Writing Tips

Through out college students will do a lot of writing it is best to make sure they have the writing process down now rather than wait. The earlier you start them the more time they have to improve their writing skills and the better their writing will be.

Tip #1 Students should always be aware of each instructors rules for writing because they are not always the same. One instructor might say that five or more words is considered a direct quote from the source while another may say three or more. This is important when it comes to citing the work and determining plagiarism.

Tip #2 When using a computer to type out essays be sure to save on a regular basis, not doing this can lead to a whole essay being wiped out. I made this mistake during college, once, and was heart broken because I was half way done with the essay. I would say save every two sentences and make sure the program you are using is a good one, I like Word. I don not feel that Notepad or Wordpad are truly meant for writing an essay.

Tip #3 Instead of editing after the essay is complete, stop after each paragraph and read it out loud. Go ahead and edit and than later go back and read the whole essay. Doing it this way I found is less time consuming and leaves less room for errors. Also consider asking someone else to read it for you sometimes they pick up on something that was missed.

What tips do you have for writing essays?
At what grade/age do you start your children writing essays?

Citing

During the college years not only will students be required to write numerous essays, but they will also be required to cite there work as well. Citing is required in order to avoid plagiarism, it also helps for others who may be researching the same topic to find credited sources as well. While there are multiple citing sources the most common used in colleges are APA and Chicago. Colleges have manuals for citing available in their libraries for students to use. When I went to school online the college sent me one, but I have a secret to share with you.

There is a web site called Son of Citation Machine, this is the site I used during college for citing my work. This site is free and so easy to use, chose the citing source you want to use and fill in the information, it is that easy. You will notice you will be prompted to select what you want to site. For instance citing for print and non-print are different. But, also citing a government document is different than citing an article from a web site. Note that there is a place also for selecting multiple authors if it applies. Once you are done hit the submit button, if there is an error do not hit the back browser button you will lose your cite, instead hit the button on the page to return. You will than see the citation to be used in the bibliography and the one to use within your text. All that is left to do is copy and paste into your essay, it is that easy.

Brandon uses the computer a lot for his school work and is required to write an essay a week along with summaries. After the holidays I will be requiring him to cite the sources he uses, this will get him in the habit of doing so before college. When I first started having to cite I wasn't used to it and would often forget. This led me on a wild goose chase to find the web site I had used.

Do you know of other free online citing sources?

Improve Writing

Now on the other end of the spectrum I have Brandon who can spit out an essay like it's nothing. Yes, his flow is good and his ideas are complete and nicely laid out. But, I feel he can do better so, we look at the vocabulary.

It is amazing how using a synonym can spruce up an essay not to mention adding to his vocabulary. Making a word change will also enhance an essay. Let's take a look at this sentence.

The cat laid lazily on the porch in the sunlight.

Now let's look at the changes.

The feline on the veranda basked in the sunlight.

See the difference? Encouraging students to make word changes will make a good essay into a fantastic essay. The thing is they are so proud and amazed at what comes from those changes.

I encourage Brandon to read each sentence/paragraph out loud and then go back and make changes. Reading your writing out loud helps to hear what the reader will be reading allowing for decisions in changes or even adding on for more depth.

Brandon uses Microsoft Word for his essays, while this is a great resource students need to be mindful of mistakes. If a word is wrong for a sentence, but spelled correctly it will go unnoticed. Thus another reason to read what you have written.

All the punctuation rules can be hard to remember, find a good source to review them as needed. We just revert back to English curriculum we have used in the past. We even have our Shurley English from 5th grade just because I love the way the writing process is taught.

When searching for online resources be sure to check for accreditation. I usually look for those associated with a college, school, library or teacher.


100 Little Ways You Can Dramatically Improve Your Writing

Purdue OWL is a great resource.

Reluctant Writers

Due to the importance of writing during the college years it is important to nip this in the bud before the high school years. However, if not take plenty of time to work hard on this issue during the freshman year allowing the student the next three years to improve.

This is not an easy task Brett, age 12, squirms at any writing assignment no matter how short and easy it is. It is not that he can not find the words he just does not like to put them down. I even encouraged him to type up his assignments on the computer and this did not help either. However, one thing he did like was spouting off words to me as I typed. He also liked hearing it read back to him and would proudly stick his chest out at his choice of words. This my child who in the past has slept with both a dictionary and a thesaurus, so he knows words and meanings I had no idea existed. So, here is the child with all this potential, but does not like to write.

It is time now for him to start writing essays, he is not happy. Taking it slow is the best way I have found for Brett little pieces at a time. I'm not even tackling the editing process at this point, I want to get him writing first. The biggest thing is to let them have a chose about what they write this helps greatly. Who cares if it is silly and pointless. The main thing is to get the ideas out and have them presented in an orderly fashion.

If the student decides to write about two psychotic hippos, fine, but the ideas have to flow smoothly. Start with the brain storming process, this is normally found as a fun thing to do as ideas can flow freely. The next day working on the formatting of the ideas for the essay. Students need to decide what are the main points they want to make about the psychotic hippos. The next day the student should be ready to write the first paragraph. Continue with the process until the essay is complete. Reluctant writers need someone to hold their hand, so make sure you can set aside some time to aid the student in the process. This will take a lot of coaching, praise and encouragement on your part. Yes, he did chose to write about two psychotic hippos.

However, there are students who just can not write at all for whatever reason. It is this student that really needs to be focused on and have you available to them during writing assignments. If your child has a special need I encourage you to do some research on that topic along with attaching the word writing to it. There are many web sites and blogs which discuss topics such as these. There are also a variety of message boards with special need forums as well.

The Homeschool Diner has a wonderful article on this topic called "Homeschooling Reluctant Writers and Children Who Hate to Write."

Every student is different try different tactics and methods to see which one/ones your student responses best to. You may have to take more than one day for one paragraph, that's OK remember the goal is to have them writing before college.

I have included some links to various articles on this topic I pray they are helpful to you and your student. Remember if something does not work don't get discouraged try something else and always talk with your student and get ideas and opinions from them.

Strategies for the Reluctant Writer

Tips for Parents: The Reluctant Writer this article discusses the gifted child, while this article is mainly geared towards the struggles of writing non-fiction verses fiction there is helpful information which can be applied to all students struggling with writing.

Encouraging the Reluctant Writer from Home of The Matter blog

Creative Writing Prompts while my boys are not big fans of these there are some unusual ones here.

Persuasive Writing Prompts

10 blocks to becoming a writer They trip many kids who aren't LD

Well-built writing prompts Consider process as well as product

In Our Write Minds College Prep writing for high school students

I will be blogging on Education Jump-Off on this same topic, only ways to possibly prevent it and make it fun from early on.

Three Point Essay or Five Paragraph Essay

Once the boys have mastered the three point paragraph it is time for the three point essay, which is usually during 7th grade. This is important due to this is the format most colleges prefer for students to write their papers. I believe it may be due to the ease and flow which this style brings to a paper.

While this is a three point essay it is made up of five paragraphs. Each paragraph is important to the essay and contains information vital to the reader. The first paragraph needs to grab the attention of the reader. To accomplish this the writer must decide the audience being written to along with what type of essay it is and the point they want to make. During the high school years students should write a variety of different essays to prepare for the college years.

During my search for different types of essays I found it interesting that different web sites contained different types, but did share the basics. During my college years OWL, online writing lab, was recommended for use. This is a great site for writing and if a student or you are not really sure what an essay is OWL does a nice job of explaining it. Private Writing touches on some types of essays students may come across during their college years, so we will be working on those as well.

Just like the three point paragraph the three point essay follows a format that is similar to the paragraph only more detailed. For instance instead of two sentences per point there will be a paragraph for each point. Southwest Tennessee Community College has a page which clearly explains the format of each paragraph.

While not all students find writing an easy task, there are a variety of methods to aid in this. Writing does come easy for me however, there are times I have way too many ideas or one idea I want to elaborate on. In order to do this I will brainstorm using either a Venn diagram or an outline. However, there are a variety of ways to brainstorm and even some worksheets to aid in the process. This will also aid in helping the student to stay on topic without wandering.

In my next post I will discuss how I am dealing with my reluctant writer. Who can write, but does not enjoy the process.


Brainstorming Activities