APA Style 2020 Posts You Don’t Want to Miss
Now that 2020 is in our rearview mirror (thank goodness!), I thought it appropriate to usher in the New Year with a recap of not-to-miss Writing Center blogcasts that concern APA Style as we...
Academic Success and Writing Blog
Finally Found: The Golden Fleece to Improve Student Correspondence to a Professor!
THE PROBLEM. “Dear (I forgot your name) professor” … “”Could give more clarification about the thing you mentioned in that section of my paper where I discussed it like you told me?” … [first...
Some Thoughts on the Question, “Why Do We Have to Write?”
Hi folks! This is Robley, a tutor in the Writing Center. In the previous blogcast, Kurtis shared my video Why Write?, which focuses on the writing most people do outside of school (like sympathy...
New Publishing Schedule
Hey, everyone, this is Kurtis from the Writing Center with an update on the Academic Success Center blogcast schedule. This post will be the last weekly Friday post as we will be moving to...
Finding Balance When Using Research
Last week I shared research writing resources located in the Writing Center at Purdue Global University and talked briefly about research writing. One of the resources I mentioned concerned what I can best describe...
Research Writing Resources
Research writing is time consuming, and for many student researchers, questions pop up along the way. Am I citing this source correctly? Have I paraphrased effectively? Am I using too many direct quotations? And...
Don’t Drop Quotes
One of the skills college writers need is the ability to work with sources. Students need to be able to paraphrase, summarize, and quote, and in order to do that they need to be...
Whilst I Was Reading
Whilst I was reading the other day, I noticed the annoying frequency with which the word “whilst” was suddenly being used. I don’t recall the word being used often if at all, but now,...
College Writing & Professor Expectations
For many new college students, the thought of taking a writing course is greeted with the same kind of enthusiasm you would have for visiting the dentist for a root canal: something that needs...
The It’s/Its/Its’ Conundrum
Lately, I’ve been seeing more and more errors in two sound-alike words: the possessive pronoun “its” and the contraction for “it is.” Writers seem confused (or perhaps just too rushed?) about whether or not...
Patchwriting
We all know that plagiarism is wrong, and that in the academic world, it is akin to stealing. Document content that doesn’t belong to you is the proverbial rule of thumb professors offer. If...