The Student Learning Commons blog is your online writing and learning community
The Student Learning Commons is announcing our 4th annual undergraduate writing contest.
Read on to hear from last year's Lower Division contest winner (and current SLC Writing and Learning Peer, Austyn).
You can read past winning papers and find more contest details here.
SFU's Academic Integrity week is September 28 - October 2, 2020.
We know that this year is unlike any we've had before. You are learning from your own home, in front of a computer. In this context, academic integrity can be even more challenging than usual. It is also even more important.
Participate in academic integrity week to learn more about how to complete your work with integrity, and to celebrate the ways you already approach your learning and your work with honesty and integrity.
Former SLC English as Additional Language Peer Bessie W. returns with tips and tricks for writing a professional email. Just in time to help you reach out to your professor or TA to get clarification on those first assignments...
Guest blogger Deeya B. returns with a Grammar Camp installment that explains the difference between chronology and relativity as approaches to academic writing. How does that relate to grammar, you ask? She will show you how these different approaches to writing give you clues for how you should be using verb tenses in your papers.
Check it out!
We first posted to this blog two years ago on July 17th (you can read that post here).
To celebrate our blog birthday, we did a short interview with the Graduate Writing Facilitator who first suggested the idea, Daniel C. Daniel is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education. Read on to learn more about him!
"Writing papers is either the bane of an undergraduate student’s existence or, for the few like me, it’s an experience that can be learned from. But I didn’t always think like this..."
Writing and Learning Peer Harvin B. shares his thoughts about how students can rise to the challenge of their term papers.
This article was originally published in The Peak (SFU's student newspaper) and is re-published here with gratitude.
Former Writing and Learning Peer Deeya B. is back with an ongoing, occasional series about revising your work, with a specific focus on grammar. This series is part of the larger blog feature "Grammar Camp."
In this post, Deeya focuses on the use of articles ("the" and "a(n)") and how to self-edit your writing with an eye to your article use.
In this blog post, SLC EAL Coordinator Dr. Timothy Mossman shares some writing that he did during his doctoral studies in a class (EDUC 925 - Critical Literacies in Multilingual Contexts) led by Dr. Dolores van der Wey.
The SFU Library recently issued the following statement about anti-Black racism and white supremacy: https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/academic-integrity/solidarity-black-lives-matter
We in the Student Learning Commons recognize that race-based violence is not new, nor simply an issue for us to pay attention to during "flashpoint moments" like the one we are currently experiencing. With this post, Tim shares part of his journey learning to see his own privilege.
We share this post as encouragement for others as we take on this troubling, difficult, and necessary work.
Trigger warning: this post includes references to residential school trauma and to homelessness.
SLC Graduate Writing Facilitator Kate E. invites folks to join her for the Write OUT program -- a joint initiative of the Student Learning Commons and Out On Campus.
Summer WriteOUT! sessions will include tips and tricks for:
All sessions are 11-1pm on Mondays.
Former Writing and Learning Peer Deeya B. returns with another post to help you do well in your writing courses this semester.
In this post, Deeya debunks myths about "flowery language' and the value of such language in academic writing.
As Deeya explains, flowery language occurs when elaborate words are substituted for simple ones and longer sentences are used to try to convey multiple ideas. However, flowery language often backfires and makes students sound less confident in their understanding of a subject.
In this post, Deeya will explain more about what flowery language is, why students choose to use it, and why it often has the reverse of the intended outcome.
