Ask OASISAcademic Writing for Master's Students
>> Hello and welcome to academic writing for master's students, we are about five minutes away and we have a chat box open in the top right corner if you want to introduce yourself or let us know what program you are in at Walden, and we have files available for download you look underneath the slides and certificate of attendance. Then we also have links to our captioning service and feedback survey which you can take at the end of the webinar, will get started in about five minutes. Inspiring Scholarship and Social Change Symposia Series (correction) Academic Writing for master’s Students.
>> This is Anne Shiell, from the Walden University Writing Center. We will begin in a few minutes in the meantime you are free to use the chat box to introduce yourself. There are also files you can download.
>> Hello everyone and welcome. I am Anne Shiell, at the Walden University Writing Center, we're so glad you're here today so we want to thank you for taking time to join us whether you are here live or what is recording, we are looking forward to today's webinar.
Let's quickly cover a few housekeeping things before I introduce our presenter today. First, we are recording this webinar so you are welcome to access it later by our webinar archive, should be up by the end of the week and you should receive an email; we record all of our webinars the writing center, you're welcome to look through that archive or other recordings that might interest you.
The slides for today are available for download. There is a certificate for attendance you want to download that and both of those are available in the files pod in the webinar room and you can download now or at the end of the webinar.
The lakes and the presentation should be live but if they don't work for you, they are all active in the slides and if you're joining us from a mobile device the slides are not available for download in that case you can access that letter to the one recording or if you want to email us at wcwebinars@mail.waldenu.edu.
We welcome you to participate throughout the webinar.
Although it looks a little bit different there is a link in the pod below the slides.
Are presented today is Michael Dusek and cofacilitator is Max Philbrook, and both are writing instructors at the Walden University Writing Center, you may have had the pleasure of working with them particularly in the paper review service which Michael will talk about during the presentation. Thanks for joining us and I will hand it over to you Michael.
>> Awesome! Welcome everyone to today's webinar; again, this is really about master's level writing. As you enter a Master’s program they will be changing what suspected if you in terms of the writing. We'll talk about the traditions that you may have, and the writing expectations specifically, In some of the resources we offer here at the Walden University Writing Center to help you as you take on the challenge of a Masters program so thank you Anne for this awesome introduction and thank you Max for your help behind the scenes here and I am just offering you a hearty welcome to you all. I hope you're having a good day.
Today's topics, thanks to expecting this woman or, we are going to talk about some of the unique needs of master's students, what sets them apart from undergrad or doctorate student in some of the characteristics of Master's level writing and some of the features of Master's level writing that sets it apart from other genres of writing and we will talk about some resources that we offer in the Walden University Writing Center that hopefully can smooth out this transition and be helpful to you. As Academic (correction) As Anne mentioned, I do anticipate having some time for Q&A.
First let's start with a little bit of a chat here; in the chat box I would like for you if you're comfortable to share a writing success that you have had lately; again this could be something big something small, you can draw this from your academic pursuits or from your professional life or this can even be something personal. If you feel comfortable go ahead and share a writing success that you have had recently.
I will share. Recently about middle of December I finished a longer project that I have been working on for several months. It was a conference length research piece, a research essay that I had been working on dealing with how the notion of invitational rhetoric can be used within asynchronous writing center. That is a total mouthful but for me personally when I finished that larger project, it felt successful. It felt like I had a company something, and so that is my recent success, I am going to on mute for a minute to look at what you are sharing. If your field comfortable throw that in the chat box, for another minute.
>> [Pause]
>> MICHAEL: One student finished his first book last year, incredible; others sharing longform essays that they completed in their undergrad which is awesome. I saw one student share that they crafted a successful business plan, that is awesome too, in a more professional setting. I'll give you guys if you want to share and you feel comfortable doing so I will give you another 30 seconds to put your answer in the chat box and we will move on.
>> MICHAEL: If you are not sure about what to expect know that you're not alone, I sympathize with you because when I entered into my Masters program I did not know what to expect. One thing the chat demonstrated is that everybody is approaching their Master's program from a different level of writing experience and everyone approaches their Master's program with a different motivating factor.
Some of you have academic or professional reasons to pursue a degree; this might look like looking for a job promotion or change in your career path and that is, that we see in the writing center for students returning for their Master's program. Students might not necessarily be acquiring skills for future publication. When we look at maybe a doctorate program you are really trying to develop skills that can allow you to publish in the Academy and in academic writing journals but that might not be the case for you at a master's level and that may be totally okay too. Again we are all approaching this from a different angle.
You may be returning to academic writing after a long absence. It had been a few years since I wrote like a scholarly piece that I intended to submit to others. And it did feel I was returning after a long time so it was a daunting challenge so if that is something you are feeling I sympathize with that too.
Students at the Masters level may not have in-depth training in academic writing and we encounter this a lot of the Walden University Writing Center, students have degrees and may be accomplished professionally in their field but we have not gotten that training in academic writing and that is not an uncommon place to be at either.
You have less time to develop your writing skills since a Master's program is shorter. In the last bullet point rings true for many Master's students, the challenge of finding a work life balance, being a student while also balancing some of the demands of your personal life is something I think all Master's students struggle with or find challenge in maybe better said.
So yeah the purpose of the slide is to recognize that in a Master's we are all coming in from a different angle with different levels of experienced, different motivating factors and really different challenges for each student at a Master's level.
Let's talk a little bit about the characteristics of Master's-level writing. How is this different from other academic writing? Maybe undergrad or doctoral writing? There are a few characteristics worth noting but these become more important and more valued as you go on in your academic career and at the undergraduate level these will be present; at a Master's level they will be present in a stronger capacity and they will be more rigidly adhered to. At the doctoral level it is going to be the top of the mound, scholarly writing attributes are going to be present in a really, really strong way. But as a basic entry-level in talking about scholarly writing, one characteristic of scholarly writing is the use of evidence, specifically evidence from scholarly sources when I say scholarly sources what I mean is a piece that has been peer-reviewed, published in a peer review academic journal. This is the highest form of evidence. I could go into what is says but I am going to move on for the second time.
The peer review process is really important. In many ways it verifies that the source you are using is of really high quality, that the work that is being presented, the conclusions presented in the source have been verified by other authorities in the field. So again you are going to see scholarly sources in scholarly writing, sure.
Proper use of research to avoid plagiarism. Yes, you will be using a notation style to give credit to the sources that you are drawing from to support your argument. You are going to be formatting those and notating that in a standardized, appropriate way.
Use of a style guide for citations and formatting, reference formatting specifically; that is what I was mentioning above when I was talking about avoiding plagiarism. You are going to be using the language of the Academy, language like APA style will be an example of one and there are others. Scholarly writing is going to draw upon one of these academic notation styles, one of these citation and formatting sounds like APA style.
Scholarly writing will have a logical organization. There will be a logical this comes first, this comes second, this comes third. Another characteristic.
Lastly the notion of scholarly voice, scholarly tone is also present within scholarly writing and what I mean by that is you are going to have an unbiased, objective tone; you are going to be not representing things in a biased way. You want to come up as an objective party for the reader annual use of formal tone so you are not going to be addressing the reader in a casual way; this is going to be more of a formal discussion so these are a couple of attributes of the scholarly voice that I think they're mentioning, just right off the bat here too.
Before I move on from the slide I would like to note that these hyperlinks are again active as Anne mentioned in her introduction to this webinar. If these are topics that you would like to learn more about, go ahead and click on these and you can explore from there. Also we are going to be talking about Walden University Writing Center resources and this webinar. These are active resources.
Taking a look at Master's-level versus undergraduate writing we see stark differences; in comparing them one pushes more of a scholarly, intellectual approach. In undergraduate writing oftentimes a student is going to be asked to summarize; they will be asked to repeat what they are reading and demonstrate that they understand the source.
Generally you will be using a single source; as I mentioned you will demonstrate understanding of the course content. Think about like a short answer test where you are being asked to remember things about a chapter that you read in the textbook. This is what we think about when we talk about undergraduate writing.
In the undergraduate writing you will be provided with course readings and oftentimes you will be using sources like textbooks, websites and course handouts in responding to assignment prompts.
Graduate-level writing takes a marked shift here. Rather than repeating what you encountered before, graduate writing is going to be looking for more preoccupied with the notion of analysis and were going to talk about this a little bit more but analysis is not just repeating what you read. For analysis to take place you need to offer your own interpretation or amplification of source material, it is kind of your own; when I think about analysis I think about working with sources, using support information to support your own.
Graduate writing you will be using more than one source, two or more sources, and that brings up the notion of bringing multiple sources together in conversation with one another, and will talk about synthesis in the later slide as well but the point I am making is that you're in not just using one source, your drive from the ideas of multiple scholars, you're bringing multiple scholars together rather than understanding content at the graduate level you are really being asked to add to content and lend your voice to some the conversations that you are researching and your familiar with.
As I mentioned, research is an important component of Master's or graduate-level running and you will be drawing upon published studies that use statistical data or put forth a supported argument.
Looking at this more broadly you can see how graduate writing is asking you to engage with scholarship in a more in-depth way, you are not just being asked to report on what you have learned, in fact you're being asked to bring ideas together and offer something new, your own interpretation of what you collected.
To further illustrate this let's take a look at the difference between an assignment prompt in an undergraduate course versus a graduate course. If you want to put in the chat box some of the differences you notice between the undergraduate and graduate assignment prompt it would be awesome.
A typical undergraduate assignment prompt might sound something like this: this week you will examine the characteristics of a successful distant learner. Objectives: explain the effectiveness of instructional interactions in distance learning environments. Describe the metaphors for learning as they apply to distance learning environments. Identify the attributes of successful distance-learning.
So picking off of the previous slide, you can see that it is asking you to really summarize what has been discussed in the course already And you are going to explain and describe, you are identifying here. It is not asking you to apply that knowledge, or craft an argument. It is asking you to tell the reader what you find in terms of distance learning taking a few different approaches there.
When we look at a graduate course or graduate assignment prompt things become a little bit different; this week you will analyze the characteristics of a successful distance-learning so you are not reporting on these characteristics or examining them, you are analyzing them and picking apart what makes up a successful distant learner.
The objective here: analyze education policy so your reflecting on how education policies play into this conversation. You are not reporting on what education policies may exist. You are analyzing that. You are thinking about what education policies may be worth better than others, maybe the attributes of specific education policies that make them effective, you are analyzing that and bringing your own analysis.
Analyze influence of education policies and roles of educational psychologist. Again the analysis piece, thinking about how these things play out.
Analyze ways to improve education policy effectiveness. Sure. Develop and annotated bibliography. There is that research piece for you will be collecting and annotating outside sources . In this topic area
And begin to synthesize education philosophy and research. As noted in the checkbox graduate assignment prompt is a lot more in-depth. You're asked to emergence of more the topic area and look at some the connections between subtopics within the larger topic area and the scholarship that you are encountering.
The undergraduate assignment prompt is more about reporting what you found; the graduate assignment prompt has a lot more to do with analysis and applying the notions that you found, thinking about how they fit into this larger conversation and a lot of you got that in the chat box as well and I hope that is clear.
In the last slide we talked about building an argument. In graduate-level writing you are taking a step in reporting or informing the reader about a certain topic or certain phenomena and you are not being asked to craft an argument, to take a stance about the phenomena; this is a key attribute of Master's-level writing. You're going to be asked to take a stand at a Master's or doctoral level.
When you craft an argument you want to take a stance, make a claim and contribute to the current conversation on your topics, it is not just to inform the reader. I'm go to talk about psychology. This is not an argument. Educational psychology is essential feature of distance-learning. What ethical psychology is important to this other thing and then the rest of your pieces going to lay out how that is important or why that is important but again you are going to be asked to take a stance to make a claim and contribute something, your own argument, to the current conversation on this topic area.
You're going to provide beers with your position a perspective, that is yours, your own contribution to this argument, your perspective, your position, your argument is what your contributing to here.
Lastly you are going to support your argument with evidence, findings from credible and scholarly sources that you read. Yeah this is an important notion.
As you take a stance the evidence that you are using, the research that you're bringing into your writing is meant to support the argument that you're making, how you know that your argument is correct. x
I just think about crafting an argument, everything that you bring to that essay should in some support that central argument that you are making.
To pick apart what I mean by analysis, I'm going to give your definition of what analysis is and then I'm going to give an example of analysis as you can see in the bottom of the slide. When you analyze source material you can text a lesson explain the evidence for the reader. You are offering and interpretation of the evidence that you're providing.
I often tell students that analysis the main idea of a paragraph to the evidence that your offering that supposedly supports that main idea.
We talked about how arguments and evidence support your argument. The analysis tells the reader specifically how that evidence supports the main idea here are your argument. You are reflecting on what that evidence means in the context of your argument, in the context of the conversation that you're presenting. That's a little bit wishy-washy, a little bit jumbled, , But that is how I think about analysis it connect the main idea for your argument in the source material that you are using to support that argument.
Maybe it is better said in a second bullet. What is the evidence mean? How is that evidence connected to the ideas in your writing? That is a most succinct way to get to what I am talking about here.
Before we move on to the example analysis is the connection piece; when you're using analysis in your writing your connecting the dots for your reader and showing the reader how the evidence that you're using is supporting the argument you're making.
I hope that made sense.
Take a look at the example of analysis here. We have a piece of source material and then follow after that source material is a bit of analysis involved so here is our source material. 68% of Dallas Haskell juniors reported chronic boredom in math class. In this example we are making a point that this evidence supports, the 68 % of Dallas high school juniors reporting chronic boredom -- And the analysis comes after this which suggests to reconsider the math curriculum and invest in teacher training in this district.
This bold part of the example answers this kind of "so what?" question. 68% of Dallas high school students are bored in math. So what?
To interpret that it means that the school district needs to develop a different math curriculum that is more engaging to students.
This way you are connecting the dots for the reader. It might be obvious to me what needs to happen from there or what interpretation I am taking from the piece of evidence that it might not be the same for the reader. You cannot assume that the reader is taking the same idea or same interpretation from that evidence that you are. Analysis specifically, explicitly, tells the reader what they are to take from the piece of evidence. It answers the so what question the question about why this evidence is important.
And before I move on I just want to say that I have nothing against Dallas high school math classes.
Synthesis then is really closely related to analysis supports the point that you're making and when you're synthesizing your bringing multiple pieces of evidence together. When you synthesize material you are comparing your contrasting or combining ideas.
Synthesis demonstrate scholarship it demonstrates your understanding of the literature and demonstrate your ability to connect information and develop an argument.
The metaphor that is often used with synthesis is the idea of a dinner party. Say you are researching a topic and you found five authors that all have something to say about this topic. The metaphor of synthesis is if you were sitting at a table and at every seat was one of the scholars that you encountered that speaks about this topic -- Imagining them sitting around the table, you and five scholars.
If you bring up the topic each of the five scholars is going to have something different to say, They will have a different approach to the specific topic.
Synthesis is taking these different voices from this conversation at the dinner party and reporting on the conversation more broadly; maybe you have two authors approach the topic in a similar way; maybe have one author that has a completed different conclusion than another author at the table. Thinking about how the ideas can fit together is what synthesis is all about. Your bringing these sources together and you're putting them in conversation with each other. It is a heady idea; it can be difficult to think about it not working your own writing until you're actually asked to do it but synthesis is something that is a really higher order academic activity and something you want to bring to your writing generally.
Before I move on I want to give you one more metaphor that might be useful. The metaphor of the detective. Synthesis in the context of being a detective can occur this way. A detective in trying to solve the crime will gather evidence, not unlike a scholarly writer. Each piece of evidence that a detective gathers is going to add to the picture of a crime scene. Maybe you have -- A different piece of evidence that all adult to a picture of a crime scene. Synthesis works in the same way. Each collar is going to be adding a piece to your overall picture of what is going on in the topic area.
Metaphors aside I am going to move on. Again synthesis and analysis are connected and is a strong characteristics that are found in Masters level writing and in scholarly writing more broadly.
So, common affectations in a Master's-level writing. First you need to participate more fully in the writing process; when we think about the writing process in the Writing Center we think about things like prewriting, thinking about things before you actually write them. Drafting and putting your ideas on paper; with think about revision and editing is also being part of the process. At a Master's-level you will need to dive into this process more fully and by that I mean you will need to do multiple revisions on a piece that you're doing and produce multiple drafts; you need to be digging into this writing process more fully.
We often talk about the writing process as being iterative or recursive. But that we mean that you will be going through the writing process multiple times; you are going to think about an idea and about what you want to say and draft it, then you will revise the draft to make it better; this will give you more ammunition if you will for what else you need to bring to the draft so things like possible for the research areas that you need to participate in an annual produce another draft, and revise the draft and the process continues over and over until you feel hopefully good about that piece. Again this is something that you should be prepared for, to participate more fully in the writing process.
Two, conduct deeper, more thorough research. In undergrad writing, writing about a couple of sources that speak to your topic, plugging them in where they seem appropriate was probably enough to constitute effective writing at that level. In a Master's program you need to be more thorough, not just to collect sources that relates to your topic but the best sources that relate most directly to your topic so that is something to really expect also.
When I think about higher-level scholarly writing I think really about finding some of those foundational, germinal texts within your topic area and also working with theories, theories that inform some topic areas in your specific field. These are going to be things that are important include a higher level when maybe they were more glossed over in the lower level academic writing situation.
You're going to rely more heavily on paraphrases rather than direct quotations. In Master's-level writing and doctoral level Reading paraphrasing is favored overreporting because paraphrasing is a higher-level intellectual activity; it takes more intellect, more engagement more understanding of a source to put into your own words rather than to just grab a piece of language from that source and put it into your writing.
So by paraphrasing your demonstrating strong understanding really of that source, that is why paraphrasing is favored in higher-level academic writing.
Specific language and terminology from your field. You're going to use specific language from your field; being specific is important. Academic writing in the US context, being specific about what you are referring to and as specific as you can in general is something that is favored there.
Include analysis and synthesis, engaging with the sources of collecting your research. Writing papers that may expand on the simple essay structure with sections such as literature review. You're going to be using things like a literature review to bring the reader up to speed as to the current situation with your field so the style of writing changes a little bit.
You're going to use APA-style here at Walden; you will be using that style as you step into the social science conversations and you are going to begin to enter and contribute to the academic opposition as a scholar with developing strategic in your field. You are going to be crafting your own argument that a different than the arguments that are already out there.
You will be using your research using the argument that you encounter as evidence to support the argument, but you will be adding a new voice to the field, which is exciting the kind of daunting, but that is something you will get more used to be more comfortable with, taking a stand and building an argument that is your own.
And just to clarify here for a second, some Master's do have a capstone project; many do not. So you talking about Master's capstones or thesis or doctoral dissertations, if this is something that does not apply to your program then disregard my mention of them by these higher order scholarly writing characteristics are still going to be present in your upper coursework; I wanted to mention that as a disclaimer.
I see you guys been using the chat box. What writing challenges you face as you work towards your Master's degree? What are the challenges that you anticipate facing as you work towards the Master's degree as it relates to your academic writing? I'm going to go on mute for a minute or two and give you the option to participate in the chat box if you feel comfortable.
>> [Pause]
>> MICHAEL: I'm seeing some awesome responses; as with the first chat, these are diverse and unique responses. Students talking about paraphrasing and drawing passages from the text and putting it into your own words; students talking about other attributes of academic writing, things like organization. Students talking about returning to academic writing after a really long period of not spending enough that writing, that is totally normal too.
Developing a stronger nuance, and working on the organization of ideas, these are all relevant responses.
>> [Pause]
>> MICHAEL: In the interest of time, I'm going to move on, thank you for those of you who participated.
To the resources portion of this webinar, I want to put the plug for myself and my colleagues. At the Walden University Writing Center we work very hard to offer resources that are helpful to the student to maintain them for their accuracy and build new resources as the need arises; I encourage you to take a look at the resources we have in a good place to start is a the Writing Center homepage. This is a website that is searchable and you can look up a myriad of academic topics, a wide variety of resources available just as webpages here. So for those of you who are studying in a Master's program, or those of you encountering new writing challenges I recommend you bookmark the homepage, the Writing Center homepage, academicguides@waldenu/writing enter. That is the first point of contact.
There is a wide variety of academic topics there that are discussed and explored from more of a personal, informative perspective. Go ahead and check that out; there's some really awesome blog posts there, a wide variety of academic writing topics.
We have a Writecast podcast episodes, if you want to sit down and listen for a while, maybe on the way to work. There is a podcast option available for you; if this is your speed check this out.
It's really about finding what works for you, right? Some of these may not be your style or not is useful to you but I am willing to bet that at least one approach to these academic resources will be something you can benefit from so I wanted to mention that. If some sound less applicable to you that is fine but I want to make you aware that they are being made available.
If you have a question and you want to ask a writing instructor like myself, Max or Anne, this is a place to do it. writingsupport@mail.waldenu.edu. This is monitored and you will get a response within 24-hrs. You will get Asynchronous writing feedback from Reading structure like Max or myself; you can get individual feedback on your writing, covering writing lessons within the confines of that specific paper review. If this is something that sounds good to you by all means take a look at the review and give us a try.
Some of the logistics of how this work is you will make appointments in the myPASS scheduling system, a trademark name that we use. You are allowed to make three apartments for week and you can submit three drafts a week or three versions in a week; it is asynchronous, so you do not need to be on the phone or counting at a specific time so you will submit your piece and the feedback will be provided to you the day of the appointment of the day after.
You will upload a piece to your apartment in myPASS, a writing instructor will download that, putting feedback there and use the comment feature in Microsoft Word and return that to you. You can retrieve that whenever you like.
I'm going to leave it there, it is a great resource, individualized for each student and encourage a student to take advantage of it; it is covered as part of your tuition if you want individuals writing attention, this is the place to get it and I would recommend it to any of you.
Another resource we offer are webinars. Discover a wide range of topics and we do record our sessions so if there is a topic that you're interested in that we have done webinar on in the past but not doing a webinar in the next two months, the previous webinar is recorded. You can find a calendar link there too for upcoming webinars that might interest you in the future.
We also offer some modules to help you with your academic writing, self-paced interactive tutorials with topics ranging from grammar, plagiarism prevention, APA references, citations, style, academic paragraphing; you can find modules on all of these topics.
We also offer some resources for specific student populations. Students with disabilities we encourage you to register at his ability services, there is a phone number there and an email address if that applies to you, let us know there. Transcript and closed captioning are also available for writing center multimedia resources. Again, if this is something that will benefit you please reach out to disabilities@waldenu.edu, so we can make accommodations for you. Also, students in the military. If any of these apply to your situation feel free to reach out and take advantage of this; this is important to us in the Writing Center, we want to accommodate all students so take advantage of this if it applies to you.
Lastly, we have a lot of resources which I think is the point of this. We have resources specific for commonly occurring assignments, discussion posts, the first two that you can see. Responding to another's post. Really based on the assignment you are tackling, and we have resources for those. There's a number of resources linked here for literature review; resources specifically linked here for that. Feel free to go back and take a look at the slides after the webinar and access any of these resources that will be of help for you.
Literature reviews as well. Sure. There's a bunch of stuff here. I don't want you to feel like if you are encountering difficult is with your writing that you have nowhere to get earned, this is just you are banging your head against the wall. We want to help you. In the Writing Center, that is our focus, we are here to help students; keep that in mind when you want what you think you are ready to access resources to the Writing Center.
Master's capstones, more resources for you there as well.
We have another chat here what resources discuss today would be the most useful to you? Take a second and reflect on this and I am going to move on. I want to leave about five minutes or so for questions at the end. The point of this chat is to reflect upon some of the resources that I introduced you to today, something about which ones have teacher interest and you might return to and use in your future academic writing.
After this webinar, there are a couple of next steps that I would recommend. First, visit explore the getting started: For Master's Students webpage. Also, schedule a paper review appointment, this is a great service and our main way of interacting with students on an individual basis, so you feel like you want help with your academic writing, this is the best way to take advantage of this.
So, we have six or seven minutes here. Anne, under any questions to group my benefit from me talking to?
>> ANNE SHIELL: There are so many questions and chat in the Q&A and Max, and I were able to address most of them but one that would be great to talk about as a group is, how do I get over writer's block if I'm starting to get into my Master's writing? Any tips for that?
>> MICHAEL: That is a great question, and that question rings true for a lot of other students as it rings true for me personally.
The notion of writer's block sends chills up my spine; it is frustrating when you're trying to write but you can't, or you can't bring yourself up to do it. There's a couple things I recommend. One is starting broadly and brainstorming and doing some of the pre-running intellectual work that can be useful and thinking about a topic over time and thinking about some of your own feelings about the topic.
When I am writing a paper, I am putting a lot of time in before I sit down to write a paper just taking about it and mulling it over while I am plain tennis or something, or while I am doing the dishes, thinking about this idea and how I want to approach it.
In that same vein the notion of free writing or forcing yourself to write for certain period of time, usually about 5-10 minutes, can be really useful too. Really pushing yourself, forcing yourself to continuously write; it can kind of produce some good material that you can then return to and revise. and in that way, you're getting into the topic.
Theorists that talk about rerunning describe it as a vehicle to help you how you understand how you feel, right? In that way it can give you approaches to your writing that you might not be immediate to believe are there or recognize as your wracking your brain thinking about where to start.
One thing that help me a lot personally is crafting an outline; I know this kind of my butt up against something; outlined a little bit low stakes, this is not set-in stone, it is easily changed and reworked. With if I'm having trouble starting, I would craft an outline and then follow it.
One more: To not write. Sometimes the best way to get past writing challenge is to take a break and go for a walk. Play catch with your son, whatever you do to unwind and get away from your academic writing, that can be really helpful to them approach ready the next time. If you're having trouble with writer's block or getting started, sometimes stepping away and help you when you return to be able to start more easily.
You want to take it away Anne?
>> ANNE SHIELL: Thanks Michael, great tips. Amy also mentioned that they like to take a walk, that is one of my personal ways to combat writer's block. We have a couple of minutes left because there are a couple of minutes I want to talk about, if you do have additional questions everybody or if you think of questions later please get in touch with us at the email address we mentioned earlier, writingsupport@mail.waldenu.edu.
We talked about challenges you might be facing with your Master's writing, or you anticipate facing and we have webinars that address a lot of challenges in mortgages to encourage you to check out the webinar archives and poke around, conceive any of those are ones you would like to explore deeper and in our survey which I will mention in a minute there is also a spot to suggest new webinar topics that you might want to see us offer. When I close up, he would see the survey and I want to thank you for being here and participate with us today and also for taking a few minutes to share your feedback in that anonymous survey which we take very seriously as we look through all of your comments and suggestions, and really try to make these webinars the best that we can for you and if you are watching the recording, server is available for you as well in the spot below the slides.
This has been so fun today and I am glad that you were able to join us and you will get an email with the recording link by the end of the week and we hope to see you at one of our much wellness which we will have on our website soon. Thank you, Michael, thank you Max. Bye everyone.
(End of webinar)