Quality Writing Center

The Quality Writing Center, the Enhanced Learning Center, and the Office of Community Standards and Student Ethics will present the first spring installment of the Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism Workshop on Wednesday, February 10, at 2:30 p.m. The two-hour workshop has three parts. First, the program helps students to understand why and when they need to cite source materials. Second, the workshop teaches approaches to summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting sources, along with techniques for making proper in-text and bibliographic entries. The workshop culminates in a series of exercises that challenge students to practice the strategies and techniques learned.

 The Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism Workshop will be held in Kimpel 206B. Seats are limited, so register here on our site. If you have questions about workshop content, please e-mail (writcent@uark.edu).

The QWC offers a test-prep workshop for students taking the Advanced Composition Exemption Exam  The one-hour session covers exam format, approaches to writing a successful argumentative synthesis, test-taking strategies, and the Testing Services grading rubric. In addition to the workshop, we have three practice exam handouts that students can use to prepare. Materials are available in 315 Kimpel Hall and at the “browse our handouts” link above. No registration required for the workshop. Any questions, please give us a call. Workshop dates:

Wednesday, February 3; 3-4 pm; JBHT 147

Thursday, February 4; 9:30-10:30 am; KIMP 209

Fatma Hasanain, an interior design major from Saudi Arabia, has been a Writing Center regular for the first two years of her undergraduate career. She began studying English as a middle-schooler in Jedda, and continued her development when she and her mother moved to Fayetteville in Fatma’s sophomore year of high school. Fatma’s mother, also a U of A student, recently completed her doctoral studies in food science and education. When Fatma completes her BA in Interior Design, she plans to return to Jedda and hopes to work in a small firm designing for residential or commercial spaces. We sat down recently to talk about her writing.

 BH:  How did you first learn about the Writing Center?

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Spring International Language Center is seeking conversation partners for the spring semester, beginning on January 19, 2010.  The conversation partner program links international students with native English speakers.  Participants are asked to volunteer one hour per week with their students.  This program is a great way to make a new friend while helping someone practice English and learn about American culture. For more information and an application, contact Catherine Roberts (silc@uark.edu or 575-7600) or come by 300 Hotz Hall.

Your UA reseach librarians offer a variety of tutorial sessions to assist you with “navigating the research maze.” Students interested in help with citation management, especially for longer research papers, should consider attending the RefWorks Basics tutorial. The Web site of the University Libraries describes the RefWorks citation software as a tool that “allows you to generate bibliographies in MLA, APA, CBE and hundreds of other styles from the references that you draw from databases, including InfoLinks, WorldCat, the Ebscohost and ProQuest databases, and many more.” RefGrab-It, another citation tool, assists in creating citations for Web pages.

The next scheduled RefWorks Basics session at Mullins is on Wednesday, February 10, 11-12 noon. Students can contact the instructor (njohns@uark.edu) for more information on the training.

The QWC’s Mullins Satellite Center re-opens for Spring 2010 tutoring on Monday, January 25. As in the fall, the satellite will be staffed with graduate tutors working by appointment and undergraduate peer tutors serving students for walk-in sessions. Graduate tutors are available for 30- and 60-minute appointments on the center’s Web-based scheduler, and they help students with any university writing assignment. Peer tutors are trained to help students with assignments in Comp I and II, and no appointment is needed.

The Mullins Satellite is staffed Monday through Thursday, 2:00-8:00 p.m., and Sunday 5:00-8:00 p.m. We’re located on the main floor of Mullins, just north of the entrance to the Periodicals Room. Click here for a map of our Mullins location. Please call our Kimpel center (575-6747) if you have any questions about Mullins Satellite services. We hope to see you for tutoring at the library!

The American Psychological Association offers students a 21-minute online tutorial to accompany the release of the new 6th edition of the Publication Manual.  The 25-module tutorial provides help with formatting the manuscript, citing references in the text, and preparing the list of references.

The APA describes the presentation as follows: “This tutorial is designed for those who have no previous knowledge of APA Style. It shows users how to structure and format their work, recommends ways to reduce bias in language, identifies how to avoid charges of plagiarism, shows how to cite references in text, and provides selected reference examples.”

McGraw-Hill’s Avoiding Plagiarism Tutorial

McGraw-Hill’s tutorial on avoiding plagiarism offers students teaching and interactive quizzes. Carolyn Lengel, site author, reminds students of the importance of learning citation fundamentals: ”[It is] a matter of both personal integrity and academic honesty to acknowledge others, especially when you use their words or ideas.”

The “Avoiding Plagiarism Tutorial” is informative, well-organized, and thoughtfully paced. Students who need to brush up on the fundamentals will benefit from the following modules:

• Avoiding Plagiarism (sample paper with quiz)
• Citing Sources (in-text citation quiz & works-cited quiz)
• Using Quotation Marks Correctly (quotation mark quiz)
• Summarizing and Paraphrasing ( summary and paraphrase quiz)
• Using Sources Accurately (accurate use of sources quiz)

Our ESL clients often ask where they can get assistance improving their speaking and pronunciation skills. The best on-campus resource is Conversation Club, organized by the Office of International Students and Scholars. The office describes the program as follows: ”Conversation Club is a program designed for International students to improve their conversational English. It gives them the opportunity to meet in small groups, meet new people, practice their English and make some friends!” The ISS site also has a PowerPoint presentation with detailed information on the program.

Conversation Club groups meet once each week for eight weeks. Students who would like more practice might visit ESLgold.com, a site that has learning modules on speaking, listening, and pronunciation–you’ll see the tabs across the top of the home page.  All you need is a PC with a Windows Media Player. The site also offers help with reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and idioms. Plenty of good quizzes are available.

Elizabeth Truong of mcat-prep.com contacted the QWC last week. She wanted to let UA students prepping for the upcoming MCAT know that they have access to one free preparatory online exam. According to Elizabeth, “the free practice exam has 4 sections: Physical Sciences (70 minutes), Verbal Reasoning (60 minutes), Writing Sample (60 minutes), and Biological Sciences (70 minutes). There are full explanations for the mistakes that the student makes as well as a complete breakdown of the score (percentage of answers correct, incorrect) for each subject.” The site offers additional test-prep materials for sale.