CPULD graduate students get writing help
Image 1. Writing help
CPULD is offering new assistance for its graduate students! Writing is a major challenge for any college student. Whether it’s lack of or inadequate coursework, English as a second language, or just lack of knowledge of the rules of grammar, many of the students entering our programs need help with their professional writing capabilities. Even if a student is planning to go into a job that may seem like writing wouldn’t be an issue, good writing skills can help anyone stand out and succeed – because good writing skills translate to good communication skills, which everyone needs.
As necessary as communication skills are, the vast majority of public colleges report enrolling students who are not ready for college-level work. Per the Hechinger Report, which studied data from over 900 universities, 96% had to put incoming high-school students into remedial writing classes. In fact, almost 25% of the universities studied had to place over 50% of incoming students into remedial classes.1 “Three-quarters of 12th graders lack proficiency in writing, according to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Process. And, a full 40% of those who took the ACT exam in high school lacked the reading and writing skills needed to successfully complete an entry-level, English composition class in college.”2
CPULD is lucky to have a very international cohort of graduate students. However, English is a funny language and we’ve found it helpful to focus on some of the more irregular English grammatical issues. There are many English rules that don’t exist, or are actually the opposite, of other languages’ rules. Also, we’ve learned that while some students have taken college writing classes, they’re still lacking in the professional writing arena. Professional and/or technical writing requires the use of different language – personalized language such as “I” or “me” is to be avoided, and more attention is paid to the formalities. Generally, students are encouraged to use many different words to avoid being boring, but in technical writing, they are required to use the same exact word choice throughout a document to avoid confusion. It is also has been hard for the students to learn how to explain their research, with the required amount of detail, in order to make the work repeatable, and yet not have the description too long or share unnecessary details.
Due to recognizing this need, CPULD offers one-on-one editing and tutoring to all of its graduate students who want help. CPULD’s administrative assistant, J. Kate Bridgeman, loves writing and has many, many years of classes and experience in writing everything from news articles, to interviews, to research papers, to blogs with hundreds of regular readers. Kate enjoys all aspects of the writing process and regularly writes and edits for CPULD’s website, newsletters, and social media. Since she came to CPULD, the graduate students have been encouraged to reach out to Kate for any writing help they may want or need.
Dr. Laszlo Horvath has been working on setting up a new system/process that will ensure his graduate students participate in and benefit from the writing help being offered. The current plan is for the students to write short papers and turn them in for editing. Once edited, the student will have the chance to sit down with Kate for a private session going over any overarching issues that have been noticed in their writing. One of CPULD’s Master’s students has already gone thru this process, and we were very pleased when the articles he turned in after his tutoring session showed a marked improvement over his initial writing samples.
Some helpful links!
Make sure you know how and where to use commas. This website outlines the main rules of commas and gives great examples of how and where to use commas in your writing. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/commas/extended_rules_for_commas.html
Citations must be consistently formatted and reference pages need all of the info in the right order. Most faculty and industry journals generally request MLA or APA formatting for references, but occasionally other formats are chosen. We recommend the Purdue University website for reference formatting help – and it provides examples of how to cite almost any source you can find. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_basic_rules.html