• Talk with friends or roommates over lunch or drinks about the papers they’ve written for their classes. Their paper topics might help you think of a topic, and they might be able to give you ideas for finding sources!

• Skim through past paper assignments and look at the papers that interested you. These papers might lead to additional ideas—plus you might be able to recycle some of your research!

• Post a Facebook message asking your friends for paper ideas and paper help—you might even find a friend who is also working on an open-ended paper assignment. The two of you could share leads on helpful sources.

• Google. It seems really simple, but sometime students forget about the simple act of entering random words into the search field and then seeing where the results (and sub-results) lead them. If anything, you might learn something as you research.

Parallel Construction

According to Merriam Webster, the term parallel refers to entities that exhibit “parallelism in form, function, or development.” So, when discussing writing, the term parallel refers to the parallel constructions of various phrasal elements. In basic terms, when a series of words and phrases don’t match in form, then the construction isn’t parallel. When writing a series of verbs or verbal phrases, the tense and form of the words should match. And, generally speaking, when writing any sort of series, the form and function of the words and phrases should match. Does this all sound a little confusing? Well, it’s a little confusing to describe, so below are examples to illustrate the concept of parallel construction. Each section includes a sentence that is not parallel and then a revised version of that sentence.

Not Parallel: At the football tailgate, we grilled food, drank beer, and were playing bags.

Parallel: At the football tailgate, we grilled food, drank beer, and played bags.

Not Parallel: We watched the butterfly as it flew to the flower, sipped on the nectar, and the cat saw it.

Parallel: We watched the butterfly as it flew to the flower and sipped on the nectar. The cat saw it . . .

Not Parallel: Cooking dinner, we cut all of the vegetables and washed all of the fruit.

Parallel: While we cooked dinner, we cut all of the vegetables and washed all of the fruit.

So, for this entry, we decided to create an informal end-of-term checklist that students can use as they wrap up their classes. The main focus of the list is centered on ways students can better prepare for subsequent terms—and even gain an advantage in future classes! This is definitely not a comprehensive list, but hopefully it will provide a good foundation for when students complete a term and prepare for a new one. Enjoy, and happy Thanksgiving!

• Class Notes: If the class relates to your major, then it would be a good idea to save class notes in a binder just in case they’re needed for a review or future study guide. It might even be helpful to go on course websites to pull any PowerPoint slides or other documents before your access to the site expires.

• Papers: It’s usually a good idea to save all class papers, because you never know if you’ll be asked to write on a similar topic again. CPB recommends creating electronic folders for each term where you can move all papers and conveniently store them. Sometimes, it’s also helpful to store the research for these papers as well.

• Textbooks: Evaluate whether or not the previous term’s books will be useful for future classes or research papers. It’s important to ask yourself, “Is the refund make it worth it to part with this book?” You can also check to see if a friend or roommate might need the book for future classes—and they might have a book that you can have.

• Class Handouts: Before throwing all of your class papers into the air a la Dazed & Confused, it would be beneficial to peruse through them first to see if any handouts or other papers might be useful resources for future classes, such as for future paper assignments.

Em Dashes

The em dash is by far the coolest punctuation mark out there. An em dash (—) can be inserted from the Insert toolbar section in Word, or you can type two hyphens immediately after the last letter of a word, and then immediately follow the second hyphen with the first letter of the next word, which will prompt the document to create an em dash. Here are a few of the most common uses for the em dash:

• To create emphasis. Insert the em dash when you want the reader to take a dramatic pause or to create a slight sense of anticipation. For example: I knew who stole the keg from the party—it was the professor!

• To set off a key idea within a sentence. Separate a key idea from the other elements of a sentence by setting it between two em dashes. For example: The tailgate party—which included 250 simultaneous games of bags—raised a ton of money for the fraternity.

• To set off a short series or to add clarifying information. Set off a short series or information that is meant to add clarification between two em dashes. For example: The college student’s roommates—Emily, Andy, and Kota—trashed her room while she was at the library studying.

This entry marks our return to the CPB blog! We have spent the past few months converting the CPB e-book to a hard-copy format. It’s actually getting printed right now and will be available soon. Stay tuned for updates on how to purchase a copy of the book.

In the meantime, we’ll be posting CPB blogs on a regular basis, so come back to the site to find exciting information on writing papers and performing well in college. Also, don’t forget to check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Cheers!

Sometimes, just thinking of a topic to write about is half the problem. Therefore, below I’ve listed some possible topics that usually provide a lot of material to research and write on. Even if one of the specific topics doesn’t interest you, a couple of them might help you to think of related themes or subjects that you might find interesting and worthy of writing about. Also, if you’re in a major writing slump, you can also try one of the brainstorming activities that I described in an earlier blog post. Read, set . . . Topic!

• How a specific music genre represents an era
• Health care (the U.S. plan versus a different nation’s plan)
• The guidelines for labeling a product “organic” (Is organic food truly healthier?)
• The Internet and its influence on politics (Facebook’s influence on political movements)
• Animal testing (What are the current regulations and are more actions needed?)
• College tuition (Should colleges continue to raise their rates? Should the government provide more assistance?)
• Dating (How accurate is the science behind the popular dating websites?)
• The effects of performance-enhancement drugs on today’s popular sports
• Coconut water, green tea, and pomegranate juice (Do any of these beverages truly benefit a person’s health?)
• The Internet and camera phones (Do we have less privacy today than what our parents had?)
• The videogame debate and violence (Has anything been proven and what?)
• How important is it that students choose the “right” major in college?
• Global warming (What should be done? Does anything need to be done?)
• Sushi (Is our love for new maki rolls depleting the ocean of its fish?)
• Earphone use and hearing loss (Are iPods and smartphones helping or hurting?)

Incorporating the Instructor’s Language into the Thesis Statement

Before you begin to write your thesis statement, you should first pull out the de-coded assignment sheet.  Carefully review the important sentences in which the instructor describes what it is that you have been instructed to research and write about (i.e., those sentences that include the action verbs like analyze, argue, and compare). In the thesis statement, you will be turning these words into a statement of fact in which you address the proposed task. In other words, the instructor’s words will support the thesis statement’s basic foundation: X is Y, because of A, B, and C. You should also review the preceding sentence(s) for any basic background words and phrases about the topic, which you can also use when crafting your thesis statement, specifically the beginning of it.

Example

Assignment: Our city has recently decided to create a new professional sports team. The residents voted and it was decided that the city will establish a professional curling team. The city council members would like to select the team’s official mascot, and they are currently deciding among the following options: a pterodactyl, a marble, and a grilled cheese sandwich. All of the mascot options are special to our city’s residents; however, only one can become the official mascot. Explain which mascot you believe should become the official mascot of the professional curling team and why.

Thesis Statement: While all of the mascot options are special to our city’s residents, the grilled cheese sandwich should become the official mascot of the professional curling team because the stadium only sells cheese sandwiches at the concession stands, the new team can be honored at the city’s annual sandwich festival, and the grilled cheese mascot could lead to a co-mascot—the PB&J.

Merriam-Webster 

Thesaurus.com 

Virtual Thesaurus 

Capital Community College Foundation 

Wordsmith

Similar to the peer-review sessions that you have probably encountered in high school and in college English classes, “friend review” is when you ask a friend to review your paper. You can ask him or her for their overall feedback on the paper as well as ask them to edit and offer suggestions for sentence-level mistakes (macro and micro revising). The following serves as a basic checklist that you can use when you hand (or e-mail) a paper to a friend for their review (or when someone gives you their paper to read).

Assignment Parameters

• Does the paper relate to the assignment sheet? (Does it accomplish what the instructor had outlined?)
• Do the introduction and thesis statement incorporate the instructor’s language from the assignment sheet?
• Does the paper meet the page-length or word-length requirements?
• Are there a sufficient number of sources in the references/bibliography/works cited page?

Organization

• Is there an introduction that is followed by supporting paragraphs and a conclusion?
• Do the paragraphs that follow the introduction reflect the order and structure of the thesis statement? (E.g., is the first paragraph following the introduction the first thesis point?)
• Are the paragraphs arranged in a logical order?
• Are there transitions linking paragraphs together? Do each of the thesis points in the body relate to the overall argument in the introduction?

Research

• If required to do so, has the writer incorporated enough outside research to support his or her argument?
• Are the sources credible? Do they come from reliable sources?
• Are the sources cited properly within the text?
• Is the references/bibliography/works cited page formatted correctly?

Style

• Does the point-of-view in the paper reflect the assignment? (E.g., is a thesis paper written in a third-person objective point-of-view?)
• Is appropriate language used throughout the paper? (E.g. Is formal language used for a research paper?)
• Can the writer replace any weak verbs with strong verbs? (E.g. “The party featured a live band” is stronger than “the party had a live band.)
• Are there any clichés that can be replaced?

Grammar & Spelling

• Are there any grammar mistakes that are repeated throughout the paper? (E.g., comma splices and fragments?)
• Are all of the words spelled correctly?
• Do the sentences contain the correct punctuation?
• Has the computer’s spell check incorrectly changed a word?