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What are some of the challenges you think you will face as you develop your academic writing skills? What do you think you’ll have to do to overcome those challenges?

If you find it difficult to set aside time to write, what are some ways of including writing into your schedule? How can you apply some of the writing skills you

already have into an approach that will develop your academic writing skills? Can you think of some advantages to being an adult learner that will help you become a

strong academic writer?

As you make your way through the first four modules, keep in mind that one of them will be the content for your first reflective paper. Pick the module that left the

biggest impression.

Remember to add a reference to all postings.

Yours truly,
Introduction

The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.

– Mary Heaton Vorse (1874-1966), Journalist and Activist

Writing is the primary mode for the communication of ideas in an academic institution. Along with your reading and studying, writing tasks will likely take up an

equivalent portion of your time. Whether you are writing tests, exams, lab reports, case studies or essays, you must remember that organization, clarity, spelling,

grammar and proper citation, documentation and formatting are all important considerations when conveying your message to others.

As an adult learner, you may find writing to be the most challenging aspect of university learning. You may have spent time in a career field that requires a certain

type of writing, writing that you have become very good at but which may not be appropriate for the style and tone of academic writing. You may be returning to school

after a long period of time and are nervous about the expectations of academic writing. Or, you may have come out of the college system and are learning that the

requirements for research are quite different. Whatever your experience, there are many different skills and strategies to help you become familiar with academic

writing and to become adept at academic writing.

One thing to keep in mind as you begin writing in university, is that developing your writing takes time, and that you will become a much stronger writer by virtue of

practicing writing. Just as your knowledge of a certain field or discipline will develop considerably over the next 4 years, so too will your ability to write in an

academic style. This takes effort and time, but it is worth it because most of your professors will evaluate your knowledge and ability to think critically about a

subject through your writing.

The first way to become familiar with the expectations of academic writing is to read some! In week one you were asked to read articles about adult learners. You may

have noticed that the articles were quite long, they included discipline-specific jargon, they referenced other scholars’ work and other theories, and they included

long bibliographies. These are just a few of the ways you can identify academic writing.

The Dartmouth Writing Center provides an excellent description of academic writing, and methods of becoming an academic writer, here:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/what.shtml
Learning Outcomes

In this class you will:

describe the characteristics of “university quality” writing;
define the essay and describe different kinds of essays and their purposes;
define an academic paper and describe its common conventions;
identify and correct common errors in usage which tend to make writing “awkward”;
identify and correct errors in spelling, grammar, mechanics, and usage in your own work.
1. Required Reading

Read Chapter 6,from your textbook, Keys to Success: Core Concepts. The text gives another overview of various steps in the writing process and includes tips on how to

avoid plagiarism.

Also, go back to Module 1 and choose an article about adult learners that you did not read for week 1. Think about how the author has constructed, contextualized, and

supported his or her argument. Notice how and why they reference other scholars’ work, how they introduce their ideas or argument, and what conclusions they draw from

their findings.

Here is a cool tool to try if you find that reading is a challenge (especially after a long day staring at a computer screen!): Natural Reader is a very cool (and

free) text reader. Highlight any e-text, press play and listen as it reads to you. Natural Reader is also a great tool to help you edit your writing; it helps you to

hear your errors.

For more info visit http://www.naturalreaders.com.

2. Use Good Resources

Make sure you have a few basic texts that you can refer to as you have questions about your writing. Here are some recommended ones.

A dictionary, on-line or print (Recommended: the Oxford English Dictionary is available through the Nipissing library website).
A dictionary of synonyms or a thesaurus.
A good grammar handbook (“good” means not a “jiffy” coil-ringed, the-minimum-you-need-to-know type but a hardcover, substantial reference book). It is wise to borrow

one or two of the many such handbooks from the library until you find one you like. A few which are very thorough: The Canadian Writer’s Handbook or Simon & Schuster

Handbook for Writers.
A text which helps you understand writing with clarity, coherence and cohesion. Recommended: Style by Joseph Williams (this is a small little book which sells for a

very reasonable price) ISBN 0-321330854.
A text which helps you with the process of academic writing and gives you some useful templates. Recommended: They Say, I Say by Graff and Birkenstein (ISBN

10:039392409).
Any reference text or guidebook your professor recommends for the discipline you are most interested in. For example, if you are planning on taking a lot of history

classes, Mary Rampolla’s book A Pocket Guide to Writing in History is extremely useful.
Manuals you will need to refer to a lot, but which you need not purchase (because there are many copies in our library and online) are the handbooks which explain the

process of documenting your sources. These manuals vary with the discipline you are studying. For example, if you are taking courses in the humanities, you will need

to become familiar with the MLA (Modern Language Association) handbook; if you are taking courses in history, you will need to know the Chicago handbook; if you are

studying social sciences, you will need to understand the APA (American Psychological Association) handbook.
Visit and carefully read all of thefollowing links to mini lessons provided by Georgia. This is an invaluable guide as Georgia has captured, explained and given

remedies for the most common errors we find in our students’ writing. I will be looking for these errors in your writing!

3. Good Advice About Academic Writing

The following links were created by the Academic Skills Coordinator at Nipissing, on many aspects of writing, all of which will help with your own academic writing.

Visit and carefully read all of the above links to mini lessons. This is an invaluable guide that captures, explains and gives remedies for the most common errors in

students’ writing. Your professors will be looking for these errors in your writing!

Writing an Essay

The Essay
Writing an Academic Paper – Some Conventions
Grammar & Style

Basic Grammar and Mechanics & Practice Exercises
Phrases, clauses, fragments, run-ons, modifiers, pronouns, commas and much more
What is an “AWKWARD” sentence?
Explanations and examples of common errors with Nominalizations, Parallelism and Mixed Construction
4. Get Great Help

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and advice about your writing! If you are near the Nipissing university campus you can stop by the Writing Drop-in Centre (during the

Fall/Winter school terms, September to April). The Writing Drop-in Centre is currently situated in A201. You don’t need an appointment, but help is offered on a

first-come, first-served basis.

You can also find help through Nipissing’s Academic Skills Co-ordinator, Lindsey Voisin. Lindsey provides writing support for students at the North Bay campus, as well

as through distance for students at the Muskoka and Brantford campuses. Lindsey happily helps students with any difficulties they may experience including

understanding assignments, developing a thesis, organizing papers, and correcting sentence structures and mechanics. You can make an appointment to meet with her

through one of the secretaries, or you can email her at acaskills@nipissingu.ca, or you can call her at 705-474-3450 extension 4559.

If you are not on campus, you may want to ask someone who is a strong writer to read over your work. Not everyone is an expert editor, but many readers can identify

problems with clarity, structure, or grammar. If you know someone who you can ask to read over a draft of your work, make the most of your peer’s editing and ask them

to focus on specific aspects of your work. For instance, you might ask your peer editor to comment on your ability to link ideas between paragraphs, or let you know

how strongly your thesis is supported throughout the paper. If you can be direct with a peer editor, you can usually get useful feedback from them. Make sure to give

them plenty of time to read over your work before your deadline.

Here is how Bonnie worked on her writing skills using a friend as a tutor:

I have a friend who offers to be my tutor. She is a retired teacher who majored in English at university. We meet, review my assignment tasks, put them in manageable

steps and set time-lines. If I get overwhelmed (which was quite often at first), she urges me to call her and discuss the issues. Meeting with her is always

productive. (Before I met her, I had cancelled a semester because I was so stressed.) During editing of my essays, she requires simplification and clarification of

areas that lack logic or clarity. I am quite pleased that she understood my last essay right from the start. Her payoff is that she learns quite a bit about certain

topics without having to attend class.

5. Discussion Topic

What are some of the challenges you think you will face as you develop your academic writing skills? What do you think you’ll have to do to overcome those challenges?

If you find it difficult to set aside time to write, what are some ways of including writing into your schedule? How can you apply some of the writing skills you

already have into an approach that will develop your academic writing skills? Can you think of some advantages to being an adult learner that will help you become a

strong academic writer?

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