Author: Corinne A. Nulton (Page 4 of 6)

Writing Spaces and Sounds to Help you Focus

November 9, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

Did you know there’s an entire field of literature about “writing spaces” and how they are linked to productivity and thought complexity? You may be limited to certain physical spaces as a student, but it’s still important you find the place where you feel comfortable and focused. Having a space conducive to writing is actually an essential part of the writing process. What sounds, sights, textures, and smells help you write?

Some students love the coffee shop vibe and the hustle and bustle of people moving in and out of small spaces with muted voices. Some people prefer the isolated corners of the fifth floor of the library where it’s silent and serious. Others like to write in the bed, in their dorm room, cocooned in blankets with their laptop on their knees.

It doesn’t matter where you write, so long as you know what spaces help you write.

Consider this: Where do you write? If you have writing anxiety, how can you make the space feel more comfortable and relaxing? Maybe you can wrap a blanket around your chair or hang up your favorite photos. If you have trouble focusing, maybe you should turn off the internet when you open up your word processor or maybe you should clear off your entire desk.

Sometimes there is no physical space that works. Maybe it’s difficult for you to focus everywhere. If that’s the case, then you need a mental space rather than a physical space.

Try using sound to help you immerse in a project. Some students like music. Others prefer white noise. The link below leads to a free site that generates different forms of background noise, and you can mix sounds to help you relax and focus. Maybe the sound of campfire and rain brings you back to your favorite childhood memory of a family camping trip, and the sounds can help you find that comfortable space you need to dive into a looming paper.

Check out these sounds to help you relax and focus!

Visual Dictionaries

November 9, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

Listed below are the links to free online visual dictionaries. Visual dictionaries use images rather than blocks of text to define words. When you type in a word, the platform will pull up webs of related words and indicate how each word should be used (like as a noun, a verb, an adverb, etc.) based on the color of the lines. You can hover your mouse over any word and a quick, one-sentence definition pops-up. You can also move and manipulate the web by dragging words around. It’s a great way to make abstract concepts more concrete and visible. Kinesthetic learners might enjoy manipulating the webs. It’s also a good way to learn new words by seeing the words that are associated with the new word, and the webs do a great job at illustrating how the words are related.

Check it out!

Using Strong Verbs

November 8, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

The best way to engage your reader is by crafting sentences with compelling action verbs. However, it’s much easier to use dull, passive forms of “to-be” when talking talking about ideas or abstract concepts. When you finish your first draft, it helps to highlight all of the instances of “is”, “are”, “were”, and “was”, and maybe even “have”, “has” and “had” to see how frequently you depend on these verbs. Then you can explore possible alternatives.

Here’s a a worksheet of strong action verbs organized by genre.

How to Write About Literature

November 3, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

There’s certain conventions that you need to know when analyzing a short story or comparing literary works by the same author. For example, you need to know how to write the title: is it in quotes? Is it italicized? Are you using a long quote or a short quote when inserting the text? Do you know how to cite it? Are you writing an analysis opposed to a plot summary? Do you know what tense to use when describing actions that occurred in the work? There’s a lot of rules!

Here’s the Golden Rules When Writing About Literature:

Don’t summarize, but analyze. Your instructor has read the text and doesn’t need a detailed recap. They are more interested in how you can interpret the text. What do you think is significant about the text?
Read the text closely. Annotate as you read in order to identify a unique a theme or a idea. We have a digital worksheet to walk you through that process here.
Have a strong thesis. Check out our resources for thesis statements here.
Know the literary terminology and use it effectively. Here’s a quick list of terms, definitions, and samples.
Use the present tense when describing actions in the piece.
Use the present tense when describing what the author does.
Remember that the narrator is different from the author.
Write the author’s name correctly. When you reference the author, write their first and last name the very first time you reference them. Use only the last name when referring to the author later in your paper.
Use direct quotes from the text. Generally, it’s better to use the quotes than to paraphrase so your reader can see the exact text.
You must provide an explanation of each quote you provide. What is the significance of the quote? How does it support your thesis? Why did you include it? What does it do/say/indicate?
Make sure you cite your quotes correctly by using in-text citations. Check out this quick guide. If you have multiple works by the same author, you’ll need to include some extra information.
Indicate titles correctly. Titles of larger works or containers (like books, plays, anthologies) are italicized. Shorter works within containers (like chapters, poems, short stories) have “quotes” around them.
Use strong verbs. Let’s avoid “is”, “are”, “has”, “does”, and maybe even move away from “says” and “states”. Check out the list of strong verbs for literary essays here.
Use good sources. If you have to use other sources, use the databases in the library, not google. Check out these databases first.
Use your professor’s office hours. Once you have a rough draft, go to your professor’s office hours and see if you’re on the right track. Don’t skip this step. Professors may look for different qualities in papers, and you need to know what they expect from you. For example, I once had an English professor that wanted my paper to contain most of the lecture notes. I later had a English professor that did not what me to use any of the ideas discussed in class. Instead, he wanted my own original ideas about the text. Those are very different expectations!
Beware of the internet. I know students will browse the internet as a way to get their own ideas flowing. No Fear Shakespeare, GoodReads, and SparkNotes offer chapter-by-chapter interpretations of classical works. That doesn’t mean they are high quality, but they usually have a brief, easy-to-read format, which draws students to them in their brainstorming process. Don’t do it! But, if you can’t resist this temptation, then keep track of each source you read and remember to cite it correctly if you use that idea or a very similar idea anywhere in your paper.

Here’s a detailed handout with examples of how to use these rules.

It’s one of my personal favorites. It provides excellent examples of summary and analysis paragraphs. It also gives you examples of strong thesis statements for literary papers, and it demonstrates a variety of in-text citations with MLA format. I strongly recommend you check it out before you write your next English paper.

Other Tools and Resources:

Student Sample Essays	Student Sample Essay Paragraph-by-Paragraph Student Sample Paper in MLA format
Student Sample Essays on Poetry Analysis	Student Sample Paper
Upper Level Student Sample Essays	A Compilation of Student Sample Papers from the 200-400 Level Literature Courses
Graphic Organizer for Literary Analysis	Multiple Graphic Organizers

Using a Research Log

November 2, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

A research log is a tool to help you organize, analyze, and evaluate sources as you begin to gather information about a topic. It typically consists of a table with labels across the top that serve as a set of instructions when approaching a new source. Filling out each column helps you gather the information you need for your project. For example, you’ll need to include the full-citation in your research log, which will allow to to copy and paste the full citation into your completed draft later. You also need to include what makes the source credible, so you’ll remember to check if it’s peer-reviewed or scholarly. That information will become important later as you determine which of your sources should be included in your draft based off their relevance and credibility. Perhaps you’ll have some sources in the log that support your argument, but they come from low quality sources. Comparing the credibility will help you make those choices. Most importantly, a research log lets you place all of your evidence in one spot so can easily compare data from each source. The table will ensure that you don’t confuse your sources or accidentally plagiarize by crediting a fact to a different source. Finally, there’s a space for you to analyze the evidence in the log and link it to your main argument.

There’s two major reasons for using a research log :

1.) It will keep you organized. Rather than jotting notes in a notebook, filling in the required information for each column in a research log will ensure you’ve collected the needed information before moving on to the next source. You won’t have to keep returning to previous sources or struggle to remember how you found a source because your search terms and databases are in the log. You’ll also never lose a source or forget where a quote came from.

2) It will help you compare your evidence. Having the evidence from all of the sources in one place lets you look at the data side-by-side to evaluate which items would be best to include in your paper. Looking at all of the evidence in a research log can also help you refine your thesis before you begin drafting.

If you have to write a paper that requires research, this tool can save you a significant amount of time, and it could eliminate stress later on in your writing process.

Here’s a template for a Research Log

A Literature Review Matrix

November 2, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

A matrix is a tool that allows you to quickly compare and contrast multiple sources by placing their aims, methods, and findings in one chart. These tables allow you to see similarities or distinctions in methodologies, limitations, and findings in studies with related aims so you can look at a field more globally to identify a niche to explore, or a new direction to pursue, or a potential knowledge gap. By comparing multiple sources through this method you can quickly identify commonalities and key differences that will allow you to propose a unique thesis or a potential research design for future inquiry. While you do not have to use a matrix to write a literature review, it is a great resource in seeing relationships between studies, and it becomes more essential as you examine more and more sources.

Here is an example of a matrix with common elements; however, the categories of a matrix are usually dependent on the specific discipline, so feel free to adjust this document in a way that best serves your research.

Literature Review Matrix

A Quick Tool for Building Your Vocabulary and Eliminating Redundancy

November 2, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

We all have our favorite phrases and “go-to” words. I often find myself repeating these words multiple times in a single paragraph:

Thought Reversals: “however,” “although,”

Thought Extensions: “also”, “and it states”

Interpreting Statements: “so”, “this means that”

On my first draft, the repetition doesn’t matter, but when I start revising, I have to rethink each of those sentences so that I’m not redundant—I want to show that I can articulate my thoughts in a variety of ways to keep my reader engaged.

I’ve found that most college freshmen struggle with building their vocabulary and minimizing the usage of their “go-to” words and phrases. Your vocabulary will grow naturally as you read and become familiar with expressions in your discipline.

However, if the paper is due tomorrow, you may not have that sort of time. You need some tools to expedite that process.

One my favorite tools to eliminate redundancy is https://www.wordhippo.com/.

Here’s why . . .

You can pull up synonyms, antonyms, definitions, examples of usage, and the most common forms of usage by searching for a single keyword.
The synonym search works well: it’s broken down by the possible definitions of the original word, and it generates several synonyms on each search.
You can search for both words and phrases, though it works better with just words.
Everything is hyperlinked! If you find a new word that’s a synonym, you can click on it to check the definition so that you’re using the new word correctly in your context.
If you want to use a word that’s unfamiliar to you, you can click to have the word pronounced correctly for you.
There’s a “See Also” section that further explains how to use the word in grammatically correct formations.
Are you taking a poetry writing class? Or maybe you want to embellish a paper with some poetics? This site will generate rhymes for your words and phrases, too.

However, this website is ultimately just a machine pulling up prewritten data—keep that in mind. That means it doesn’t give you the connotations for the specific keyword (so if you are replacing a negatively charged word like “stuffy,” you may accidently insert a positively charged word like “cozy”. ) It also doesn’t say if the synonym has any slight differences from the original word on the landing page, and that could lead to using words that don’t express exactly what you mean. Last, it doesn’t work well with field-specific vocabulary.

Still, I’d recommend this resource for eliminating word-choice redundancy, and you’ll find that as you search for more and more words, you’ll acquire more and more words.

Transition Words and Phrases

November 1, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

It’s time to abandon the simple “First” , “Second”, “Finally,” and “In conclusion” transition words from high school. It’s no longer acceptable to have “and” twice in a single sentence or “also” twice in the same paragraph. You instead need words, phrases, and constructions that not only transition your thoughts, but that reflect the relationships between your ideas. Listed below is my favorite list of transitions sorted by the relationships they express.

The Best Quick List of Transitions and Conjunctions Sorted by Type

This next list is another one of my favorites. It’s less colorful, but significantly more extensive. It also includes more academic transitions, and it has longer transitional phrases. It’s three full pages of transitions by type. Just be sure to look up sample constructions–not all of these words can just be inserted into a sentence. For example “embark” is used very differently in a sentence than “commencing with”

The Best Extensive List with Some Uncommon Transitions Sorted by Purpose

This next resource is a chart of common transitions in the “word” form and in the “phrase” form with examples of how to use them effectively in sentence constructions. All of these words are included in the previous two worksheets, but this particular resource is useful if you need to convert a one-word transition into a phrase to emphasize a point. Sometimes writers use full phrases to transition between larger ideas (or paragraphs) and single word transitions to move between little ideas (like individual pieces of evidence). It doesn’t provide a lot of examples, but it shows how to use each in a sentence correctly with punctuation, which is beneficial.

Samples of Word Transitions Converted to Phrase Transitions with Examples

Imposter Syndrome

October 31, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

Imposter syndrome is that feeling of “I don’t belong here” specifically because “I don’t know enough.” It’s a common type of anxiety experienced by graduate students as novice experts in their field. It can prevent students from making the most of their educational experience because they are afraid to try new things or attempt challenges for fear of judgement. They feel like a fraud, and worry that someone will realize they’re a fraud, even though that’s not true. If you are accepted into a graduate program, you deserve to be there. You have earned your place there, even if you sometimes feel out of place there.

It’s important to remember that this feeling is common when you are surrounded by academics who are experts in the field and who have had years to hone their skill-sets. It’s unfair to compare yourself to them or to others in your program. Sometimes the feeling is so intense that it becomes a barrier that cripples a student’s academic performance. Check out the resources below to learn how to manage and overcome “Imposter Syndrome.”

Here’s an article that describes the common symptoms of Imposter Syndrome and how to combat them.

This is an infographic with some suggestions on how to manage feelings of Imposter Syndrome.

Using Quotes

October 31, 2022 / Corinne A. Nulton / 0 Comments

by Owen Stanczak

To select quotes, it is important to first understand what it is that you are talking about. Trying to select quotes without a strong central thesis often leads to a jumble of unrelated segments from the text or texts you are using for support.

The first step is to think carefully and clearly about the point you are trying to make. What is your claim? Why did you choose that claim? Was there something about the text that led you to your conclusion? What specifically about the text relates to the claim you are making?

Once you have established your claim, begin thinking about which parts of the text that you are using relate to specific parts of your claim. Thinking about this will allow you to pinpoint areas where you may find the most relevant quotes. I always try to remember specific sentences or phrases that stood out to me while reading.

Once you find quotes that fit your claim, begin to organize them. You can do this by writing them down, or using sticky notes. Use a system to organize them, whether by topic, or by order which they will appear in your paper. Using different colored sticky notes to differentiate topics, and numbering each sticky note in the order in which the quote will appear in your paper is one effective method.

Once you have chosen and organized your quotes, you can easily incorporate them into your paper. Just make sure to introduce and explain your quotes when they appear in the paper and you’re all set!

Introducing and Analyzing Quotes

How to Build Complex Paragraphs with Quotes

Integrating Quotes Correctly to Avoid Plagiarism

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