Writing Skills

Paper Writing Tips
 

	Tips to generate ideas for your paper
	You should never expect to write a perfect paper the first time you sit down and write a paper.
	Write out an outline before you begin writing your paper to get you thoughts organized.
	Try to free write to get your thoughts flowing if you can’t create an outline or to add to your outline. Write down whatever comes to mind for 5 minutes and then sort through it and find what is relevant to the paper. If you have trouble writing about your topic for that long try to look at your topic from a different perspective.
	If free writing doesn’t work for you try clustering. Choose a central word for you paper topic and the branch off from the center to other related words and ideas.

How to write a thesis statement
 

	A thesis statement should serve as a guide for readers to know what the paper is going to focus on.
	If a topic is assigned, then try to generate a question from the given topic, then formulate a one or two sentence answer and that should be your thesis statement.
	If a topic isn’t assigned, try to answer a question that you would like to explore, trying to make it relevant to the class for which the paper was assigned.

A good thesis should include:
 

	A subject which reasonable people could argue either side.
	A subject that can be adequately covered in the nature of the assignment.
	It should express 1 main idea.
	It should explain your conclusions about the topic.
	If you are choosing the topic for a Paper you should ask your professors about the chosen topic to see if they have any suggestions, such as to narrow the topic or where to start researching the topic. And if possible turn the paper in early if the professor will give you feedback without grading the paper.

Examples of Citing Sources
 

MLA Style Citing a Book: Burnaford, Gail, Arnold Aprill, Cynithia Weiss, eds. Renaissance in the Classroom. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. Erickson, Erik H. The Life Cycle Completed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997. Citing individual Work in an anthology: Steele, Peggy. “The Drunkard’s Daughter.” The Best American Poetry 1999. Ed. Robert Bly. New York: Scribner, 1999. Citing a Journal Article: Miller, Jerome A. “Horror and the Deconstruction of the Self.” Philosophy Today 32 (1988): 286-293. (The 32 is the volume number and note that you don’t use the abbreviation for page in front of the page numbers.) Citing A Magazine Article: Randolph, Judith. “Metting Your Child’s Teachers.” Better Homes and Gardens August 2001: 75-79. Citing From the world wide web: Peterson, Susan Lynn. The Life of Martin Luther. 1999. 9 Mar. 2001 http://pweb.netcom.com/~supeters/luther.html. Symptoms. http://www.msfacts.org/symptoms.htm

APA Style APA Online http://www.APAstyle.org Citing a Book: Arnheim, R. (1971). Art and visual perception. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Festinger, L., Riecken, H., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Citing Items in an anthology: Rubenstein, J.P (1967). The effect of television violence on small children. In B.F. Kane (ed.), Television and juvenile psychological development (pp. 112-134). New York: American Psychological Society. Citing a Journal Article: Sawyer, J. (1966). Measurement and prediction, clinical and statistical. Psychological Bulletin, 66 (3), 178- 200. (the number in the second set of parentheses is the issue number for the journal) Citing A Dissertation: Ross, D.F. (1990). Unconscious transference and mistaken identity: When a witness misidentifies a familiar but innocent person from a lineup (Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, 1990). Dissertation Abstracts International, 49, Z5055. Citing From the World Wide Web: National Consumers League. (1997) Helping seniors targeted for telemarketing fraud. Retrieved February 2, 1999 on the World Wide Web: http://www.fraud.org/elderfraud/helpsen.htm