Skip to main content

What time is it?

It's research paper time!

The end of the semester is fast approaching, and many students are beginning to start their research papers. Are you one of those students?

The Writing Center is a great resource to use as you begin this process. We look forward to helping you with your research papers. When coming to the Writing Center for your research paper, please remember the following:

- Start early! There have been many times when students come in for a tutoring session just hours before their research paper is due, and this makes it difficult for us to assist the student. The sooner you come in, the more we will be able to help. Since research papers are often longer than other assignments, we may not be able to get through an entire draft in just one session.

- Bring all prewriting that you have done. By bringing all your prewriting material with you, we will be able to see where you are in your writing process, and we will be able to guide you in the right direction.

- Bring your sources. We will be able to refer directly to your sources if you bring them to your session, which can be particularly helpful if you are having questions about plagiarism.

- Have a copy of your professor's instructions with you. We will be able to fully understand your assignment if you have your instructions. We may even catch something that you might have missed in the instructions!

- Familiarize yourself with your topic and your sources. Having formed some basic opinions on your topic will help you organize your thoughts, which will make for a more productive tutoring session.

Remember, the Writing Center has limited spots. Sign up early to reserve your tutoring session.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Three Common Culprits: Fragments, Fused Sentences, and Comma Splices

Ever wonder why we can't just write the way we talk? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could? For most of us, however, writing the way we talk isn’t a great idea. Just listen to Boomhower from King of the Hill as he calls 911.  Can you imagine an academic paper written Boomhower style? No. Definitely not. This may be unwelcome news, but readers do have expectations of writers, and those expectations change from setting to setting. For example, if we read a creative piece—say The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain—we likely would have more patience with the material than if we read a news article in a periodical (magazine or newspaper) or a professional web page. Readers’ expectations change according to the setting. You might have a group of readers who watch Family Guy or read comic books, and those readers would still expect a more formal writing style if they read your college paper.  The sentences need to be clear, first of all. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Things Get in the Way

Imagine this: you and your significant other are at a campus event. You can’t help but notice another person making eyes at your sweetie. In fact, you find that you are pretty upset because this person is threatening the agreement between the two of you. That agreement is, obviously, that you are a couple. A similar situation can happen in sentences when considering subject-verb agreement. In the classic Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, 4 th ed ., subject-verb agreement is described as the following: “The number of the subject determines the number of the verb” (9). Yep. Words have to agree. Agreement is paramount. When writing in English, the only numbers a writer needs to concern herself with are one—a.k.a. singular—and more than one—a.k.a. more than one. It’s pure symmetry. However, when phrases interrupt that symmetry, a Pandora’s Box of confusion springs open. The subject and verb agree in the following sentence: Corey loves beating Michel at Call of Du...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Writing... (#1) - compiled by Sue Ledger

Start writing a new chapter, for if you live by the book you'll never make history. - Ben Sobel There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing. - Benjamin Disraeli No race can prosper till it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. - Booker Taliaferro Washington I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another. - Brenda Ueland Journal writing is a voyage to the interior. - Christina Baldwin Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you. - Cyril Connolly Major writing is to say what has been seen, so that it need never be said again. - Delmore Schwartz Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death - fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treache...
Post a Comment
Read more