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.
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!
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.
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.
Imagine this: you’re typing away ferociously with the little time left for you to hand in your term paper. It’s due tonight, and although you had three weeks to write it, there were other more important assignments on your plate. It’s not that you didn’t know you had to write this paper too, but you were pretty confident you knew what you wanted to say and could put all of your ideas into words in one afternoon. It is now the afternoon of your paper’s due date. You’re scrambling, fumbling over the keyboard, ideas circling in your head but all of them sounding like a thought vomit on paper. You’re tired, overwhelmed and unable to comprehend your own words. You rush to the SLC for a drop-in session, praying that your peer educator can work a miracle and save your grade...
In this post, Writing and Learning Peer Deeya B. shares pro tips to help you get your writing done this semester and get the most out of the Student Learning Commons.
It isn't a miracle, a magic spell, or a silver bullet, but if you follow these steps, you may find that your writing process this semester is that much easier (or, at the very least, slightly less painful).
Does this word need an "s"? An apostrophe? An apostrophe "s"?
If you often find yourself asking such questions, you've come to the right place.
And what better time to get those answer than when you are stuck inside between (the strangest) spring term and the forthcoming (entirely remote) summer term?
Here to finally complete the promised three part series on common expression errors, it is Apostrophe Angst!
If you want to review the previous two posts, you can read them here:
Way back in February, I posted a "Part 1" of this mini grammar camp series on "common expression errors." You were promised a Part 2 focused on Pronouns (and a Part 3 focused on apostrophes!)...
Well, a lot has happened since February and it kept not seeming like the right time to bring the blog focus back to grammar.
To be honest, it still doesn't feel like the right time to do that. But, the part of me that loves rules and structure is feeling all kinds of out of whack recently. Posting this blog entry helps to soothe that part of me in two ways:
1. It corrects a lingering issue (i.e., that of a Part 1 with no Part 2 or 3)
2. It puts my focus on the comforts of the system and structure of grammar.
Of course, grammar rules (like other rules) are made to be broken, and so those comforts can only extend so far.
But, I do hope that this momentary diversion into the world of grammar can provide some interest and/or clarity and/or curiosity and/or comfort for you too. Part 3 on apostrophes is also coming...
The Student Learning Commons is scouting out new talent for our Writing and Learning Peer and English as Additional Language Peer programs.
Both positions will allow you to develop transferable skills in the areas of client service, interpersonal skills, giving effective feedback, and cross-cultural communication, and will give you access to a professional reference as well as a private study/social space in the library.
We hope you will join our team! Apply now through http://myinvolvement.sfu.ca as part of posting #5254. The posting will be available until April 20, 2020.
