| Resources
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| Resources
for Writing |
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| Advice
on Cutting Words — This document provides a list of signs of wordiness (with
explanations); use it as a checklist to improve concision in your own
writing. When I mark your exercises and essays, a W means you can
find an explanation of the mistake on this page. Wordy writing will result in penalties to your scores, while concise writing can earn you a bonus. |
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| Comment
Key — This is the explanation of the symbols and abbreviations
I use when marking your writing. |
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Format
Rules — This document explains proper formatting for
all work in this course. Here also is a sample of the first few pages
of a paper using the proper format as both a doc and a docx file.
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Essay Structure Options — Here you will find explanations of how to structure both closed form and open form essays, with links to examples of both.
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| The
Incredibly Annoying Error List — A list of errors (with
explanations) I never want to see in my courses. When I mark your exercises
and essays, E means you can find an explanation of the mistake on this
page. |
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| Quotation
and Citation Guidelines — This page offers explanations and examples of
how to set up quotations effectively, plus proper quotation and citation format, based primarily on the MLA Handbook. |
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| Stylistic Conventions for Academic Essays — This page points out a number of conventions of good academic writing. |
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| Transition Word Hand-Out — An extensive list of transition words and short phrases, divided into categories. |
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| The
Writing Center — The Writing Center provides peer tutoring
and advice on all aspects of the writing process. The tutors get extremely
busy towards the end of the semester, so it is a good idea to go early
and establish a working relationship with one you find helpful. |
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| The
Writing Center's Quick Guides Page — Here you can find a bevy of specific resources to help you with many aspects of the writing process. |
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| The
Writing from Sources Rating Scale — This is my slight modification of the rating scale developed by Jon Hall to evaluate the use of sources in academic essays. |
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| Resources
for Research |
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| An Annotated Bibliography and Review of Scholarship — This document shows the planning for a scholarly essay. It includes quotations from multiple sources, and under each quotation the author explains how she plans to use the quotation in her essay. It also includes a tentative thesis for the essay and a complete works cited. The essay examines Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure, but the topic does not matter. The approach is what you should be paying attention to. |
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Mason
Libraries Main Page — where your research should start
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Mason
Libraries Databases Page — where you can access the MLA
Database, J-STOR, and The Oxford English Dictionary,
among many other research materials
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OneLook.com
— a useful site that gives you definitions from many different
dictionaries with only one click and also offers a thesaurus function
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The
OWL (Online Writing Lab)
at Purdue University MLA Guide page
— This site has the latest updates in MLA (Modern Language Association) citation format, as well
as many other helpful materials. You will find many specific pages
here (the index is on the left), but this is a good starting point. MLA is the most common format for papers in the humanities.
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| General
Resources |
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Scoring
System —
How to calculate scores on the major assignments
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The
English Department Main Page — if you have questions
about the department, including major and minor requirements |
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ITU
Services — Where to find information about technology
at Mason; also offers downloads for common programs such as Norton Antivirus,
Google Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer.
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My
Home Page —For more information about me, including
courses I am scheduled to teach next semester.
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