Traffic at the Centre for Communication (CAC) eased off this week, so I took the opportunity to chat with Janet Symmons. Janet is a graduate student tutor at the CAC and a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education, Curriculum and Instruction. We talked about how to write about theory—not only because this is a question grad students wonder about, but because it’s a topic dear to Janet’s heart. During our talk, Janet clarified the difference between a conceptual framework and a theoretical framework, told me a little about her own story and provided a useful resource.
Madeline: So what is the difference between a conceptual framework and a theoretical framework?
Janet: There has been quite a debate about this – Google it and you’ll see. People get the two confused. A conceptual framework clarifies the concepts through which the findings are discussed. So it emerges as you write your literature review (key words and ideas). Concepts are the general meanings of words, and from them you build the conceptual framework.
The theoretical framework is built from one or more theories through which you view everything. It’s like a pair of glasses you put on, glasses that you can change. For example, you can look at the same data through different lenses—say a feminist lens or a Marxist lens—and find different things. You can also combine theories that complement one another. My theoretical frame is self-determination theory. This is the theory through which I will view my data. Perhaps in a different study I can use the same data, but change my theoretical framework, to say, feminism or Marxist theory. Those would give me a very different perspective of the same data.
Madeline: When do you write about theory?
Janet: You should introduce your theoretical framework in your introduction, but give all of the details about it in your methodology section. And when you’re writing about its history or background, use the past tense. When you are writing about how you are using it, use the present tense.
Madeline: What are you working on and what is your theoretical framework?
Janet: I am doing a qualitative study, interviewing nine British Columbia educators about their use of open educational resources (OERs), specifically what motivates them to use OERs. I am collecting my data using phenomenology methodology, specifically Reflective Lifeworld Research.[1] With this approach, you gather data in a particular way, use a three-part analysis, and put it back together. After that, I will use self-determination theory to view the data.
Madeline: Why did you decide to inquire about how educators use OERs?
Janet: OERs are on the cusp; they will either evolve or be tossed to the wayside. Educators using OERs are being disruptive by using OERs rather than traditional textbooks, and I want to know why.
Madeline: Let’s backtrack to theory. You can’t just pick any theory, right? Don’t you have to align theory with your project?
Janet: Right. First I tried using one theory called Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations, but after working a few months on it, I felt as if I were fitting a square peg into a round hole. It just didn’t work. I read about a few more theories before I found the ones that worked, and a light bulb went on.
Madeline: But isn’t phenomenology a theory? Is your theory reflective lifeworld research or is it self-determination?
Janet: It can be confusing. A resource that really helped me get clear is Salma Patel’s post where he explains the research paradigm in simple language and provides a table:
[1] For more on this methodological development, see the work of Helena and Karin Dahlberg. They draw on the phenomenological and hermeneutic traditions to create a new approach to qualitative research. Dahlberg, H., & Dahlberg, K. (2019). Open and Reflective Lifeworld Research: A Third Way. Qualitative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800419836696
Photo credit: By Conrad von Soest – http://www.badwildungen.de/altar/foto6.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1844015
The “Glasses Apostle” painting in the altarpiece of the church of Bad Wildungen, Germany. Painted by Conrad von Soest in 1403, “Glasses Apostle” is considered the oldest depiction of eyeglasses north of the Alps.
David Evans, Paul Gruba, and Justin Zobel. (2014). How to Write a Better Thesis, 3rd edition. [e-book]. Springer. 173 pages.
When you hit a snag or are feeling lost in writing your thesis, reading a “how to” book can be just what you need. Such a book might give you a new perspective, a fresh idea, great advice, or motivation to continue. I recommend you have a look at the e-book How to Write a Better Thesis, free and easily accessible in UVic’s library. Writing in a friendly and knowledgeable collective voice, Evans, Gruba, and Zobel cover every stage of the thesis-writing journey. Surprisingly, they recommend you start by exploring the end-point. Look up institutional expectations for the finished thesis (get guidelines from your department). Then, read theses in your field (this is easy for UVic students; just access UVicSpace and search). These investigations will orient you to thesis-writing’s big picture.
Part of big picture thinking is recognizing that dissertation writing is not a logical, linear journey. Evans et al. (2014) acknowledge that this journey involves both the left and the right sides of our brains: “the process of research is often not entirely rational. . . . Research is a mixture of inspiration (hypothesis generation, musing over the odd and surprising, finding lines of attack on difficult problems) and rational thinking (design and execution of crucial experiments, analysis of results in terms of existing theory) . . . without the creative part, no real research would be done, no new insights would be gained, and no new theories would be formulated” (p. 10, emphasis added). This claim resonates with my own experience of writing the dissertation: moments of serendipity and light-bulb flashes punctuating long periods of reading, research, and painstaking writing.
Another example of how these writers home in on the big picture is their discussion of aim and scope, where they show how writers sometimes conflate research methods with aims. Using a cogent example of a student named Alistair, they quote what Alistair has identified as the aim of his thesis about attitudes toward a marginal group in Japanese society called the burakumin:
The aim of the research is to establish which groups of mainstream Japanese continue to harbour anti-burakumin attitudes, analyze what those attitudes are and why they have remained extant, and to investigate which political measures are needed to solve the problem. (p. 64)
Evans et al. (2014) rightly ask, “what was the real aim?” and go on to show that Alistair has crammed four aims into one sentence:
to establish which group has attitudes,
to analyze attitudes,
to determine why they persist,
and to investigate measures to solve the problem.
According to Evans et al. (2014), the first three “aims” should not appear in the intro chapter, but in the research design chapter. They go on to explain that a common problem for graduate students is that they have too many aims and should identify only one aim that follows as a “logical consequence of the problem statement” (p. 65). Finally, the conclusion should respond to this aim. So, in a nutshell, they say “stick to a single paramount aim” (p. 65, emphasis in original). This is simple but excellent advice. Less is more.
This book has many strengths:
The book is well organized, with introductory chapters on structure and mechanics followed by chapters on each section of the dissertation.
The authors are practical and sensible on mechanics; for example, if you are wondering what style is permissible in your writing, “go to the top five journals in your field and determine what style is used. Look, too, at the use of voice to see if it is first person singular, active (‘I investigate’) or perhaps third person passive (‘the event was investigated’). If your work is cross-disciplinary, settle on a single style so that your work is consistent” (p. 29).
They provide a comprehensive final checklist, “Dotting the ‘I’s and Crossing the ‘t’s” to review before you submit (pp. 129-136).
Summaries are provided at the end of each chapter, so it’s easy to dip in and out of the book and choose only what is relevant to your thesis-writing journey.
Although the authors write from an Australian perspective and they claim their book is suitable mostly for students in the physical, biomedical, mathematical, and social sciences, I believe this book has nuggets of good advice for all thesis writers.
Note: “Thesis” in this book is an umbrella term covering both the master’s thesis and the doctoral dissertation.
About Madeline
Madeline Walker is the Coordinator of the Centre for Academic Communication. She has a PhD in English and enjoys helping students to engage fully with their writing. She loves red and purple, colours of the heart.
Experienced tutor Gillian Saunders helps a graduate student
In graduate school, students are expected to write skillfully in their disciplines, yet explicit writing instruction via academic writing courses is rare at the grad level. Moreover, instructors are not often able to provide the intensive mentorship many students require, and if they can, such supervision “is costly and time consuming” (Dunleavy, 2003, p. 4). Tutors at the Centre for Academic Communication help to close this gap in grad student support by providing regular meetings to talk about writing, help to plan writing, and work on specific writing issues.
Grad students benefit from CAC tutors’ knowledge of and experience in graduate academic writing. Additionally, graduate students appreciate the continuity of support we offer. For example, one MA student finds that meetings with her busy supervisor are sporadic, but she can count on a weekly meeting with a tutor to check in. Another Master’s student (EAL) saves questions throughout the week and uses his time with a tutor to check vocabulary, syntax, meaning, and organization of his thesis in computer science, questions he deems inappropriate to ask his supervisor.
Students also appreciate the encouraging, non-judgmental approach we take during tutoring sessions. Writing at the graduate level involves developing a new scholarly identity, and this process can be fraught with anxiety and self-doubt. Students often feel reassured after meeting with a tutor because they realize they are on the right track. They can set goals and talk about how to be more productive—topics their supervisors may not have time to discuss.
Graduate students number over 3,000 at UVic, and they need academic writing support. With faculty members supervising multiple graduate students in addition to their teaching, research, and service commitments, the role of the Centre for Academic Communication has never been so important. Connect with us by creating an account online and booking an appointment with a tutor. Check out our spring schedule for tutoring, workshops, and other services. Come to the Grad Writing Room, Library 151B on Fridays from 10 to 1, where you write in community with others. Or just drop by and say hello. We’re located on the main floor of the Mearns Centre for Learning – McPherson Library. We’d love to see you.
Reference
Dunleavy, P. (2003). Authoring a PhD: How to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral thesis or dissertation. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
This is my first official blog post and I am thrilled and nervous to write at the same time. I have just finished my seventh course for my master’s program in Curriculum and Instruction focusing on Literacy. At this point in this 13-month journey I fall asleep if I sit still for more than ten minutes. Hilarious but true! Being a literacy consultant, doing a master’s program and trying to balance a family simultaneously is tough. What made the workload even tougher is having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a learning disability. Translation: I do not process directions, readings, people’s comments or class discussions in the patterns my classmates did. My unique learning style translated to 25 very rewarding years teaching junior high, or as you say in BC, middle school, but the learning style has not made grad school easy.
I started a master’s program in July 2017 because as a consultant last year in Alberta, I supported 13 junior high schools and coached 100 teachers. I was asked to come back month after month and every meeting there were more and more teachers in attendance. Junior high teachers want to adopt practices that transform their student learning. In my school district in Edmonton, there are 100,000 students, and approximately 263 schools. Translation: many teachers want to adopt their classroom practices to meet the varied needs they see hourly. My master’s program has given me the language and capacity to walk into every classroom or school, see the strengths of the staff, listen to their “what if we could . . .?” questions and find the scaffolds and strategies to support the inquisitive professionals. The master’s program also highlighted my learning disability and required me to ask for help.
I have always had difficulty writing for academic purposes because I could not understand the patterns I was to follow. I saw connections between the theories and classroom practice. Twenty-five years of reading, studying, practicing and planning, which resulted in 55 to 60-hour work weeks, allowed me to find ways to motivate and engage my students. My whole career I was able to get results from students that were supposedly unattainable or from the students who don’t care. In my classroom I have LOVED making literacy theory practical for my students and my colleagues! What my insane work schedule did not do was develop my writing skills for academia.
Then the Learning and Teaching Centre came on my radar after a professor this summer handed back a paper saying, “Barb you get the ideas and theories, but you need an editor to find the transitions and develop the coherence.” The comment was said with kindness and in support, and I had already come to this realization during my last 12 months. One of my supportive cohort members suggested the Centre for Academic Communication (CAC). I was spending HOURS trying to meet the academic standards and barely making it.
It is so humbling to ask for help once again in my academic studies. New to me, NOT! My grade 12 Chemistry teacher was so excited when I got a 67% on the provincial diploma exam. He told me that mark meant more to him than so many of the students who got honors because of the hours of work he saw me put in that did not result in higher grades. Yet now I was in a master’s program asking for help. Did that mean I did not actually have the stuff to be here?
At the CAC I asked for an editor and received a writing coach! What a delightful surprise. Someone who read aloud what I had written and allowed me to hear the lack of coherence and then that same someone asked me to clarify how the ideas related? These were easy questions and I quickly rattled off the answer and then typed as if the keys were on fire and I had to quickly unload my ideas from my hands. The words flowed from me because the gift of ADHD is that I learn the material to a level of specificity that most people don’t see. My brain wants to understand the theory of literacy to the degree that I can disperse the theory into practical application for all the teachers I support.
I would leave an hour’s session at the CAC so excited and energized that many of my cohort group are planning on using the writing supports during the 2018-19 year as we complete our project. My fellow grad students could not believe I revised 800 words in 45 minutes and took the quality of my writing to a much higher standard. Not only was my writing more aligned with masters degree benchmarks but my confidence soared after each visit. I started to realize I could write and that I was in grad school for valid reasons. I want to help teachers so that I am really helping teenagers embrace the potential they have and encourage them to heal and bring hope to combat some of the ugliness in our world.
Who knew one hour could do so much? Luckily, I did not, and I was so grateful to have been able to sign up for three hours in my last week. My writing abilities can almost leap tall buildings in a single bound and it’s just in time. This master’s project is going to take every writing skill I have and now I have more.
About Barb
Barb has taught junior high/middle school for 25 years and is now a literacy consultant with Edmonton Public Schools. She has taught for many years, in all four disciplines, but landed in English Language Arts. Her love of diverse learners has allowed Barb to teach the spectrum of learners who are gifted to learners identified with special needs. Barb is part of the international Freedom Writer Teachers and is looking forward to the year when she finally figures out all there is to know about teaching. She can be reached at barb.melnychuk@epsb.ca
Have you heard any of these complaints? Or rather, have you been making them yourself? If so, you are not alone. Many EAL (English as an Additional Language) and non-EAL students find themselves in situations where they feel their academic vocabulary is “just not enough.” Whether prompted by feedback received from instructors and peers or just driven by the desire to impress our readers, we always have this urge to use “different,” “more difficult,” or “more academic” words in our writing. English language is also inviting us to do so. According to the Oxford Dictionaries website, “there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words,” and “if distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million.” This is more than almost any other language. These statistics alone put a huge pressure on student writers to expand their vocabulary and use a variety of words in their writing. But is this a reasonable expectation, and does using new words always lead to better academic writing?
Let’s consider the following sentence written by an EAL student:
“An illustration of this is the school system, which is one of the main sources of distributing cultural capital.”
At the Centre for Academic Communication, I often see sentences like this. At a first glance, such sentences can be confusing because of their word choice, but with a closer look, it becomes evident that the student has tried to replace a word with a synonym that does not quite work in this context. In the above sentence, the word “illustration” has replaced “example” to avoid repetition. Repetition is something many student writers are concerned about, and rightly so. Academic writing often puts us in situations where we have to repeat the same words over and over again. It is just natural that we prefer not to repeat the same words several times in a short chunk of writing. This reluctance is also enhanced by negative feedback most writers receive about repetition. Another reason words like “example” don’t always get much love is that they are thought to be “too simple.” But is there anything inherently “simple” about the word “example”? It could be that it is shorter than a word like “illustration” and is not an obvious derivative with a formal-sounding suffix. But in reality, what probably makes “example” look simple is the fact that we know it too well; we use it too commonly for it to qualify as a “hard” word, which brings us full circle to the issues of repetition and variety in writing.
But whether these poor “simple” words get discarded for the accusations of simplicity or repetition, what is certain is that many of our students identify the need to have more options when writing. What many student writers and especially EAL writers overlook, however, is that not all synonyms can be used interchangeably. In fact, many synonyms that can be found in thesauri or through MS Word are just similar words that cannot simply replace the original word in the sentence. In such situations, I recommend my students to stick with the words they know rather than trying to add variety to their writing. Common words are common for a reason: they are good words! And repetition is not always bad; it can be a way to consolidate meaning and create consistency. This can be a safe option, but what if they want to improve their writing by using a variety of sentence structures? This is a legitimate need, and there must be a way for it.
This is when I suggest learning academic phrases and sentence structures instead of learning new words.
As counterintuitive as it may sound, learning new “difficult” words is not a priority in improving your academic writing. In my opinion, learning “old” and “simple” word combinations is much more important.
While the previous statistic from OED estimates English words to be at about 750 thousand, other statistics show that of all these words, only a very small percentage are used in everyday writing. The general consensus is that only about 3000 words cover 95% of common texts like newspapers, blogs, and most books[1]. That is only 0.4% of the number OED quotes as the total number of words in English. This means that in order to master the use of words in writing, learning new words like “contumacious” and “gasconading” is not as important as learning how to combine more familiar words such as “for,” “boastful,” “respect,” “in,” “lack,” and “manner.” (see the end for a fun quiz!) Or to return to our example, finding synonyms like “specimen” and “exemplar” (words that are listed as synonyms for “example”) does not necessarily help us with finding alternatives. It is the use of old words like “true” and “case” that makes the difference between intermediate and advanced level writing. Using these words, our student writer could have written the following sentence as a variation of their sentence:
“This is certainly true in the case of schools which are one of the main sources of distributing cultural capital.”
But where do these combinations come from? How can student writers learn such academic phrases and add them to their repertoire of active vocabulary? We certainly cannot just make new collocations ourselves. Learning a language is one of the very few areas of knowledge in which being inventive is not always a recipe for success. Surprisingly, here, imitation and copying are more fruitful ways of learning and improving. We have to have encountered a certain arrangement of words to be able to reproduce it in our writing.
Therefore, my first suggestion to learn new collocations is to look for them in other people’s texts. Instead of going to vocabulary books or resources that introduce phrases and collocations, you can look for, notice, and try to learn such collocations while reading and listening. Academic articles, books, lectures, and more general texts like news articles, podcasts, and even daily conversations are great sources to find and learn new collocations, phrases, and sentence structures. This can make learning new collocations part of your daily routine without the need for setting aside dedicated time for it. You can form a habit to treat your daily reading and listening activities as learning opportunities to expand your vocabulary circle.
But to do this, first you need to develop an eye for finding useful collocations in written and spoken texts. In other words, you have to learn how to identify word combinations that might look ordinary at the first glance but are in fact specific arrangements of words that you would not normally use in your writing. To give you an example, look at this short excerpt from an academic article[2] on Digital Humanities:
“This essay traces some of the ways modernism and digital humanities have converged of late. It covers some of the key modes in which that convergence has so far found expression.”
They seem like a couple of normal-looking sentences with apparently no “difficult” or “fancy” words. However, with a closer look, you can notice that the authors have used the words “of” and “late” to mean “recently.” This is a very simple word combination; but despite its simplicity, it is an arrangement that an EAL writer would not necessarily know or use. Similarly, the words “found” and “expression”, two more seemingly “easy” words, have constituted a collocation that can replace words like “show,” “demonstrate,’ or “manifest,” all words that student writers overuse and would want to find synonyms for. With more attention, it becomes evident that the collocation “find expression” is used with the preposition “in” and is followed by a noun, but in this sentence, the preposition and the noun have moved before the verb. Therefore, the complete expression that we should extract from this sentence is “to find expression in something.” As you see, this requires attention and bit of experience, but with some practice, you can easily mine valuable collocations by just analyzing ordinary-looking sentences.
Finally, remember that the type and usage of the collocations you find will vary based on the sources where you find them. What you will find in a magazine article or a podcast can be fairly informal and suitable for daily situations. In the same way, if you review academic texts, like journal articles and books, you are more likely to find collocations that are useful for your academic writing.
So far, we discussed the ways to identify new collocations in others’ texts. In a next blog post, I will talk about developing a system to record, practice, and finally master the newly-learned collocations.
And now is the time for this post’s quick quiz. What sentences would you make with the “simple” words “for,” “boastful,” “respect,” “in,” “lack,” and “manner” I proposed to use instead of “contumacious” and “gasconading”? Comment on this post if you want to play!
[1] Fry, E. B., 1925, & Kress, J. E. (2006). The reading teacher’s book of lists (5th, 1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
[2] Ross, S., & Sayers, J. (2014). Modernism meets digital humanities. Literature Compass, 11(9), 625-633. doi:10.1111/lic3.12174
Credit for photo of books: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alborzagros#/media/File:English-English_and_English-Persian_dictionaries.JPG
About Kaveh
Kaveh is an EAL Specialist at the CAC.
Kaveh Tagharobi has two MA degrees in English, the second one completed at UVic in 2017 with a concentration in Cultural, Social, and Political Thought (CSPT). Before starting to work at the CAC in 2013, he was an ESL/EFL instructor for 10 years in Iran, teaching a variety of topics to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students. At the CAC, Kaveh works with both international and domestic students, helping them to plan their research, organize their writing, edit for grammar, and improve their reading and critical thinking skills.
Grammar not your strong suit? You’re not the only one. At the Centre for Academic Communication, almost half of those who use the centre identify “writing grammatically correct sentences” and editing their own work as a challenge, and some variation of “grammar help” or “grammar checking” is one of the most common requests our tutors receive.
With the rapid expansion of technology available, I wanted to know if there was a tool that could help writers identify their errors and fix them. I knew already, from over 10 years of teaching English as an additional language, that translation programs and other tools have come a long way, and I set out to find something that might at least act as a complement to the instruction and feedback that a tutor or instructor can provide. It’s not usually possible for a human to read and give feedback on an entire thesis, and the limit for tutoring at the CAC is 50 minutes per week. Might there be a miracle product out there that could alert writers to at least some of their most common mistakes, so that tutors and professors can focus on higher order concerns and content, instead of nit-picking at punctuation and missing plural “s” issues? I submitted a proposal about online grammar checkers for the Vancouver Island BCTEAL conference, and began my research. What follows is based on my conference presentation from February 2018.
First, I made a list of the most widely referenced grammar and writing checkers available, and eliminated any that weren’t free or suited to academic writing. My final list included Ginger (http://www.gingersoftware.com/grammarcheck), Scribens (https://www.scribens.com/), Virtual Writing Tutor (https://virtualwritingtutor.com/), PaperRater (https://www.paperrater.com/), and, of course, Grammarly (https://www.grammarly.com/). I also tested the advanced functions of Microsoft Word. In order to get an idea of the types of writing that might benefit from use of these tools, I tested them using two writing samples: one was a former student’s TOEFL writing test (good overall, with some grammatical issues), and one was my own proposal for the BCTEAL conference (graduate-level writing, I hope!).
Did I find what I was looking for? Well, yes and no. I did find a few useful features that I hadn’t previously known about, but I didn’t find anything that would accurately flag or correct a lot of the types of errors in grammar and punctuation that many writers tend to make. In high-level writing, too, the tools tended to introduce more new errors than they caught existing ones, which is a problem I had anticipated.
Among the most useful findings was Virtual Writing Tutor’s “Check Vocabulary” feature, which identifies and lists words that make your paper seem “academic” or “conversational.” This might be a good option if you’re struggling with finding an academic tone or your writing is too informal. The “Check Grammar” tool also caught a number of errors in the EAL student writing sample and suggested mostly accurate revisions, but could not distinguish between the word “style” as a verb and as a noun in my writing and offered a revision that would have been incorrect. I had high hopes for this tool’s “Paraphrase Checker,” but it was completely useless: two 100% identical sentences were only identified as being 68% the same.
Paper Rater also revealed a few interesting features: It can be adjusted for the type of writing you’re doing and for grade level, and gives a “grade” and some feedback. Although I wouldn’t recommend relying on this as an indicator of the grade a professor would assign, Paper Rater gave my writing 95% and my student’s writing 75%, and I thought these grades were more or less appropriate. Ignore the letter grades though! They don’t seem to correspond to any grading scale I’m familiar with. Paper Rater is also great for assessing the variety in your sentence beginnings, telling you if your vocabulary is “academic,” and reporting on use of the passive voice. Overall, I can see this tool being useful for high-level writers who want to get a sense of the general quality and patterns of their work.
As for the others, Ginger was pretty useless and introduced errors that weren’t there to begin with. It doesn’t do much if you don’t pay to upgrade it, and based on what I saw with the free version I wouldn’t recommend doing that. Scribens was able to do a few basic tasks, such as identify long sentences, but did the most ridiculous things with vocabulary suggestions. Should I change “communicate with different people and use modern technology” to “communicate with peculiar people and exploit modern technology”? These were options suggested, and I think this feature would be potentially catastrophic to writers without an unwaveringly confident grasp of English vocabulary and usage.
Grammarly is also available in a free and paid version. I used the free one and installed it in Word, and relied on Grammarist’s (http://grammarist.com/articles/grammarly-review/) review of the paid version as a comparison. Although Grammarly is probably the best-known and most widely used grammar checker available, both Grammarist and I found it limited for a number of reasons. Grammarly’s rigorous testing revealed a 72% accuracy with 43 items of grammar and style. It scored very highly for style, but not grammar, and I also found that it introduced errors and could not assess words that functioned as two different parts of speech, like “style.” Its plagiarism checker was also useless: although it knew that two identical pieces were identical, it gave the same paragraph a thumbs-up when just a few words were changed.
Grammarly’s assessment of EAL student writing (when installed in Microsoft Word), with examples of incorrect suggestions for revision.
And finally, although I love Word’s ability to check (very accurately) for passive voice and long sentences, and to assess readability, it isn’t good for many grammatical issues. The advanced checking tools can be activated in “Proofing” options. Word’s default is usually to check only “grammar” and not “grammar and style,” which is easy to fix.
In the end, then, while I did find some options that I might recommend to students with specific issues (e.g., sentences beginning with “It is…”, non-academic tone, or overuse of passive voice), for many writers I think better options include peer review or a visit to the CAC for an assessment of most frequent errors. Once you know what you’re looking for, “Find and Replace” can work miracles! For writers who wish to improve their grammatical accuracy, some of these tools might be a good place to start, but be careful not to get overwhelmed. If you can, focus on just one or two types of errors at a time, and remember that good writing skills take time to cultivate and lots of dedicated practice and feedback.
Gillian is an English as an Additional Language Specialist at UVic and a PhD student in Education. Her background is in English literature, and she has been teaching English, first in South Korea and now in Canada, for over ten years.
For an introduction to Zotero, please see our last post.
Notes
Zotero, as a scholarly organization tool and citation manager, allows you to attach notes to items in your library, as you likely would if you were reading a physical journal or book. You can create a child-note, which is attached to a specific item in your library. This type of note would be equivalent to writing in the margins of a journal article or attaching a post-it to a relevant page in a book you are using for research.
You can also create a standalone note, which can be used more generally to illustrate a common theme or concept for your collection or project. A child-note can be moved to become a standalone note, so if an item in Zotero is no longer relevant to your research but contains notes, the notes can be moved and saved before you delete the item from your library.
Once you have created a note, or many notes, you can of course edit and move them. Zotero notes can also be fully formatted to fit your needs. As in a word processor, you can add bullets, create numbered lists, bold, italicize and underline key words or ideas, and more. The flexibility of the note tool in Zotero allows you to further organize and add to your research, all in the convenience of one location.
Group Libraries
As a scholar, you may find yourself collaborating with your colleagues and peers on certain research projects. Zotero makes collaboration simple through the creation and use of group libraries. Whoever has been invited to contribute to group libraries will be able to perform regular Zotero tasks, like adding and editing items or creating notes.
To create a group library, you must first sign up for a free Zotero account through Zotero.org. Once you have set up an online account, you can create group libraries and send invitations to your fellow researchers.
Syncing your library after adding and editing items will update the content for the whole group. Syncing your library to the Zotero server (also known as “Data Syncing”) also lets you access your Zotero library on multiple devices, although this does not include PDF attachments. Syncing your library between devices is great if you use different computers between campus, work, and home.
Working with others can sometimes result in duplicate items being saved to the Zotero library. Luckily, Zotero has a folder to display duplicate items in your library. This folder enables groups to identify when they are treading the same ground as their colleagues, thus streamlining and organizing research.
Creating annotated bibliographies
Most major citation styles have a format for annotated bibliographies. Zotero automates some of these formats and uses whatever text appears in the “abstract” field for the annotation. However, Zotero is often able to import the standard abstract along with other descriptive information, which users may not want to replace with their own custom annotation. To get around this, a number of annotated styles have been created by K. Stanger of Eastern Michigan University: https://guides.emich.edu/c.php?g=188045&p=1241422. These styles use the “extra” field to accommodate the custom annotation.
Tracking research projects and your knowledge of a field
There are a number of ways to use Zotero to track your growing comprehensive knowledge of a field. Intelligent use of the basic organizational tools (files, tags, and notes) can go a long way, and in addition Zotero offers the “timeline” feature. Select a library and click “create a timeline” under tools. You will see a customizable chronological display of the items in the library. This tool may reveal chronological gaps in your collection which should be investigated.
This collection of Canadian legal history books and articles shows no works prior to 1985, but a substantial literature exists from the 1970s.
Annotating and highlighting PDFs using Zotfile
Zotfile is a Zotero extension that allows users to highlight and annotate the PDFs attached to Zotero items and then make use of that work. Zotfile also allows for easy transfer of annotated PDFs between devices, among other functions. If you like to work directly with e-texts in multiple locations, Zotfile is for you.
Want help with Zotero? Zotero Workshops will be held in Room in Library Room 130 February 20 and 22, 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.
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Michael Lines is a Learning and Research Librarian (Medieval Studies, Philosophy, Political Science) at the William C. Mearns Centre for Learning – McPherson Library. You can reach Michael at 250-472-4236 | mlines@uvic.ca | www.uvic.ca/library/research/librarians/mlines
Shevaun Ruby is a Learning and Research Librarian (intern) at the William C. Mearns Centre for Learning – McPherson Library. You can reach Shevaun at 250-853-3610 | sruby@uvic.ca
Using a citation manager is a must for grad students. It facilitates the easy collection and use (and re-use) of citations, and can help in other areas of the writing process, such as note-taking, tracking research areas, making annotated bibliographies, and managing collaborative projects.
Choosing a citation manager can be hard because there are many available. As a grad student you may have different priorities than a professional writer, an undergrad student, or a librarian. Cost and flexibility may be important, especially if you are new to citation management. In addition, academics should take into account the ethics of the decision: what are the privacy implications, and are you supporting a sustainable model of scholarly labour?
Zotero is recommended here on all of the above accounts: it is a free and open-source software developed and maintained by the Roy Rosenzweig Centre for History and New Media at George Mason University, is designed to meet scholarly needs, and is licensed on terms compatible with academic freedom.
Setup
Zotero requires two components in order to function properly and save items to your library: Zotero 5.0 Standalone and the Zotero Connector.
Zotero Standalone 5.0 is software that is downloaded from Zotero.org and then installed onto your hard-drive. It can function without an internet connection, although those functions will be limited to editing and organizing existing library items, creating notes and tags, and attaching PDFs. The second component, called Zotero Connector, is installed through your preferred internet browser (Firefox, Chrome, or Safari); this is the tool that allows you to save items like journal articles or web pages from the internet to your Zotero library. In order to save items from your internet browser to Zotero, you must have the standalone software open.
Additionally, Zotero will install a plugin to your word processor that allows you to insert and format citations and bibliographies within your paper. In Microsoft Word, this shows up as a tab simply named “Zotero.”
The system/storage requirements for Zotero are low; Zotero standalone application requires less than a megabyte of hard-drive space, and the Connector is a small extension that lives in your browser. This means the program runs quickly and should not burden your CPU, allowing you to have Zotero running while you work on other projects within your word processor or internet browser.
Collecting Bibliographic Information
Once set up, Zotero is easy to use. And Zotero is easiest to use when the researcher has a clear intention to collect and store bibliographic information and PDFs for later reading. This is part of the bigger picture of having an orderly approach to the research and writing process.
First, Zotero must be running. When the desired item is open in the browser the researcher presses the “save to Zotero” button on the toolbar, and the bibliographic information is collected (that is, its bibliographic info copied into Zotero.) Usually a PDF will also be downloaded and added to the item in Zotero, if one is available. Any website, online article, eBook, etc. may be “collected” and this includes database records that only describe a book or article.
As easy as this is, it is not always error-free, so it is good practice to double-check the information collected by Zotero while the book or article is still up on the screen. Quickly correct any errors. Once that is done, the researcher never has to return to editing the details of the citation.
Making citations and bibliographies
Once the items are in the Zotero collection, the researcher can make use of them in the writing process. The Zotero add-in for Word and other word processors should automatically install with Zotero, and will be one of the tabs in the Word processor toolbar.
When a citation is needed, select the tab, click “Add/Edit citation,” and select what citation style you will be using. Then type the first few letters of the title or author in the search box that appears, select the correct source, and press Enter. A citation will appear in the text or footnote.
Later, select “Add/Edit Bibliography” and all the sources that have been cited will be collected in a bibliography. This is where checking the citations as you entered them into Zotero pays off: if you have good data in Zotero, all your citations will be accurate at a single click of the button.
The Library will be hosting some “Introduction to Zotero” workshops in February. The workshops will cover introductory usage of Zotero, from downloading the connector and standalone software, to adding items and making citations. Please come!
Next time, we’ll be talking about extended uses of Zotero, such as attaching notes, creating group libraries for collaborative work, and building annotated bibliographies.
Michael Lines is a Learning and Research Librarian (Medieval Studies, Philosophy, Political Science) at the William C. Mearns Centre for Learning – McPherson Library. You can reach Michael at 250-472-4236 | mlines@uvic.ca | www.uvic.ca/library/research/librarians/mlines
Shevaun Ruby is a Learning and Research Librarian (intern) at the William C. Mearns Centre for Learning – McPherson Library. You can reach Shevaun at 250-853-3610 | sruby@uvic.ca
For a chance to win a prize, enter our blog post contest about how the University of Victoria’s extraordinary environment matters to your writing.
Describe where you love to write, take a picture of yourself in that location, and share with us how the amazing environment at the University of Victoria and its environs inspire your writing.
Or, describe who helps you write: a writing group, counsellor, tutor, librarian, instructor, supervisor, or friend? Tell us how this relationship matters to you and your writing and include a photo of yourself and whoever makes UVic an extraordinary environment for you and your writing.
Submit your entries (blog post plus photo) to cdrcac@uvic.ca by 11:59 p.m., February 28, 2018 for a chance to win one of three prizes:
First prize: $100 gift certificate at UVic Bookstore
Second and third prizes: $50 gift certificates at UVic Bookstore
Winning entries will be published on the Graduate Student Writers’ Community blog.
The quotation in our title from popular writer James Michener stresses the importance of revising and editing your own writing. Indeed, knowing how to revise and edit is just as important as being able to generate a first draft. Here we describe two ways you can revise and edit your work with intention.
Using readability statistics to plan revisions, by Madeline
A simple, free tool can help you analyze your own writing with an eye to revision. Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software available, yet few people know about the Readability Statistics feature. This feature analyzes your writing and provides counts, averages, the percentage of sentences in passive voice, and two readability measures. You can use this information to plan improvements to your writing. For example, the average academic sentence contains 23 words (in Business it’s 15-20), but what if you see from the statistics that your average sentence is 35 words? Now is the time to read Nancy’s contribution below and edit for concision. What if you see that 50% of your sentences are in the passive voice, but your discipline prefers active voice? You can revise accordingly. The two readability measures show the grade level of writing (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Test) and the level of difficulty (Flesch Reading Ease Test) with 100% the easiest to read and 0-29 confusing prose. You can use this measure to revise with an eye to clarity and accessibility.
To get started right away in Word for PC, go to file/ options/ proofing. Under “When correcting spelling and grammar in Word,” select the “Check grammar with spelling check box” and select “Show readability statistics.” After writing your document, go to review/ spelling and grammar, and when the check is complete, a text box will appear on your screen on top of your document.
In Word for Mac, go to Word/ preferences/ spelling and grammar and check “Show readability statistics.” After finishing your document, go to review/ spelling and grammar, and when the check is complete, a text box will appear on your screen on top of your document.
Just for fun, here are the statistics for part one of this blog post. Click here to learn more about Readability Statistics and how to interpret them. Then you can revise and edit with intention.
Concision, by Nancy
After noting my essays overflowed with phrases like “future plans for one’s life ahead” and “the discussion of the characters in the novel that was assigned,” my undergraduate communication professor suggested I read The Elements of Style. I bought it and read it. I understood why my course instructor made notes like “awk” and “redundant” and “?” in my essay margins. I learned how I could write differently. Concisely.
Over the years, since putting aside The Elements of Style, I’ve noticed that my writing has returned to its former state. Puffy. Expansive. Obscure. What happened to concision?
Desperate to review tips I learned more than thirty years ago, I thumbed through my yellow-paged $2.95-ticketed third edition and found scribbled asterisks next to principles like 14: “Put statements in positive form” and 17: “Omit needless words”. Would the advice I followed in my undergraduate degree help me thin my padded writing now?
I applied Strunk and White’s principles to my sentence scrawls:
Avoid “not”
In spite of the fact that writing is difficult for some, it is not difficult for others.
In spite of the fact that While writing is difficult for some, it is not difficult easy for others.
I replaced “not difficult” with “easy” and saved a word!
Trim the fat
Perfectionists are people who struggle with writing.
Perfectionists are people who struggle with writing.
I eliminated “are people who” and saved three words!
My colleague writes in an effective manner.
My colleague writes in an effective manner effectively.
I used an adverb to replace a phrase and saved four words!
Writing is an activity that is difficult for some.
Writing is an activity that is difficult for some.
I excised “an activity that is” and saved four words!
I need to call your attention to the fact that writing is difficult.
I need tocall your attention to the fact that Writing is difficult!
I replaced the idea of “need” with a “!” and saved 10 words!
Replace clauses with phrases and phrases with words
Writing that is done by scholars can be complex and incomprehensible.
Writing that is done by scholars can be complex and incomprehensible.
Scholarly writing that is done by scholars can be complex and incomprehensible.
Complex scholarly writing that is done by scholars can be complex andin comprehensible.
I reduced a negative eleven-word sentence to a positive simple statement of six words!
Comprehensible writing results from applying only two of the simplest of Strunk and White’s twenty writing principles. True in 1985. True today. Check it out!
In addition to employing these techniques, remember that you are always welcome to work with a tutor at the Centre for Academic Communication to improve your revision and editing skills.
Nancy Ami (R) is the Manager and Madeline Walker (L) is the Coordinator of the Centre for Academic Communication. That’s Nancy’s dog-eared copy of The Elements of Style, 3rd edition. The fourth edition is available in the Reference section of our library: PE1408 S772 2000
Graduate students: Tell your writing story
