Scranton Writes

A Blog of Writing Resources from The University of Scranton's Writing Center

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

The Proof is in the Writing

October 14, 2022 / / 0 Comments

By Danielle DePasquale

After finally finishing a written assignment, one may be quick to submit their work immediately. Not having to look at that assignment ever again brings about a sense of great relief. However, receiving that assignment back covered in commentary about minute spelling and grammar errors dampens that sense of accomplishment. Even though writing the final sentence of a concluding paragraph may seem to signify the end of the writing process, proofreading your work is just as essential. Reviewing your work ensures that you’re submitting an assignment that is logically sound and addresses the task at hand. Hence, I highly recommend reading written assignments aloud, which allows you to actually hear what your writing sounds like. We are all human and mistakes happen when typing up assignments. This way, you can make any edits or adjustments needed to express your ideas clearly and concisely. If you find reading your own writing aloud tedious or don’t want to disturb your roommates, you can plug in some headphones and access the “Immersive Reader” function available in Microsoft Word; this tool has the computer read your paper back to you. It’s a great tool to check for typos, grammar errors, redundancy, and verbose phrasing.  This is how you access it.

Check out this video demo here: Immersive Reader Video Demo.mp4

 

 

And proofreading your paper doesn’t have to happen right away. In fact, stepping away from your writing and revisiting with a clear head will enhance your ability to conduct a comprehensive and meaningful review of your work. In the future, I implore you to try either strategy before you submit your next assignment.

 

 

Do you have “alot” of spelling errors or “a lot” of spelling errors?

October 13, 2022 / / 0 Comments

“A lot” is the correct spelling, but there are several words and phrases that are frequently confused in the English language. For example,   is the family going to the pumpkin patch “All together” or the adverb form “Altogether”?  Is it “already” or “all ready” five o’clock  on a Friday?  Did you find the movie “Climactic” or “climatic”?  Was there an “allusion” or “Illusion” to the Bible  in short story you just read? Are you attending “college” or “collage”?  Is it difficult to “chose” or “choose” the correct word? If this reflects some of  “your” or “you’re” spelling woes, this is a fantastic resource for you.

The website below has brief glossary of the most common spelling errors and word confusions in the English language. It’s organized alphabetically in a massive three-column table so you can scroll quickly to find what you are searching for or you can click on the letters at the top to jump to specific part of the page. The explanations are very concise with just a sentence or  two to dedicated to each item. It also links out to other webpages within the site for further explanation for grammatical rules, like pronouns or tense.  Understanding the difference between the confused words can prevent you from confusing them in the future. Likewise, looking up the spelling of certain words by using this site can be a good reminder that “alot” isn’t a real word but “a lot” is and “with in” should always be “within.”

It’s fast. It’s accurate. It’s user-friendly.  It’s great resource to double-check commonly confused or misspelled words as you begin to revise your essays.

 

Click on the link below, and then select “Go to List of Errors”

Common Errors in English Usage

 

The Ending is Just as Important as the Beginning

October 11, 2022 / / 0 Comments

by Stephanie Vasquez

Picture this. You have a big research paper that you’ve been working on. You researched, you outlined, you planned, and you wrote the most amazing paper ever…..and then you got to your conclusion. You’re staring at your screen, and you’re blanking. You don’t know what to write, and you don’t even know if your brain can even write anymore. Sound familiar? If you’ve ever been in this position, do not fear: you are not alone.

You’ve probably heard quotes like “starting is the hardest part of the journey” or “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a simple step”. While those are true, sometimes people forget to mention that ending the journey is also hard, and this applies to ending a writing journey as well. It is hard to start a paper, but once you get going and you have your paper written, the biggest struggle comes in ending it. So how do we do that?

This tip I’m going to give you is corny but bear with me. Imagine that you’re on stage during a rap battle. Your paper is the bars that you’re “freestyling’. Now, if you get to end your “freestyle” and you feel that you can’t drop the mic, then that means that your conclusion isn’t strong enough. Nothing kills a paper instantly than when you have a super super super strong paper….and then it flatlines at the end. Your conclusion is the very last thing people read. An introduction is memorable, but people are going to remember what you left them with even more.

Now this leads to another question, which is, how do you make your paper memorable? There is nothing I hate more than the words “in conclusion”, “as previously stated”, “as I mentioned before”, etc. We get it. We literally just read your paper! The audience should be able to tell that they reached the conclusion without you having to tell them. You don’t want to leave them wanting more, but you shouldn’t also have them wondering when you are ever get to the end. Tie up your ideas in your paper in a nice, short, and simple way. You don’t want to restate your ideas–you want to reinforce them. You want to synthesize them. You want to explain what the bigger implication is–why should your reader care that you proved your idea? Why does that idea matter? What’s the greater significance?

So now it’s my turn to end this, and how do I end this post? By metaphorically dropping the mic.

Here’s a guide to help you write strong conclusions. 

 

 

A Quick Resource for Writing in Specific Contexts

October 7, 2022 / / 0 Comments

A Resource for Writing in Specific Contexts

The way that we write—the tone, the style, the formatting, and the organization—depends on the context. It’s likely that the five-paragraph-essay from high school will simply not work in most situations that require writing, especially when you need to write strictly-structured pieces, like an abstract, a cover letter, or lab report. There are so many types of assignments that you’ll need to create during your college career, like annotated bibliographies, literature reviews, and poetry explications. Your instructors will rarely include sample papers or detailed formatting guides, so it can be overwhelming. On top of that, each discipline has their own conventions, style, and citation format. The use of personal pronouns might be recommended in for your philosophy essay, but those same pronouns will probably cost you points in an essay for your upper level nursing course.

Knowing how to respond to different writing situations comes with experience and exposure to each field.  However, this resource is a great guide to get you started in understanding special formats and discipline specific standards: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/

Benefits of this resource: It walks you through specific writing assignments, step by step.

Drawbacks of this resource: You’ll notice it has other topics about writing, citations, and sentence-level concerns. While all this information is useful, I’m not sure it’s the best resource for citations or for revising sentences.

However, I would say it’s one of the most user-friendly resources  with quick guides in discipline-specific writing and  examples of specific writing formats.

Online Graphic Organizers & Prewriting

October 3, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Let’s be honest: most college students don’t prewrite. Maybe they talk about their ideas with a close friend. Maybe they mull things over as they sip some coffee. Maybe they jot down a quick skeleton with their main points, but they rarely do the full-brown detailed A-B-C outline or draw a gigantic idea web or use the traditional methods of prewriting. There’s a population of college students who don’t even prewrite, because when you procrastinate, there’s no time for that.

However, time spent prewriting before your first draft can save you double that amount of time. It may even eliminate entire drafts in the revising process.  Yet, students want to jump face-first onto the page, spit out their thoughts, and fill up the white space as they type. Maybe now that we have moved out of an age of handwritten notes and into an age of digital files, we need pre-writing tools that reflect that. After all, our word processors allow us to add and delete text with no consequences, but notebook paper rips and stains; it’s just not as forgiving.

Personally, I’ve found that digital graphic organizers are great way to prewrite. It’s a fun, colorful way to ease into your formal black-and-white paper.  The great thing about using online organizers is that you can easily manipulate the elements, tweak the colors and fonts, change the content, or copy them for future use.  Some websites have even made genre specific essay templates, which can help you approach a specific type of paper.

Why should you use a graphic organizer?

  •     It will help eliminate ideas that are irrelevant
  •    It will help you explore how you feel about your topic before researching it
  •   It can help you move from “topic” to “thesis” as you compile your research
  •   It will help you order those ideas and group together closely related ideas.
  •   It will show you where you need to transition between those ideas
  •   If you include your points of support, you can easily see if one of your ideas needs more  evidence
  •   It will show you if you should move points of support to other areas
  • A really good graphic organizer can work like an outline, so you can focus on language in the revision phase rather than organizing.  In this way, it can ensure each of your sentences will be serving a specific purpose.

Here’s some Free Online Graphic Organizers through Google Docs:

Here’s some more genre specific organizers through Canva:

Canva is my personal favorite when it comes to making graphic organizers. Because it’s a graphic design site, the options are endless. Just be careful you don’t spend too much time on the design and not enough time on writing. Here’s some genre specific pre-made templates:

 

 

General Prewriting Idea Webs

 

To modify any of these Canva templates, click “Edit Design.” Make a Canva account if you don’t already have one, and then go to File—Make a Copy. From there you can save your work as an open project or you could download it to a PDF under “Share.”

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