I know you’ve been waiting with bated breath for this … Volume 2 of the SLC Undergraduate Writing Contest Open Journal is finally available! But why should you read them, really?

Read on and Learning Services Coordinator Ruth Silverman will give you plenty of reasons why!

Get your summer semester off on the right foot by learning how to read smarter, not harder (or longer)!

Graduate Writing Facilitator Jennesia Pedri has generously shared with us a Reading Guide that she created to support her own reading during her comprehensive exams for her doctoral studies in the School of Communications. As Jennesia explains, the guide aims to help you read more efficiently and effectively. It also aims to make itself obsolete: eventually you won’t need it because you’ll begin to automatically ask yourself these kinds of questions as you read.

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

I'm sure I don't have to mention that it is exam time! In this blog post, Donya Samadi --  PhD student in Educational Psychology and former Graduate Facilitator with the SLC -- shares how the concept of self-explanation can be applied to studying. 

Self-explanation, Donya explains, may be beneficial because information previously learned is recalled and integrated with new information to generate a self-explanation. In this way, self-explanation is a connection and elaboration to prior knowledge. When engaged in self-explanations, learners can develop new meaningful associations, and further understand the content they are studying. 

Welcome back to the wonderful world of commas!

SLC Writing Coordinator Amanda Goldrick-Jones, PhD, helps us understand the "unwanted comma," or when NOT to use commas in our writing. 

Missed Part 1? Check it out here. 

Looking for an icebreaker for your next event? Interested in promoting self-reflection opportunities? Curious about the relationship between mistakes or failure and resiliency?

This is the toolkit for you! 

[Note: Excellent mistakes not included!]

Perhaps you are starting to gear up for term paper writing? If so, you might be wondering when you are REALLY supposed to be using commas...

SLC Writing Coordinator Amanda Goldrick-Jones, PhD, returns to help us understand that common piece of punctuation, the comma... and maybe, just maybe, how to save our relationships? 

Announcing the winners of the 2018 Student Learning Commons writing contest.

Congrats to these winners and thank you to everyone who entered!

Award-winning poet and SFU Communications student Natalie Lim guest blogs for In Common this week! 

Check out Natalie's top tips for how a creative writing practice can help strengthen your academic papers. As a bonus, Natalie offers some fun and helpful writing exercises to try out! 

Congrats to Natalie for winning the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize with her poem Arrhythmia.

The six word story initiative invites members of the SFU community to celebrate their "excellent mistakes."