In an online learning environment, discussion postings often serve as key modes of class participation. As a result, these posts are a great way to demonstrate you have read and thought critically about course readings. Although generally shorter and narrower in focus than a traditional essay, discussion posts should be as coherent and scholarly in tone. Think of these posts as a mini-essay, in which you want to have a single central argument and clear evidence to support that argument. It is important to keep length requirements in mind, limiting the scope of your response, so it will remain clear, focused, and relevant to the topic at hand. 

Writing a Successful Discussion Post

1. Read the discussion prompt carefully.

Pay special attention to:

• Purpose: What question or required reading are you being asked to respond to?
• Particulars: What is the word limit? When is the due date and time? What sources are you expected to draw on?
• Response type: Are you being asked to reflect on personal experience, determine a solution to a problem, compare two ideas, or make an argument?
• Formatting: What formatting has your instructor requested? If no specific formatting is indicated, follow general APA guidelines.
• Expectations: How will your discussion post be assessed? Consult your course materials or instructor.

2. Prepare adequately.

• Before beginning your post, make sure you have read all of the required readings with a critical eye.
• Access your instructor's feedback on previous assignments. Based on that feedback, how do you want to improve in this next post?
• After reading, spend some time jotting down your reactions, ideas, and responses to the reading.
• Determine one-two of your strongest ideas, which you will structure your response around, by assessing the amount of evidence you have to support a particular assertion, response, or claim.
• Logically piece together a rough outline of your evidence to make your claim both clear and persuasive.

3. Construct a draft.

• Discussion post assignments often have multiple questions. Instead of answering each one in order, use a topic sentence to bring all points together into one central argument, claim, or purpose. 
• Use your evidence to build your response and persuade your readers by supporting your claim with course readings or outside sources (if permitted or required).
• Make sure that each piece of evidence keeps your post focused, relevant, clear, and scholarly in tone.
• Type in sentence case; in an online environment, ALL CAPS feels like yelling.
• Make sure you have adequately cited all information or ideas from outside sources in your post and have added a full reference at the end.

4. Review and revise.

After writing your post, review your ideas by asking yourself:

• Is my main idea clear and relevant to the topic of discussion?
• Does my response demonstrate evidence that I have read and thought critically about required readings?
• Have I proposed a unique perspective that can be challenged by my classmates?
• Do I support my claim with required readings or other credible outside sources?
• Have I used a scholarly tone, avoiding jargon or language that is overly conversational?
• Have I proofread my response for grammar, style, and structure?

5. Submit.

• Copy and paste the final version of your draft into the discussion forum.
• Do a quick check to make sure no formatting mishaps occurred while uploading.
• Wait patiently for responses from your classmates.

Writing a Successful Response to Another's Post

• Read postings by your classmates with an open mind; think critically about which posts are the most provocative to you.
• When responding, use the student's name and describe the point so that your whole class can follow along
  • Example: Jessica, you make an interesting point about technology increasing without training increasing.
• Whether you are asserting agreement or disagreement, provide clear and credible evidence to support your response.
• Avoid using unsupported personal opinions, generalizations, or language that others might find offensive.
• When in disagreement, keep responses respectful and academic in tone.
• Ask open-ended questions, rather than questions that can be answered with yes or no. Those types of answers end the conversation, rather than pushing it forward.

Related Resources: 

• From Prompt to Post: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Effective Discussion Posts (blog post)
• Strategies for Demystifying Walden Assignment Prompts (webinar)
• Writing and Responding to Discussion Posts (webinar)

Both in traditional and online classrooms, journal entries are used as tools for student reflection. By consciously thinking about and comparing issues, life experiences, and course readings, students are better able to understand links between theory and practice and to generate justifiable, well-supported opinions. This kind of writing assignment is meant to be interactive, as students engage with ideas and experiences that bring about questions, comparisons, insights, criticisms, speculations, and tentative conclusions. Although somewhat less formal than essays or other course writing assignments, journal entries should still construct a coherent narrative, use complete sentences, be grammatically correct, and be scholarly in tone. Below are some tips for writing a successful journal entry.

Read the Prompt Carefully

Look for the assignment's purpose, mode of reflection, particulars, and formatting requirements:

1. Purpose: What questions, life experiences, events, or course readings are you being asked to reflect on?
2. Mode of Reflection: Make sure you know what mode of reflection the writing prompt is asking you use. Are you being asked to compare/contrast, describe, highlight thoughts/feelings, issue opinions (agreement/disagreement), draw conclusions, or ask questions?
3. Particulars: What is the word limit? When is the due date and time? What sources are you expected to draw on?
4. Formatting: What formatting has your instructor requested? If no specific formatting is indicated, follow general APA guidelines.

Critically Reflect & Organize

1. Before beginning to write, make sure you have read all of the required readings with a critical eye.
2. After reading, spend some time jotting down your reactions, ideas, and responses to the reading.  Jot notes down about specific elements, examples, or experiences you would like to include in your journal entry.
3. After you have constructed these notes, choose to write about the ideas that best answer the questions and that you can easily support.
4. Organize these ideas into a clear narrative structure or outline by logically piecing together your ideas in a way that clearly addresses the instructor’s prompt.

Construct a Draft

1. Although a journal entry does not need a formal thesis sentence, making your central idea clear early on is important.
2. Make sure that you introduce each new idea with a topic sentence. Follow that topic sentence with information or evidence that justifies your opinion, reflection, speculation, criticism, or agreement.
3. Between individual sentences and between complete paragraphs, inserting frequent and appropriate transitions will help readers easily follow your narrative from one idea to the next.

Review and Revise

After writing your journal enty, review your ideas by asking yourself:

1. Is my main idea clear and relevant to the assigned topic?
2. Does my journal entry demonstrate evidence that I have read and thought critically about required readings, experiences, events, or issues?
3. Have I proposed a unique perspective that is supported well?
4. Do I support my claim with required readings or other credible outside sources?
5. Have I used a scholarly tone, complete sentences, and adhered to other specific assignment requirements?
6. Have I self-edited and proofread my response for grammar, style, and structure?

Basics of Annotated Bibliographies

An annotated bibliography is a combination of the words "annotation" and "bibliography." An annotation is a set of notes, comments, or critiques. A bibliography is list of references that helps a reader identify sources of information. An annotated bibliography is a list of references that not only identifies the sources of information but also includes information such as a summary, a critique or analysis, and an application of those sources' information.

Review our resources on the following pages for more information about each component of an annotated bibliography. As always, read the instructions and any examples in your assignment carefully; some of what follows might not be required in your particular course.

Components of an Annotated Entry

Download the following sample to see the components of an annotated bibliography. Follow the links to more information on formatting, summary, critique/analysis, application, and examples. Note that citations are not necessary in the annotations since the notes are understood to be about the listed source.

Annotated Bibliography Sample Document

For more on Annotated Bibliographies review: 

• Formatting
• Summary
• Critique and Analysis
• Application
• Example

Related Resources: 

• Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography Basics (webinar)
• Annotated Bibliographies (webinar)
• Annotated Bibliography Essentials (5-part blog series overview)

Basics of Literature Reviews

A literature review is a written approach to examining published information on a particular topic or field. Authors use this review of literature to create a foundation and justification for their research or to demonstrate knowledge on the current state of a field. This review can take the form of a course assignment or a section of a longer capstone project. Read on for more information about writing a strong literature review!

Students often misinterpret the term "literature review" to mean merely a collection of source summaries, similar to annotations or article abstracts. Although summarizing is an element of a literature review, the purpose is to create a comprehensive representation of your understanding of a topic or area of research, such as what has already been done or what has been found. Then, also using these sources, you can demonstrate the need for future research, specifically, your future research.

There is usually no required format or template for a literature review. However, there are some actions to keep in mind when constructing a literature review:

1. Include an introduction and conclusion. Even if the literature review will be part of a longer document, introductory and concluding paragraphs can act as bookends to your material. Provide background information for your reader, such as including references to the pioneers in the field in the beginning and offering closure in the end by discussing the implications of future research to the field.
2. Avoid direct quotations. Just like in an annotated bibliography, you will want to paraphrase all of the material you present in a literature review. This assignment is a chance for you to demonstrate your knowledge on a topic, and putting ideas into your own words will ensure that you are interpreting the found material for your reader. Paraphrasing will also ensure your review of literature is in your authorial voice.
3. Organize by topic or theme rather than by author. When compiling multiple sources, a tendency can be to summarize each source and then compare and contrast the sources at the end. Instead, organize your source information by your identified themes and patterns. This organization helps demonstrate your synthesis of the material and inhibits you from creating a series of book reports.
4.  Use headings. APA encourages the use of headings within longer pieces of text to display a shift in topic and create a visual break for the reader. Headings in a literature review can also help you as the writer organize your material by theme and note any layers, or subtopics, within the field.
5. Show relationships and consider the flow of ideas. A literature review can be lengthy and dense, so you will want to make your text appealing to your reader. Transitions and comparison terms will allow you to demonstrate where authors agree or disagree on a topic and highlight your interpretation of the literature.

For more on Literature Reviews review: 

• Synthesizing Your Resources
• Commentary Versus Opinion
• Literature Review Matrix 

Related Resources:

• Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography Basics (webinar)
• Writing Literature Reviews in Your Graduate Coursework (webinar)
• Reviewing the Literature and Incorporating Previous Research (webinar)
• WriteCast Episode 19: The Literature Review: Tackling the Hard Questions
• Literature Review Essentials: A Five-Part Blog Series (blog post)
• When is a Literature Review a Literature Review? (blog post)

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