BIG BLOG NEWS

Thanks for dropping by today. This is a news day, but tomorrow we'll be back in business with the this week's topic, how to deal with stress.

I've been really pleased by the response this blog has received. Students are asking questions about the content, getting in touch with me about the blog and responding to the blog by asking questions. I urge all students to join this blog as a follower, and keep up with what is going on here. This is a good contact point for you in this programme, even if you just need to be redirected when you get lost or encouraged when the programme seems long. When you join it helps both of us. It helps you step out from the crowd of students, especially if we correspond, but it also reinforces the idea that skills management is important for DL students.

As I gain experience in working with the blog, I want to take a multi-media approach to this blog. I want to make this blog more exciting, and still focus on skills management. I think we can do this together, and again I'm open to suggestions from students and staff (email me, drop an idea into a post). Learning should be fun as well as work, help me to make it fun!

Now, a few weeks into the "What is this Blog", I'm fine tuning the organization of the topics slightly. Right now, I would particularly like to extend an invitation to the students to suggest helpful blog topics. Nothing is off the table, if you don't know a full stop from a comma, now is the time to discuss it. You can post them here on the blog or send them to ulsmdltutor@le.ac.uk. A small housekeeping matter as well, if you require a response within the three working days, please email me at ulsmdlttutor@le.ac.uk. What is this blog is hosted through Google, and I want students to know if they wish to reach me within 3 working days that my U of Leicester address is the best, reliable route.

So now, these are the bigger topics the blog covers:

Topic One - Blogs Working on Thinking Critically in DL at University of Leicester programme - Tutors and professors talk about the importance of thinking critically in order to achieve the goals of in the programme. This is about how to incorporate this approach into your work.

Topic Two - Grammar Matters - With the introduction of the word of the week, I found that students are energized to talk about how to find the right words in the right place. A lot of this boils down to grammar and language. Here, we will deal with grammar in a bit more detail than in the word of the week. Special tips for our ESL students will be included from a variety of sources.

Topic Three - Referencing Matters/Do it Right Once - Everything about how to reference, how to collect good and reliable sources for your papers and how to make those sources work for you in your papers.

Topic Four - A Writing Affair - How to organize, understand and work with all aspects of writing essays and assignments in the programme.

Topic Five - Stress, Work and Getting through the Programme - I think this is self explanatory. Topics, such as working to schedule on exams belongs here as one of those things that we need to do to to do to "Get through the programme", but it isn't really a weekly topic.

That's all until next time.

KB

Word of the Week

The word of the week is averse. It means reluctant, opposed or having a strong dislike.
i.e. - He was averse to the proposal set down by the president. Averse is an adjective; an adjective is a word that is used to modify or describea a noun in a sentence (Notice that he was the one that was averse in the sentence.)

Averse is often confused with adverse, which means unfavourable. Adverse is also an adjective, but it is often used by adding L and Y, and making it into an adverb, adversely. This is not true of averse. i.e. - The weather was adversely affected when hail began to fall.

In fact, Dr. Samuel Johnson, the esteemed grammarian and man-of-letters, stated that it was better to: "use adverse with from" instead of averse to" as is current in English usage (Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd ed. rev. 1998). Johnson's reasoning related to the roots of the word averse in Latin grammar. So, in the eighteenth century you would say "He turned from" rather than "He turned to". As for averse, you'd say "He was averse from the nature of the proposal" if you were following Johnson's rules. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about this type of distinction in language now. Next time, we'll start down the knotty path of verbs, by the fountain of adjectives and through the blossoming garden of adverbs. In this pursuit of good grammar, the verb and its many forms, will be crucial. "Hang on", as Joan Crawford said, "it's going to be a bumpy ride."

Remember everyone, Stephen King the American writer once taught grammar to College Students. Unfortunately, it's true grammar is everywhere! King's fight with grammar and his ability to spin a good yarn, have made him famous, rich and respected. Yes, the man knows his stuff and his success should teach you, that there is no life that a a few grammar rules can't improve. Back soon.
KB

Time Management and Plagiarism

Hi! Okay so you ask yourself, what has time management got to do with plagiarism? Unfortunately, one of the roots of poor scholarship is the inability to understand appropriate levels of citation and what should be cited in papers and assignments. Time pressure can play into this.

Sometimes, in our haste to build a paper because we all have busy lives, we can interweave ideas, thoughts and even the actual words of many other authors together to provide one cohesive document. Many students who employ this technique, called weaving, don't even realize that they are guilty of academic dishonesty. Sometimes, they avoid using their own words fearing they are not good enough. Sometimes, they actually are worried about providing citations because they think that this will make them look like they are cheating. So, instead of citing their quotations (or paraphrases) and explaining what they mean in their own words, they string together the words of others believing that they can't make it on their own! Unfortunately, they will and do get caught because computer software, such as 'Turn it in', makes it easier for cheating students to get caught than it ever was before.

To start with, when you begin your papers you should always keep a good research log of all the materials that you've read in creating your research stream (journals and other readings). Whether this log is on paper or your computer is unimportant, as long as you make and keep one. You should include details like the full citation for books, journals and other written materials, the URL and date you accessed it if it's a web page, as well as a description of the information you read. Use good, reliable sources (we will discuss this again, but don't use Wikipedia). Keeping a good log does not just allow you to trace back the actual words of the journals or books you've read, it also ensures you don't take credit for ideas that don't belong to you. This can happen though a kind of osmosis; you forget your readings and think the ideas now are yours, not the author's. Here, you've made a big mistake.

I'm going to provide you with a couple of sources on academic dishonesty. If you go to OWL, at the University of Purdue, there is a lot of information about writing well and using sources properly. Their address is:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
Owl also has a very good site on plagiarism at:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/

Additionally, the Learning Centre at University of Leicester also has extensive documentation in this area at:
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds/slc/resources/writing
They are also happy to talk to students as well.

The way I understand it, the reason that students often get involved in academic dishonesty is because they spend too little time thinking through and structuring their academic papers. Time spent thinking is never wasted, and students undervalue their learning when they don't take the time to understand and explain the information they gather for assignments and papers. They don't even know if the data they've gathered is good, bad or indifferent. They're afraid to make judgments, which is part of analysing your quotations in a good paper, and scared that their own thoughts are worthless.

This is wrong. The most important part of learning is what you understand and take away from your texts, from the journal articles you've read or found online and about the subject itself. When you're unsure, you should communicate with your module tutors through blackboard or even this skills tutor about your concerns when you write. This will nip plagiarism in the bud, and when you begin to think academically, poor scholarship or plagiarism will no longer be an issue for you.

Word of the Week

The word of the week:

This week's word is it's. It's is a contraction that means "it is". There is no apostrophe in the possessive pronoun its.
Example - It's the right thing to do. (it's, it is)
Put everything in its place. (its, no apostrophe; is used to indicate possession)

The week's suggestion comes to this blog from Professor Joanna Brewis of the School of Management at U of Leicester. I propose that all of Professor Brewis's students make note of the correct use of contractions for essays and assignments in her classes because I'm sure she will be watching. You may notice the form of the possessive in the name above (Possessive Proper Noun - Professor Brewis's). However, I'm sure this is a discussion for another post.

I'd like to send a quick hello to all my new readers/students. I will endeavour to answer posts on this blog, but I would really like you to send any and all inquiries to my address at University of Leicester which is ulsmdltutor@le.ac.uk. I can then talk to you in more detail, and we can get to know each other online. All questions are welcome.

Writing Skills - Formal Academic Writing

Hi, the subject of this week's blog is writing. When I say writing, I mean writing in an academic style. Today, I'd like to focus on relationships in writing. By this, of course, I mean logical relationships between words. When we read newspapers or popular novels, it is easy to forget academic writing is more formal and controlled because all those short one sentence paragraphs beginning with and, but and or encourage us to believe that this is the best way to write. Don't be fooled! Academic writing is about showing logical relationships within fully referenced and analysed concepts and ideas, and you need the right words to explore these relationships to their fullest.

Academic writing, in essence, has its roots in the formal writing of earlier centuries; longer sentences and the use of semi-colons and colons was necessary. This is, of course, another future discussion blog. However, I tell students not to begin their sentences with coordinating conjunctions such as and, but and or because, at the beginning of sentences, they don't coordinate with anything, that is, they serve no grammatical purpose. In creative writing, which is not under discussion here, these coordinating conjunctions are often used in dialogue or to create special effects with a short sentence. There, they are wholely appropriate. In academic papers, they are problematic and often lead to shoddy arguments. To make good pointed arguments, you need to use words that make you consider the relationships between the points in your essays.

The word and is not an all purpose word, joining any and all arguments together. For this purpose, we have many other words to illustrate relationships between the concepts in your sentences. These words include: when, to indicate a relationship of time; because, to indicate a cause and effect relationship; where, to indicate a location; since to indicate a relationship of time as well (not a causal relationship); and further, to show addition. A number of these words, which I call transitional words, are listed below. This list is meant to help you and enrich your writing. Note: I have drawn from Diana Hacker's book A Canadian Writer's Reference, 2nd ed. as well as Martin Hewings's Advanced Grammar in Use, 2nd ed. by Cambridge Press for examples and information in this post. I highly recommend both books for any student.

A List of Words You Can Use to Make Effective Arguments and Clear Relationships
To illustrate an additional point:
and, also, besides, further, furthermore, in addition, moreover, next, too, first, second, third (Notice: It is incorrect to write firstly and secondly.
To give examples, facts or quotations:
for example, for instance, to illustrate, in fact, specifically
To compare:
also, in the same manner, similarly, likewise
To contrast:
but, however, on the other hand, in contrast, nevertheless, still, even though, on the contrary, yet, although
To summarize or conclude your arguments:
in other words, in short, in summary, in conclusion, to sum up, that is, therefore
To show a time relationship:
after, since, as, before, next, during, then, later, finally, meanwhile, when, while, immediately
To show place or direction:
above, below, beyond, farther on, nearby, opposite, close, to the left
To indicate a logical relationship:
if, so, therefore, consequently, thus, as a result, for this reason, because (Note again: the word "since is properly used to indicate a relationship of time. i.e. - Jack has been home since midnight.)

Word of the Day

Your/you're - Your is a possessive pronoun, as in your bicycle. You're is a contraction. It means you are. As in you're going to the ball Cinderella.

Critical Thinking - Using facts to back up arguments

Today, we're going to talk about the first step of Critical Thinking, that is using the right facts as part of your assignments, papers or exams. Using relevant facts is, of course, important to show the tutor that you have read widely on any given topic. It is important, as well, that these facts actually back up the arguments that you are making. For example, if you are discussing the relevance of Porter's economic theories in the Canadian economy, it isn't enough to cite another author who states that Porter is important. You must use appropriate data or facts to back up any assertion that you want to make about Porter's significance in your paper.

Data make up the building blocks of a good argument. To find relevant data, it is important to use reliable sources. Using sources such as those available through the University of Leicester Library guarantees that you won't find yourself with information that is out-of-data or unreliable. Some online sources, such as Wikipedia, have interesting information but it can be incorrect. Neither is it vetted by "experts in the field". You will find the journals suggested by U of Leicester are vetted by these experts. You also need to make sure your information is correct and applies to the arguments you are making. Consider looking at the Management Room at:
http://rooms1.library.le.ac.uk/rooms/

Click on the topic 'Management' on the blue bar at the left of the page. Here you will find a number of topics relevant to your studies such as: Management, Finance and Human Resources. These pages will show a variety of reliable resources you can use for writing your papers. That's all until next week.

Word of the week/Vocabulary extension

The words of the week are affect & effect. Affect (verb) means "to influence" as in "the weather may have affected his attendance". Effect (noun) means "a consequence, upshot or outcome" as in "the effect of the drug" or "the effect of the legislation".
Source: Concise Oxford Thesaurus, 3rd ed. 2007.