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Writing and Speaking
Composing Processes: Planning and Organizing
These guides provide advice on composing processes such as developing ideas, choosing and refining topics, reading critically, planning your document, and organizing your ideas. Use these guides to help yourself start and prepare to write a document.
Understanding Writing Situations: Many of us think of writing as a solitary activity -- something done when we're alone in a quiet place. Yet most of our writing, like other forms of communication -- telephone conversations, classroom discussions, meetings, and presentations -- is an intensely social activity. In this guide, you can learn more about the situations in which writers and readers find themselves and the physical, social, cultural, and historical contexts that shape them.
Understanding Your Purpose: The first question for any writer should be, "Why am I writing?" "What is my goal or my purpose for writing?" For many writing contexts, your immediate purpose may be to complete an assignment or get a good grade. But the long-range purpose of writing is to communicate to a particular audience. In order to communicate successfully to your audience, understanding your purpose for writing will make you a better writer. Read more about purpose in this guide.
Adapting to Your Audience: When we talk to someone face-to-face, we know just who we are talking to. We automatically adjust our speech to be sure we are communicating our message. Many writers don't make those same adjustments when they write to different audiences, usually because they don't take the time to think about who will be reading what they write. To be sure that we communicate clearly in writing, we need to adjust our message--how we say to and what information we include--by recognizing that different readers can best understand different messages. This guide helps writers to consider the issue of audience.
Choosing and Refining Topics: When we are given a choice of topics to write on, or are asked to come up with our own topic ideas, we must always make choices that appeal to our own interests, curiosity, and current knowledge. If you decide to write an essay on same sex marriage, for instance, it is obvious that you should make that decision because you are interested in the issue, know something about it already, and/or would like to know more about it. However, because we rarely write solely for our own satisfaction, we must consider matters other than our own interests as we choose topics. Read this guide for further discussion of this issue.
Maintaining Your Focus: To focus your writing, you'll need to know how to narrow your focus, so you don't overwhelm your readers with unnecessary information. Knowing who your readers are and why you are writing will help you stay focused. Learn more about the importance of focus in this guide.
Conducting Library Research: To learn more about finding information in libraries, read this guide.
Conducting Digital Research: This guide will help you to better understand conducting digital research.
Conducting Field Research: Some of the most valuable information in the world isn't located in a library or online. Field research is a way of unearthing that information. Learn more by reading this guide.
Critical Reading: Critical reading is a vital part of the writing process. In fact, reading and writing processes are alike. In both, you make meaning by actively engaging a text. As a reader, you are not a passive participant, but an active constructor of meaning. Exhibiting an inquisitive, "critical" attitude towards what you read will make anything you read richer and more useful to you in your classes and your life. This guide is designed to help you to understand and engage this active reading process more effectively so that you can become a better critical reader.
Reading the World Wide Web: This guide offers a discussion of reading the World Wide Web.
Taking Notes: Note taking is an integral skill for learning college material and for writing effective papers and essay exams. Consult this guide for tips about note taking in both lectures and classroom discussions and for moving from your notes to other kinds of writing.
Evaluating Sources: Learning how to evaluate sources can save you a great deal of time and increase the effectiveness of your papers. In this guide, we explore the key strategies experienced researchers use to evaluate their sources.
Developing a Working Bibliography: Get help with developing a working bibliography.
Developing a Research Question: Learn more about defining a research question.
Planning an Argument: An argument mediates among many concerns: the knowledge, interest, opinions and position of the author--as well as that of the audience--and the language, style and organizational expectations of the discipline in which it is based. To learn more about this and about planning a written argument, see this guide.
Organizing Documents: In our conversations with others, we present our ideas in a logical order. This way, we make sense to our listeners. Typically, we relate events in the order they occurred, so our listeners don't become confused as they follow our ideas. In writing, the pattern we present our ideas in is called organization. Writers need to know about organizational patterns because readers expect what they read to make sense logically. Choosing an organizational pattern for your writing means knowing what patterns are acceptable for your topic and within your discipline. Some types of organization work better than others, depending on the information you need to convey. Read this guide to learn more about using organization effectively in your writing.
Composing Processes: Drafting, Designing, and Revising
These guides provide advice on composing processes such as developing a thesis statement, creating a first draft, designing documents, revising, editing, proofreading, and carrying out peer review. Use these guides to help yourself write an effective document.
Developing a Thesis Statement: This guide will help writers to develop a thesis statement.
Drafting an Argument: As with other aspects of writing an argument, your organizational strategy will vary according to the requirements of its disciplinary context, your knowledge and level of expertise within the field, and your previous experience preparing arguments. There are probably as many ways to draft an argument as there are arguments; however, there are a few tried and true methods-from adversarial to mediation based, and deductive to inductive reasoning-which work well in the academic world. None of them are carved in stone, however. Here we'll explore a number of useful methods to guide you in drafting your own argument.
Developing Your Ideas: Details bring our ideas to life. A conversation without details is like a blank canvas, plain and lacking color until the painter arrives. When we talk with others, the details we provide help our listeners better understand our ideas. Providing details and support for our ideas is called development. Writers who develop their ideas usually do a better job of keeping their readers' attention and gaining their readers' trust. To develop your ideas, you'll need to know what types of development you should use with your particular audience and focus. With this information, you can then present convincing details to your readers. Read more about development in this guide.
Integrating Sources: This guide provides instructions, examples and discussion on a range of issues related to this topic, including quoting source material, paraphrasing source material, and summarizing source material.
Using Descriptive Detail: This guide explores the various uses and applications of description. Its purpose is to demonstrate the effectiveness of writing which includes descriptive details.
Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism: This guide helps writers to understand what plagiarism is, what the penalties are, and how to avoid it.
Designing Documents: Using Illustrations: Whether writing for a scientific, technical, or business journal, plan your illustrations before you begin writing: It will reduce your narrative. Then write around your illustrations, or better yet, let the illustrations carry the message. Read this guide for more on planning illustrations.
Designing Documents: Using Figures: Figures provide a snapshot view of information. Learn more about using figures in your writing in this guide.
Designing Documents: Using Tables: Tables should summarize and present the numerical data answering the research questions, objectives or problem statements of a report or article. Table styles vary across publications, but remain consistent within a publication. Follow the publication's style manual for developing tables. To learn more, read this guide.
Working in Groups: Working in a group can be enjoyable or frustrating--sometimes both. The best way to ensure a good working experience in groups is to think hard about whether a project is best done in a group, and, if so, to have a clear set of expectations about group work. To learn more, consult this guide.
Peer Review: There are times when we write in solitary and intend to keep our words private. However, in many cases, we use writing as a way of communicating. We send messages, present and explain ideas, share information, and make arguments. One way to improve the effectiveness of this written communication is through peer-review. This guide is an introduction to peer-review.
Reviewing and Revising an Argument: Finishing a draft of your argument is an important milestone, but it's not the last step. Most arguments, especially research-based arguments, require careful revision to be fully effective. As you review and revise your draft, you might discover yourself reconsidering your audience, and then revising your focus. You might then reconsider your evidence and revising your claim. Reviewing and revising almost never occurs in the same manner twice. Be prepared to circle back several times through the choices below as you prepare your final argument.
Editing and Proofreading Strategies: Editing and proofreading are writing processes different from revising. Editing can involve extensive rewriting of sentences, but it usually focuses on sentences or even smaller elements of the text. Proofreading is the very last step writers go through to be sure that the text is presentable. Proofreading generally involves only minor changes in spelling and punctuation. This guide presents strategies for editing and for proofreading.
Common Assignments in Composition & Writing Courses
These guides specifically help writers involved in Composition classes, as well as various other academic contexts where writing is a primary focus.
Summaries: What you include in a summary depends on how the summary will be used. This guide provides an overview of types of summaries and the processes for writing them.
Responding: Consider a sampling of the things we might be asked to respond to--an individual event, experience, or feeling; a series of events, experiences, or feelings; a person or several persons; objects, attitudes, trends, art, film, literature, historical artifact, cultural practice-and this is just a beginning. All of these, for purposes of our discussion here, can be thought of as "texts" to be responded to and all of them can provide occasion for the writing of a response essay. To learn more about responding to texts, read this guide.
Academic Evaluations: In our daily lives, we are continually evaluating objects, people, and ideas in our immediate environments. We pass judgments in conversation, while reading, while shopping, while eating, and while watching television or movies, often being unaware that we are doing so. Evaluation is an equally fundamental writing process, and writing assignments frequently ask us to make and defend value judgments. To read more about writing academic evaluations, consult this guide.
Answering Exam Questions: Like any other kind of writing, answering essay test questions requires practice before it becomes easier. This guide provides you with strategies for answering exam questions.
Email: E-mail is used to communicate in many settings. Effective use of email requires a clear sense of the purpose for writing, as well as a clear statement of the message. To explore how to use email effectively, read this guide.
Abstracts: This guide provides an introduction to writing abstracts, which are formal summaries writers prepare of their completed work.
Book Reviews: A book review addresses the subject matter of a literary work, and assesses effectiveness and value. Book reviews keep publishers and the public aware of what is being thought and written in a wide range of subjects. When a new book is issued, copies are sent to reviewers; subsequent reviews appear in literary magazines, academic journals, newspapers, and other periodicals. People everywhere depend on book reviews to direct them in their reading; many readers buy what commentators give particular attention. Competent reviewers are the best counselors for readers attempting to keep up with intellectual and aesthetic developments in the literary arts. This guide helps writers consider and better understand this writing situation.
Executive Summaries: Executive Summaries are much like any other summary in that their main goal is to provide a condensed version of the content of a longer report. Learn more in this guide.
Poster Sessions: A successful poster is not created overnight. Preparing a well-organized, visually-pleasing poster requires you to plan well in advance. First, consider your audience and what type of poster you'll create. Next, gather your supplies and decide what information to include. From this point, create the text and graphics. Remember to consider how these work together and then format your poster accordingly. Read more about poster sessions in this guide.
Writing Arguments
These guides help writers better understand how to plan, organize, develop, support and revise a written argument.
Writing Arguments: An Overview: Overview and definitions of argument.
Parts of an Argument: Learn more about the specific parts of a written argument--such as a clearly stated position, your introduction, presenting your evidence, the conclusion, and citations.
Planning an Argument: An argument mediates among many concerns: the knowledge, interest, opinions and position of the author--as well as that of the audience--and the language, style and organizational expectations of the discipline in which it is based. To learn more about this and about planning a written argument, see this guide.
Drafting an Argument: As with other aspects of writing an argument, your organizational strategy will vary according to the requirements of its disciplinary context, your knowledge and level of expertise within the field, and your previous experience preparing arguments. There are probably as many ways to draft an argument as there are arguments; however, there are a few tried and true methods-from adversarial to mediation based, and deductive to inductive reasoning-which work well in the academic world. None of them are carved in stone, however. Here we'll explore a number of useful methods to guide you in drafting your own argument.
Reviewing and Revising an Argument: Finishing a draft of your argument is an important milestone, but it's not the last step. Most arguments, especially research-based arguments, require careful revision to be fully effective. As you review and revise your draft, you might discover yourself reconsidering your audience, and then revising your focus. You might then reconsider your evidence and revising your claim. Reviewing and revising almost never occurs in the same manner twice. Be prepared to circle back several times through the choices below as you prepare your final argument.
The Toulmin Method: When learning written argument, it is always helpful to observe how others argue effectively or ineffectively. The Toulmin method, based on the work of philosopher Stephen Toulmin, is one way of analyzing a text that we read, with an eye toward responding to that particular argument (as in a writing assignment that asks us to respond) and, ultimately, toward analyzing and improving the arguments we ourselves make. Read this guide to learn more about the Toulmin Method.
Writing for the Web
These guides help writers understand the web as a unique writing context with a specific set of challenges and opportunities.
Writing for the Web: This guide provides a step-by-step discussion of the decisions writers make as they design and develop Web sites. The guide is designed for writers—it's not intended as a replacement for the many HTML tutorials you'll find elsewhere on the Web. Instead, it focuses on the key decisions writers make to achieve their purposes and meet the needs of their readers.
Reading the World Wide Web: This guide offers a discussion of reading the World Wide Web.
Conducting Digital Research: This guide will help you to better understand conducting digital research.
Online vs. Print Publishing: Online and print publishing are significantly different. Choosing what medium to publish in depends on such factors as your publishing goals, the amount of money you have to spend, and the kinds of resources that are available to you. This guide is meant to give the novice publisher an idea of the differences that lie between the two publishing media. It also details a number of considerations for the online publisher to keep in mind.
Making Speeches & Presentations
These guides help those who are preparing for speeches and presentations.
Informative Speaking: In this guide, you can learn about the purposes and types of informative speeches, about writing and delivering informative speeches, and about the parts of informative speeches.
Poster Sessions: A successful poster is not created overnight. Preparing a well-organized, visually-pleasing poster requires you to plan well in advance. First, consider your audience and what type of poster you'll create. Next, gather your supplies and decide what information to include. From this point, create the text and graphics. Remember to consider how these work together and then format your poster accordingly. Read more about poster sessions in this guide.
Creating and Using Overheads: Different types of visuals work better than others, depending on the information you need to convey and who your audience is. Remember to complete a developed outline of your presentation before creating your visuals. Read more about creating and using overheads in this guide.
Designing Documents: Using Illustrations: Whether writing for a scientific, technical, or business journal, plan your illustrations before you begin writing: It will reduce your narrative. Then write around your illustrations, or better yet, let the illustrations carry the message. Read this guide for more on planning illustrations.
Designing Documents: Using Figures: Figures provide a snapshot view of information. Learn more about using figures in your writing in this guide.
Designing Documents: Using Tables: Tables should summarize and present the numerical data answering the research questions, objectives or problem statements of a report or article. Table styles vary across publications, but remain consistent within a publication. Follow the publication's style manual for developing tables. To learn more, read this guide.
Publishing
These guides help writers better understand the issues involved when publishing their writing.
Publishing Your Writing: This guide offers information on the most basic aspects of publishing your writing, from defining what it is, how to go about submitting, to offering advice about what to do once you've been published.
Online vs. Print Publishing: Online and print publishing are significantly different. Choosing what medium to publish in depends on such factors as your publishing goals, the amount of money you have to spend, and the kinds of resources that are available to you. This guide is meant to give the novice publisher an idea of the differences that lie between the two publishing media. It also details a number of considerations for the online publisher to keep in mind.
Desktop Publishing: Desktop publishing is the process of laying out and designing pages with your desktop computer. With software programs such as PageMaker and Quark Xpress, you can assemble anything from a one-page document to a full-length book. Understanding how the software works, however, is only the beginning, and often the easiest part of the whole process. This guide is designed for the novice page designer who wants to learn the fundamentals of effective page layout. So whether you need to design a brochure, advertisement, or an entire newsletter read on!
Research Writing & Documentation
Collecting Information
These guides help writers understand how to plan and conduct searches for information.
Conducting Library Research: To learn more about finding information in libraries, read this guide.
Conducting Digital Research: This guide will help you to better understand conducting digital research.
Conducting Field Research: Some of the most valuable information in the world isn't located in a library or online. Field research is a way of unearthing that information. Learn more by reading this guide.
Working with Sources
These guides focus on working with the sources you've collected for a writing project.
Critical Reading: Critical reading is a vital part of the writing process. In fact, reading and writing processes are alike. In both, you make meaning by actively engaging a text. As a reader, you are not a passive participant, but an active constructor of meaning. Exhibiting an inquisitive, "critical" attitude towards what you read will make anything you read richer and more useful to you in your classes and your life. This guide is designed to help you to understand and engage this active reading process more effectively so that you can become a better critical reader.
Reading the World Wide Web: This guide offers a discussion of reading the World Wide Web.
Taking Notes: Note taking is an integral skill for learning college material and for writing effective papers and essay exams. Consult this guide for tips about note taking in both lectures and classroom discussions and for moving from your notes to other kinds of writing.
Evaluating Sources: Learning how to evaluate sources can save you a great deal of time and increase the effectiveness of your papers. In this guide, we explore the key strategies experienced researchers use to evaluate their sources.
Developing a Working Bibliography: Get help with developing a working bibliography.
Developing a Research Question: Learn more about defining a research question.
Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism: This guide helps writers to understand what plagiarism is, what the penalties are, and how to avoid it.
Documenting Sources
These guides help writers use documentation systems, such as those published by the MLA and APA.
Documentation Systems: An Overview : To successfully document sources, a writer must understand the general principles underlying documentation. This guide helps writers answer several questions: Why is it necessary to document sources? What types of information (and what specific uses of sources) need to be documented? Finally, how does a writer document sources effectively? It is almost impossible to speak in general terms when discussing the how level of documentation, since each documentation style (MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian, CBE, etc.) uses different conventions. It is because of these differences that we present four different documentation styles here.
Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism: This guide helps writers to understand what plagiarism is, what the penalties are, and how to avoid it.
Citation Guide: American Psychological Association (APA): The APA (American Psychological Association) style of documentation is used mainly in the social sciences (psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, education, business, etc.) and in some of the hard sciences.
Citation Guide: Modern Language Association (MLA): This guide provides information on the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation style.
Citation Guide: Chicago Manual of Style (Author/Date System): This guide is based on style recommendations from the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and the 6th edition of Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Read more about Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style, Author/Date System.
Citation Guide: Chicago Manual of Style (Notes System): This guide is based on style recommendations from the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and the 6th edition of Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Read more about Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style, Notes System.
Citation Guide: Council of Science Editors (Name-Year System) : Scientific Style and Format (6th ed.), a publication of the Council of Science Editors (CSE), outlines proper documentation style for writers in many areas of the sciences, and particularly the biological sciences. CSE bases its standards for documentation on those presented in National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation (NLM 1991). In its style manual, CSE offers two different systems of documentation: this guide focuses on the Name/Year System.
Citation Guide: Council of Science Editors (Citation-Sequence System): Scientific Style and Format (6th ed.), a publication of the Council of Science Editors (CSE), outlines proper documentation style for writers in many areas of the sciences, and particularly the biological sciences. CSE bases its standards for documentation on those presented in National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation (NLM 1991). In its style manual, CSE offers two different systems of documentation: this guide focuses on the Citation-Sequence System.
Writing in Specific Disciplines
Writing about Literature
These guides help writers who are writing about literature.
Thesis Statements for a Literature Assignment: A thesis prepares the reader for what you are about to say. As such, your paper needs to be interesting in order for your thesis to be interesting. Your thesis needs to be interesting because it needs to capture a reader's attention. If a reader looks at your thesis and says "so what?" your thesis has failed to do its job, and chances are your paper has as well. Thus, make your thesis provocative and open to reasonable disagreement, but then write persuasively enough to sway those who might be disagree. Read more about drafting an effective thesis in this guide.
Book Reviews: A book review addresses the subject matter of a literary work, and assesses effectiveness and value. Book reviews keep publishers and the public aware of what is being thought and written in a wide range of subjects. When a new book is issued, copies are sent to reviewers; subsequent reviews appear in literary magazines, academic journals, newspapers, and other periodicals. People everywhere depend on book reviews to direct them in their reading; many readers buy what commentators give particular attention. Competent reviewers are the best counselors for readers attempting to keep up with intellectual and aesthetic developments in the literary arts. This guide helps writers consider and better understand this writing situation.
Responding: Consider a sampling of the things we might be asked to respond to--an individual event, experience, or feeling; a series of events, experiences, or feelings; a person or several persons; objects, attitudes, trends, art, film, literature, historical artifact, cultural practice-and this is just a beginning. All of these, for purposes of our discussion here, can be thought of as "texts" to be responded to and all of them can provide occasion for the writing of a response essay. To learn more about responding to texts, read this guide.
Curriculum Vitae: What is a Curriculum Vitae? Curriculum Vitae (Latin): the course of your academic life. A Curriculum Vitae (CV) is a formally presented, detailed synopsis of your academic and research experiences and accomplishments. A CV is usually requested for teaching and research positions, but is also a part of the application process for some graduate programs and international positions. To learn more, read this guide.
Citation Guide: Modern Language Association (MLA): This guide provides information on the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation style.
Citation Guide: Chicago Manual of Style (Author/Date System): This guide is based on style recommendations from the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and the 6th edition of Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Read more about Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style, Author/Date System.
Citation Guide: Chicago Manual of Style (Notes System): This guide is based on style recommendations from the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and the 6th edition of Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Read more about Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style, Notes System.
Writing in Business
These guides help writers who are writing for business.
Business Writing: An Introduction: This guide provides an introduction to business writing.
Business Memos: When you write a memo in a business, government, or class setting, it is important to have your audience and purpose clearly defined, because this will help you determine what information to include. Generally memos follow a particular format, although your instructor or company may require you to use alternative formats. Read more about writing effective memos in this guide.
Business Letters: An Overview: When you write business letters in industry or for a class, knowing your purpose and audience will help determine what information to include. Generally, business letters follow a particular format, although your instructor or company may require you to use alternative formats. This guide provides writers with an introduction to writing business letters.
Formatting Business Letters: Learn more about how to correctly format a business letter.
Business Email: In this guide you will read about writing business emails, helpful tips on formatting business email, the law and business email, and business netiquette (yes folks, Internet etiquette). Each section provides useful information and samples to assist you in becoming more proficient at using email to communicate in the business world.
Press Releases: Typically, a press release is formulated to meet the standard journalistic model used by all media organizations. The information it contains should be organized and structured in the same manner as a news article. This guide provides you with information about writing press releases.
Executive Summaries: Executive Summaries are much like any other summary in that their main goal is to provide a condensed version of the content of a longer report. Learn more in this guide.
Resumés: Writing a resumé is more than just listing a set of credentials or special talents in reverse chronological order. It is very much like planning to write a persuasive essay. These documents begin with a rhetorical context. Every resumé has a target audience (the employer(s) who will use it to evaluate you as a job candidate) and a purpose (to convince an employer that you are worth interviewing for a specific job). Read this guide for a further discussion of these issues.
Objection, Relevance: In this writing guide, we will use the legal rules of evidence to help writers focus on what is helpful, necessary, and to the point.
Writing in Engineering
These guides help those who are writing in the field of engineering--including civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering.
Communicating as an Engineer: This guide provides insights into the communication activities in which engineers commonly engage.
Engineering Technical Reports: Technical reports include various types of "technical" information. For example, if you need to report why a design or piece of equipment failed, you'd write a forensic report. Or, you might have to write about a design you created. Then, you'd produce a design report or, you may need to combine these two. Many report types are classified as technical reports. You should always determine what information you need to convey and who your audience is before you start writing. To learn more about technical reports, read this guide.
Engineering Proposals: Consulting engineers aren't the only engineers who write proposals. For instance, in academia, engineers write proposals to receive funding for their research or even to initiate a project. Some engineers produce proposals to be read and approved by management while others send proposals to specific funding agencies or clients. To read more about proposals, read this guide.
Project Notebooks: Like a scientist's log, an engineering project notebook can be used to capture work in progress during a project. Scientists and engineers use project notebooks to record data as they collect it, to brainstorm explanations of data, to record details of experimental apparatus, and to make progress notes. The project notebook can be formal or informal, recorded on paper or on the computer. To learn more, read this guide.
Poster Sessions: A successful poster is not created overnight. Preparing a well-organized, visually-pleasing poster requires you to plan well in advance. First, consider your audience and what type of poster you'll create. Next, gather your supplies and decide what information to include. From this point, create the text and graphics. Remember to consider how these work together and then format your poster accordingly. Read more about poster sessions in this guide.
Electrical Engineering Lab Reports: Writing a lab report is both a journey and a destination. During an experiment, you travel beyond the information in a textbook to a tactile environment. Here, you'll encounter unexpected characteristics about devices and concepts. Once the experiment is finished, you gain insight by analyzing your results. Performing experiments and writing lab reports provide hands-on experiences with engineering concepts and devices. Learn more about writing Electrical Engineering Lab Reports in this guide.
Civil Engineering Lab Reports: As a civil engineer, materials form the basis of what you do. Understanding material properties can help you make design decisions. Consider the road you drive on every day. Is it concrete or asphalt? At some point, an engineer had to ask, "How do those materials behave?" The answer to that question can be read in a book or developed through tactile knowledge in a lab. Testing materials and writing lab reports familiarize you with materials' properties. To learn more about civil engineering lab reports, read this guide.
Email: E-mail is used to communicate in many settings. Effective use of email requires a clear sense of the purpose for writing, as well as a clear statement of the message. To explore how to use email effectively, read this guide.
Resumés: Writing a resumé is more than just listing a set of credentials or special talents in reverse chronological order. It is very much like planning to write a persuasive essay. These documents begin with a rhetorical context. Every resumé has a target audience (the employer(s) who will use it to evaluate you as a job candidate) and a purpose (to convince an employer that you are worth interviewing for a specific job). Read this guide for a further discussion of these issues.
Writing in the Sciences
These guides help writers in the sciences.
Writing the Scientific Paper: When you write about scientific topics to specialists in that field of science, we call that scientific writing. (When you write to non-specialists about science topics, we call that science writing.) Read this guide to learn more about scientific writing.
Abstracts: This guide provides an introduction to writing abstracts, which are formal summaries writers prepare of their completed work.
Review Essays for the Biological Sciences: A review essay for the biological sciences serves to discuss and synthesize key findings on a particular subject. Review essays are helpful to the writer and their colleagues in gaining critical awareness in specialized fields that may or may not be their own. This guide explains what a review essay is and identifies several approaches to writing a review essay. Although much of the information is geared directly to the biological sciences, it is generally applicable to review essays in all fields.
Environmental Policy Statements: A policy statement is an essential tool to the environmental health practice. It sets the stage for expectations and performance of persons, individuals or groups, and it precedes the development of specific procedures or practices that should be followed to realize the expectations of the policy. To learn more, read this guide.
Poster Sessions: A successful poster is not created overnight. Preparing a well-organized, visually-pleasing poster requires you to plan well in advance. First, consider your audience and what type of poster you'll create. Next, gather your supplies and decide what information to include. From this point, create the text and graphics. Remember to consider how these work together and then format your poster accordingly. Read more about poster sessions in this guide.
Email: E-mail is used to communicate in many settings. Effective use of email requires a clear sense of the purpose for writing, as well as a clear statement of the message. To explore how to use email effectively, read this guide.
Curriculum Vitae: What is a Curriculum Vitae? Curriculum Vitae (Latin): the course of your academic life. A Curriculum Vitae (CV) is a formally presented, detailed synopsis of your academic and research experiences and accomplishments. A CV is usually requested for teaching and research positions, but is also a part of the application process for some graduate programs and international positions. To learn more, read this guide.
Citation Guide: Council of Science Editors (Citation-Sequence System): Scientific Style and Format (6th ed.), a publication of the Council of Science Editors (CSE), outlines proper documentation style for writers in many areas of the sciences, and particularly the biological sciences. CSE bases its standards for documentation on those presented in National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation (NLM 1991). In its style manual, CSE offers two different systems of documentation: this guide focuses on the Citation-Sequence System.
Citation Guide: Council of Science Editors (Name-Year System) : Scientific Style and Format (6th ed.), a publication of the Council of Science Editors (CSE), outlines proper documentation style for writers in many areas of the sciences, and particularly the biological sciences. CSE bases its standards for documentation on those presented in National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation (NLM 1991). In its style manual, CSE offers two different systems of documentation: this guide focuses on the Name/Year System.
Writing in Your Career
These guides are useful for writing that you might carry out during your career or when searching for a job.
Resumés: Writing a resumé is more than just listing a set of credentials or special talents in reverse chronological order. It is very much like planning to write a persuasive essay. These documents begin with a rhetorical context. Every resumé has a target audience (the employer(s) who will use it to evaluate you as a job candidate) and a purpose (to convince an employer that you are worth interviewing for a specific job). Read this guide for a further discussion of these issues.
Curriculum Vitae: What is a Curriculum Vitae? Curriculum Vitae (Latin): the course of your academic life. A Curriculum Vitae (CV) is a formally presented, detailed synopsis of your academic and research experiences and accomplishments. A CV is usually requested for teaching and research positions, but is also a part of the application process for some graduate programs and international positions. To learn more, read this guide.
Publishing Your Writing: This guide offers information on the most basic aspects of publishing your writing, from defining what it is, how to go about submitting, to offering advice about what to do once you've been published.
Conducting Qualitative & Quantitative Research
General Research Issues
These guides focus on general issues related to qualitative and quantitative research, such as reliability and generalizability.
Reliability and Validity: These related research issues ask us to consider whether we are studying what we think we are studying and whether the measures we use are consistent. To read more about these issues, consult this guide.
Generalizabilty and Transferability: Generalizability and transferability refer to our efforts to compare the results of studies. Read more about these issues in this guide.
Statistics: An Introduction: Statistical tests are commonly used in quantitative research. The purpose of this guide is to provide a brief introduction to statistics, with an emphasis on statistics used in the social sciences.
Working With Human Subjects: Any university that accepts federal funding for research is required to have an institutional review board (IRB) to protect human subjects. Although the specific processes on your campus may differ slightly from the descriptions included in this guide, the principles captured here apply across institutions.
Glossary of Key Research Terms: This glossary provides definitions of many of the terms used in the guides to conducting qualitative and quantitative research. The definitions were developed by members of the research methods seminar (E600) taught by Mike Palmquist in the 1990s and 2000s.
Qualitative Research Methods
These guides address qualitative methodologies, such as observation and case studies.
Ethnography, Observational Research, and Narrative Inquiry: These related research methodologies employ a range of observational and interpretive techniques to explore the observable behaviors of groups. To learn more about these methodologies, read this guide.
Case Studies: This guide examines case studies, a form of qualitative descriptive research that is used to look at individuals, a small group of participants, or a group as a whole. Researchers collect data about participants using participant and direct observations, interviews, protocols, tests, examinations of records, and collections of writing samples. Starting with a definition of the case study, the guide moves to a brief history of this research method. Using several well documented case studies, the guide then looks at applications and methods including data collection and analysis. A discussion of ways to handle validity, reliability, and generalizability follows, with special attention to case studies as they are applied to composition studies. Finally, this guide examines the strengths and weaknesses of case studies.
Content Analysis: This guide provides an introduction to content analysis, a research methodology that examines words or phrases within a wide range of texts.
Glossary of Key Research Terms: This glossary provides definitions of many of the terms used in the guides to conducting qualitative and quantitative research. The definitions were developed by members of the research methods seminar (E600) taught by Mike Palmquist in the 1990s and 2000s.
Quantitative Research Methods
These guides address qualitative methodologies, such as observation and case studies.
Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Research: This guide explores the key considerations of experimental and quasi-experimtal research, such as the basic concepts, methods, key terms, etc.
Survey Research: Surveys represent one of the most common types of quantitative, social science research. In survey research, the researcher selects a sample of respondents from a population and administers a standardized questionnaire to them. The questionnaire, or survey, can be a written document that is completed by the person being surveyed, an online questionnaire, a face-to-face interview, or a telephone interview. Using surveys, it is possible to collect data from large or small populations (sometimes referred to as the universe of a study). Read this guide to find out more about doing survey research.
Glossary of Key Research Terms: This glossary provides definitions of many of the terms used in the guides to conducting qualitative and quantitative research. The definitions were developed by members of the research methods seminar (E600) taught by Mike Palmquist in the 1990s and 2000s.
Scholarly Publishing
These guides address issues related to the publication of work that uses quantitative and qualitative research methodologies.
Writing the Scientific Paper: When you write about scientific topics to specialists in that field of science, we call that scientific writing. (When you write to non-specialists about science topics, we call that science writing.) Read this guide to learn more about scientific writing.
Abstracts: This guide provides an introduction to writing abstracts, which are formal summaries writers prepare of their completed work.
Executive Summaries: Executive Summaries are much like any other summary in that their main goal is to provide a condensed version of the content of a longer report. Learn more in this guide.
Email: E-mail is used to communicate in many settings. Effective use of email requires a clear sense of the purpose for writing, as well as a clear statement of the message. To explore how to use email effectively, read this guide.
Poster Sessions: A successful poster is not created overnight. Preparing a well-organized, visually-pleasing poster requires you to plan well in advance. First, consider your audience and what type of poster you'll create. Next, gather your supplies and decide what information to include. From this point, create the text and graphics. Remember to consider how these work together and then format your poster accordingly. Read more about poster sessions in this guide.
Curriculum Vitae: What is a Curriculum Vitae? Curriculum Vitae (Latin): the course of your academic life. A Curriculum Vitae (CV) is a formally presented, detailed synopsis of your academic and research experiences and accomplishments. A CV is usually requested for teaching and research positions, but is also a part of the application process for some graduate programs and international positions. To learn more, read this guide.
Publishing Your Writing: This guide offers information on the most basic aspects of publishing your writing, from defining what it is, how to go about submitting, to offering advice about what to do once you've been published.
Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism: This guide helps writers to understand what plagiarism is, what the penalties are, and how to avoid it.
Citation Guide: Council of Science Editors (Citation-Sequence System): Scientific Style and Format (6th ed.), a publication of the Council of Science Editors (CSE), outlines proper documentation style for writers in many areas of the sciences, and particularly the biological sciences. CSE bases its standards for documentation on those presented in National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation (NLM 1991). In its style manual, CSE offers two different systems of documentation: this guide focuses on the Citation-Sequence System.
Citation Guide: Council of Science Editors (Name-Year System) : Scientific Style and Format (6th ed.), a publication of the Council of Science Editors (CSE), outlines proper documentation style for writers in many areas of the sciences, and particularly the biological sciences. CSE bases its standards for documentation on those presented in National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation (NLM 1991). In its style manual, CSE offers two different systems of documentation: this guide focuses on the Name/Year System.
Citation Guide: American Psychological Association (APA): The APA (American Psychological Association) style of documentation is used mainly in the social sciences (psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, education, business, etc.) and in some of the hard sciences.
Citation Guide: Chicago Manual of Style (Notes System): This guide is based on style recommendations from the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and the 6th edition of Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Read more about Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style, Notes System.
Citation Guide: Chicago Manual of Style (Author/Date System): This guide is based on style recommendations from the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and the 6th edition of Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Read more about Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style, Author/Date System.
Citation Guide: Modern Language Association (MLA): This guide provides information on the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation style.