives. Here, I highlight transitions’ abilities to create order in our lives, not to offer up my services as a life coach, but to suggest that this same transition logic can be applied to create structure and cohesion in scholarly writing.

Using transitional words, phrases, and sentences in our writing can be used to emphasize, repeat, conclude, summarize, synthesize, compare, and concede. Transitions can show time and place, develop examples, and build evidence. Most importantly, however, transitions can be used to create a logically ordered and cohesive paper, which increases our writing’s natural flow and momentum! Now that we are all onboard the transition train, I’d like to highlight a few of my favorites:

1. Building Evidence: When writing a scholarly essay, building on evidence or examples makes a paper both convincing and well-founded. To draw logical connections among examples, I like to use transitional words and phrases like in addition, furthermore, moreover, and also. For example: “Writing with transitions increases the overall flow of your paper. Moreover, transitional words and phrases can make connections between sentences and paragraphs clearer.”

2. Developing Examples: Often in scholarly writing, we explain an abstract concept and then use a specific example to make our meaning more clear. When connecting these specific examples to abstract concepts, I like to employ transitional terms such as for example, for instance, specifically, and in particular. To highlight: “For instance, do you notice my use of a developing example transition in the Building Evidence section of this blog post?”

3. Showing Time: Frequently, as APA writers, we have to shift between the past tense, which describes researchers’ findings, and the present, which highlights our contemporary experiences. When you are making these kinds of shifts in your writing, an unexplained verb tense change is NOT the way to go. Instead, try out a transition that shows time: currently, previously, formerly, and before are some of my personal favorites! For example: “Previously, I had no clue how to use transitions. Currently, however, I have really started to understand their value in scholarly writing.”

4. Comparing and Contrasting: In literature reviews and analytical essays, we often need to compare information or present conflicting research. To highlight this shift in our thinking, transitional words such as similarly, like, just as, in contrast, and however offer readers cues as to what new direction our thoughts are headed. For example: “In contrast to disjointed papers that lack cohesion, scholarly writing that uses transitions is logical and easy to read.”

5. Synthesizing and Concluding: In most scholarly writing, we are asked to synthesize information and draw knowledgeable conclusions. As you might have guessed by now, I think a great way to introduce these synthesizing and concluding statements is through a transitional word or phrase! Using words and phrases like consequently, as a result, therefore, and in sum are great ways to begin these sentences. For example:

In sum, transitions can be excellent ways to create order, cohesion, and flow in your scholarly writing. Moreover, they provide helpful clues for your reader, and they draw logical connections between your sentences. To learn more about how and when to appropriately use transitions and to review a list of commonly used transitional words and phrases, make sure to check out the Writing Center's helpful Transitions page.

From the Writing Trenches

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By Amber Cook, Senior Writing Specialist

For those of us in the writing world, November means NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). During this month, aspiring novelists commit to writing 50,000 words in 30 days, with the goal of completing a novel in raw form. Several of us in the Writing Center decided to give it a try this past year, myself included.

Let me first say that I am NOT a fiction writer. My only long-term writing project was a master’s thesis for a musicology degree. I hadn’t written fiction since the fourth grade, when I wrote and illustrated Betsy and the Magic Fish (a little stapled-together book for which myself and my mother were the only readers). So when I decided to start NaNoWriMo, I felt like a fraud immediately. Writing in third person felt odd. Developing characters, settings, and plots was totally new to me. To keep up with the word count demand, I also had to fight the natural editor’s urge to slow down and refine every little nuance as I went. Everything about NaNoWriMo was uncomfortable at first, like trying to brush your teeth with your nondominant hand.

The experience has helped to give me more sympathy for so many of the adult learners I work with at Walden. Many students returning to academic life will report similar fish-out-of-water feelings when faced with scholarly writing assignments. Fiction for me, and academic writing for many of you, has a foreign set of conventions and assumptions that can be awkward at first. The next time I’m talking with a student about making the transition to a new style of writing, I will remember staring at my first blank page, wondering why I ever thought I could write a novel, and immediately understand.

I learned a few things about writing during this experience that I thought I’d share.

1. Peer pressure is very powerful. NaNoWriMo sets up a “buddy” page where you can load your page output each day and compare it to those of your friends who are also participating. That was the only thing that kept me going some nights. See if you can find a peer in your program who could do the same for you.

2. It helps to end each writing session by writing a sentence or two about what comes next. That way, when you return to your paper, you’ll have a little help getting started.

3. Output accountability helps keep you honest. If you’re the kind of person who thinks you’ll get to it later, you might benefit from an online reminder system that tracks your progress and lets you know how much writing you need to do each day to meet deadlines. NaNoWriMo had a great tool like this, but there are others, such as Write or Die and the dissertation calculator.

4. It’s important to be gentle with yourself without letting yourself off the hook. It’s OK to have a few unproductive days, but it’s easy to slide off the writing wagon quickly if too many days go by. Beating yourself up doesn’t help; just get back to the computer and forge ahead.

Now that 2011 is here, you might want to consider January your personal writing month. Make some goals, find a buddy, challenge each other, and write on!

Four Quick Tips for Better Academic Writing

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By Sara Culver, Writing Specialist

Need a fast route to scholarly writing success? These tips should get you on your way.

1. Use standard formatting. Wing-dings are fun, sure, and who doesn’t like a customized title page? All that fancy formatting, however, can easily overshadow your ideas. Readers who are used to a standard format may be distracted or confused by too much pizzazz. Keeping things professional—using 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced lines, and APA templates—ensures that your original analysis stays front and center.

2. Take a trip to the library. No matter what stage of writing you’re in, a trip to the library can help. Brainstorming topics? The library has broad overviews of any subject you might choose. Refining your thesis? Librarians can point you toward articles to help shape your argument. Think you’re ready to get published? Back issues of journals at the library can help you decide where to submit your manuscript.

3. Pick the weird (or challenging) topics. Scholarly writing should advance new and original analysis, research, and ideas. That task is sometimes easier to accomplish when you’re writing on a less-popular topic. The next time all your classmates are writing about substance abuse or No Child Left Behind, branch out—it’s likely there are many areas in your field that will allow you to make a new contribution.

4. Ask for help. If you ever have a question or a concern about a writing assignment, don't be afraid to email your instructor, a classmate, a librarian, or a writing tutor. The worst thing that can happen is that the person you emailed will point you to a better resource. The best thing that can happen is the person will be able to help you and will remember you as a motivated, engaged student.