From looking at everyone’s Padlet responses in Activity 1 I think I can safely say that academic writing on everyone’s mind, for better or worse. I can say that I’m in the same boat since I was never brimming with confidence in my writing either. Admitting this is a bit embarrassing, since I actually work in research! I find I am more confident working on the quantitative side of research, but that is a topic for another time.
Moving on to resources, I see my classmates have recommended some great online resources. I see Purdue OWL coming up quite a bit and it is a favourite of mine as well. I’ll be the odd one out and recommend some print texts.
The first resource is our textbook from LRNT 521: Publication manual for the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). While it’s not the most exciting to read, beyond being an excellent APA resource, there are also sections on writing and style which are clear and helpful.
The second resource is a book I’ve used in the past called Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences (8th ed.) by Bruce L. Berg and Howard Lune (somehow I feel this text will come in handy later as well…). This is a great book for those who want to learn more about qualitative research, but also there is a chapter on writing research with a very fitting title “Sorting the Noodles from the Soup”. It covers everything from how not to plagerize to how to set up a research report.
Unfortunately the second book I recommended isn’t as easily accessible as a web resource, but it should be useful if you can get your hands on it.
Paper books George?! (lol) I was curious about how challenging it would be to track down the second book you mentioned. 8th edition is hard to find for a decent price (hundred$ of dollar$, even on kindle!), but I found piles of the older 7th edition for $8-10 including shipping on amazon.ca.
Haha, what can I say Angie? Maybe I am pretty old school, but the classics have worked well for me. I’m sure the 7th edition is just as good. I’ve found minimal differences between editions for these types of books. The biggest difference typically is the cover art :D.
Maybe amazon could send a papyrus edition, delivered by dinosaur :p