Special Webinar Event: Global Days of Service Kickoff
Every year, Walden University celebrates Global Days of Service (GDS). During this time, Walden and Laureate students, faculty, and staff contribute to positive social change by participating in community service projects. In 2016, we performed over 220,000 hours of volunteer service. To kick off GDS for 2017, join us for a very special webinar on Tuesday, October 3, 8:00-9:00 PM EST.
The Walden University Writing Center embodies its positive social change mission by supporting Walden students as they carry out their research and professional writing. With direct instruction to students, a library of writing resources, and an underlying position of support, the Writing Center provides Walden's writers with the tools to make positive social change through their research and action.
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This webinar will give students, staff, faculty, and alumni the opportunity to discuss goals for social change and learn how writing can help you achieve those goals. Specific attention will be paid to how writing can help you generate ideas, as well as how you can use writing in areas like social media, grants, newspapers, and blogs to communicate your vision for social change.
Interested? Register for the Writing for Social Change: Exploring Perspectives webinar.
Walden's 2017 GDS begins on October 9th. If you're interested in other resources the Writing Center has for enhancing your social change goals, or if you're interested in learning more about the Writing Center's approach to social change in general, join us back here in the next weeks to help us celebrate GDS. See you soon!
The Walden University Writing Center embodies its positive social change mission by supporting Walden students as they carry out their research and professional writing. With direct instruction to students, a library of writing resources, and an underlying position of support, the Writing Center provides Walden's writers with the tools to make positive social change through their research and action.
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Paraphrasing Enhances Learning
Each Monday my second-grade teacher wrote five words on the
board. These words stayed on the board all week until Friday when we each had
to turn in five index cards—one card with our own dictionary style definition
for each assigned word.
Initially this project was really fun. I loved alphabetizing
the cards as my collection grew (I think I was destined to work in academia…or
at least an office with file folders). But as the year progressed, the novelty
of the project wore off. And in order to finish my homework as quickly as
possible, I started simply copying the definition directly from my Webster’s
student dictionary. I never got in trouble. With 20 seven year-olds turning in
five index cards a week, I strongly suspect my teacher was more interested in
completion than quality, but now I’m pretty mad at myself about this.
My parents still have my index card dictionary. They also
have the index card dictionary my younger brother made two years later with the
same teacher. These two boxes serve to prove one basic claim we in the Writing
Center often make to students: paraphrasing is better than direct quotation.
My brother’s definitions are funny (in a way that only a
second-grader’s concept of words like “enormous” and “mundane” can be). They
are creative and thoughtful and really enjoyable to read several decades after
their creation. About half of mine are similarly entertaining, but it’s quite
easy to determine which definitions are mine and which are plagiarized.
I realize that an academic paper is a different assignment
than one assigned to second graders. But the basic arguments for why your own
words will serve you better than another writer’s words are the same. Let’s
break them down:
Engagement:
Just as a seven year-old’s unique definition of
words tend to be more entertaining than those found in published dictionaries,
you are able to bring a unique perspective to the information you share with
your reader when you formulate it yourself.
Retention:
I assume most of my elementary classmates do not
still have their index-card dictionaries, but the point of the assignment
wasn’t actually to create some kind of family heirloom; the point was to teach
us words. The definitions I crafted myself were much easier to remember than
those I simply copied out on the index cards. The same is true with information
you paraphrase: it becomes better absorbed into your own mind.
Usage:
The retention part feeds into the usage. If I could
remember what a word meant and how to use it, I was much more likely to use it
and add it to my vocabulary. Similarly, when you paraphrase information in
your writing, you more accurately and specifically employ it to meet your own
needs. Of course I’m not talking about taking something out of context or
misrepresenting information, but paraphrasing allows you to shape the delivery
of information in a way that is impossible with direct quotations.
Kacy Walz is a Minnesota native currently living in St. Louis, MO. She has been a Writing Instructor at Walden since 2016 and spends most of her free time trying to complete her PhD, seeking out adventure, and playing with her puppy dog.
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October Webinar Preview
In October, the Writing Center's webinars can help you from beginning to end of any given assignment. We start off thinking about how we can write for social change. Then, join us to learn about, practice, and refine writing thesis statements and editing reference pages. The final webinar of the month will help you think about cohesion in your writing. From the first page to the last page, our webinars can help you grow as an academic writer. If the days/times of these sessions do not fit your schedule, remember that we record all webinars, so you can access them on our site.
The Walden University Writing Center presents weekly webinars on a range of topics related to scholarly writing, APA style, and the writing process. In addition to webinars, the writing center offers paper reviews, live chat, and a podcast to support writers during all stages of their academic careers.
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Here is the list of October webinars:
Date: Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Time (Eastern): 8:00 - 9:00pm
Audience: All students
Date: Thursday, October 12, 2017
Time (Eastern): 7:00 - 8:00pm
Audience: All students
Date: Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Time (Eastern): 4:00 - 5:00pm
Audience: All students
Date: Thursday, October 26, 2017
Time (Eastern): 12:00 - 1:00pm
Audience: All students
The Walden University Writing Center presents weekly webinars on a range of topics related to scholarly writing, APA style, and the writing process. In addition to webinars, the writing center offers paper reviews, live chat, and a podcast to support writers during all stages of their academic careers.
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Paraphrasing Statistics
One of the toughest academic writing skills is paraphrasing.
Students ask me about paraphrasing at every residency, webinar, and course I
teach, and for good reason. Paraphrasing is difficult!
Recently, I’ve fielded a few questions from students worried
specifically about paraphrasing statistics. Using statistics in your writing is
often a smart idea because they can provide specific evidence to support your
ideas, but paraphrasing statistics comes with its own challenges. Here are my
tips for successfully paraphrasing statistics!
Use Your Own Sentence Structure
Students often ask me (sometimes incredulously) how in the
world they can paraphrase a statistic like “57%.” This seems tricky, but it’s
actually pretty simple. Paraphrasing is about the combination of your own sentence
structure and vocabulary. If paraphrasing was just about using your own
vocabulary, you couldn’t use “and” if the original source did, let alone “57%”.
However, as long as you use your own sentence structure and avoid using the
same unique phrasing as the original source, you can use the statistic without
needing to reword it.
For example, take this quote: “In fall 2013, there were
5,522,194 students enrolled in any distance education courses at degree-granting
postsecondary institutions.” (NCES, 2016, para. 2)
I could paraphrase it like this: U.S. universities reported
that 5,522,194 students were taking online courses (NCES, 2016).
Or, depending on how important the exact statistic of
student enrollment is, I could even say something like this: U.S. universities
reported over 5 million students were taking online courses (NCES, 2016).
In these paraphrases I use my own sentence structure and
vocabulary, but I don’t shy away from the statistics in the original quote.
Present the Statistic in a New Format
You can also try reformatting the statistic. This won’t work
in all cases, but take this quote: “Only 1,000 students responded to our
survey, but of those respondents, 60 indicated they expect instructors of
online courses to communicate frequently throughout the week.” (Ya Ni, 2016, p.
13)
Instead of incorporating this statistic exactly as the quote
does, I could rephrase it like this: Ya Ni (2016) found that 6% of students
want frequent interaction with online faculty.
This paraphrase rephrases the quote’s statistic as a
percentage that’s still accurate, but framed differently than the original. Of
course, this approach won’t work for all statistics because sometimes you don’t
have enough information to rephrase a statistic or doing so wouldn’t be
accurate, so make sure you use this approach judiciously.
Focus on Just the Statistic That’s Relevant
Paraphrasing multiple statistics can seem more daunting,
especially when the statistics are throughout an entire sentence like this one:
“Of the 40 students surveyed, 11 strongly favored online learning, 20 were
neutral, and 9 preferred not to learn online.” (Means, Murphy, & Bakia,
2015, p. 75)
Whenever there are multiple statistics in one sentence, think
about which statistic is really important: What main idea or topic are you
trying to support with the statistic? It might be possible to focus on just one
statistic, ignoring the others that are irrelevant, allowing you to incorporate
it into your writing more easily.
For example, if I am writing about students who dislike
learning online in my paper, I can focus just on that statistic: Means, Murphy,
and Bakia (2015) found that 9 of the 40 students they surveyed dislike online
learning.
Partially Quote the Statistic
Finally, if all else fails, you might partially quote the
statistic. I usually recommend students try the other approaches outlined above
first (more on this paraphrase topic in next week’s post), but there might be
times when quoting a statistic ensures your writing is clear and accurate.
Let’s try this out with the following quote: “There is a 5:1
ratio by which learners differ, which means that the slowest student takes 5
times as long to learn as the fastest.” (University of Potomac, 2016, para. 6)
Using this quote, I might incorporate it into my own
sentence like this: There can be a wide difference in the time it takes
students to learn a concept, as much as “a 5:1 ratio by which learners differ”
(University of Potomac, 2016, para. 6).
This partial quote works well because it accurately presents
this statistic, but the quote is still integrated into my own sentence.
And that’s it! Try these tips the next time you use
statistics in your writing, and let us know how it goes. You can always e-mail or chat live with us, sending us your sentence and asking how you’re doing. We’d be
happy to take a look!
Have you seen the other posts in this Paraphrasing blog series? If not, click the links to learn more.
Paraphrasing, an Introduction
Paraphrasing Enhances Learning
Paraphrasing to Avoid Plagiarism
Beth Nastachowski is the Manager of Multimedia Writing Instruction in the Writing Center. She joined the Writing Center in 2010, and enjoys helping students develop their own voice as writers through webinars, residencies, and multimedia resources. She is also Contributing Faculty for Walden's Academic Skills Center (ASC).
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A Little Something to Remember: The Importance of Academic Integrity
Recently, a BBC Brasil reporter revealed that a news photographer had been plagiarizing his photographs. Instead of taking his own photos of war zones, he took existing photos and altered them just enough to avoid being recognized. This isn't the first time a plagiarism scandal has been exposed in the media, but it helps to remind us that plagiarism isn't an issue confined to college-level writing.
While this specific case is an example of overt plagiarism, many academic writers struggle with passive or accidental plagiarism. One missed citation, one unclear citation, or even a series of pieced together paraphrases can create an issue related to academic integrity. To avoid such a situation, it can be helpful to review ways to avoid passive plagiarism.
The Walden University Writing Center has several resources to help writers understand why academic integrity is important and how to stay out of situations that might lead to unintentional plagiarism:
Avoiding unintentional plagiarism blog post
Patchwork paraphrasing blog post
Plagiarism prevention resource kit
Plagiarism prevention modules
The three components to avoiding plagiarism webinar
The Walden University Writing Center is committed to helping students develop as writers. Resources include a blog, live webinars, modules, a podcast, and one-on-one paper reviews.
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While this specific case is an example of overt plagiarism, many academic writers struggle with passive or accidental plagiarism. One missed citation, one unclear citation, or even a series of pieced together paraphrases can create an issue related to academic integrity. To avoid such a situation, it can be helpful to review ways to avoid passive plagiarism.
The Walden University Writing Center has several resources to help writers understand why academic integrity is important and how to stay out of situations that might lead to unintentional plagiarism:
Avoiding unintentional plagiarism blog post
Patchwork paraphrasing blog post
Plagiarism prevention resource kit
Plagiarism prevention modules
The three components to avoiding plagiarism webinar
The Walden University Writing Center is committed to helping students develop as writers. Resources include a blog, live webinars, modules, a podcast, and one-on-one paper reviews.
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