Research Guides: Graduate Student Academic Writing Guide: Writing

Writing Resources

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL)
Includes resources and instructional materials to assist with a variety of writing projects.
The Writing Process (Purdue OWL)
These OWL resources will help you with the writing process: pre-writing (invention), developing research questions and outlines, composing thesis statements, and proofreading. While the writing process may be different for each person and for each particular assignment, the resources contained in this section follow the general work flow of pre-writing, organizing, and revising.
University of Wisconsin's Writing Center
Includes instructional materials that were developed for teaching in the Writing Center.

Concise Writing
Learn how to remove unnecessary words and rearrange phrases to increase your writing's effectiveness.
Sentence Variety
Learn to add sentence variety and complexity to your writing.
Active & Passive Voice
Learn what active and passive voice are and when to use each.
Use Appropriate Language
Learn about some of the major issues with appropriate language use.

Grammarly won't be able to provide feedback or give you the quality feedback you'd expect from an experienced, human writing instructor. Instead, it's an automated proofreader and your personal grammar coach that instantly checks your sentences for grammar, punctuation, and style. Register for a free account using your Franklin University student email address.

Grammarly
Online writing support tool designed to help Franklin University students improve their sentence-level writing skills. Upload a draft and receive instant feedback on grammar and mechanics. You must use your Franklin email address.

Writing Tips

Tips for Taking Notes

Taking notes:

Use abbreviations, acronyms, or incomplete sentences to record information to speed up the note-taking process.
Write down only the information that answers your research questions.
Use symbols, diagrams, charts or drawings to simplify and visualize ideas

Forms of Notetaking

Use one of these notetaking forms to capture information:

Summarize: Capture the main ideas of the source succinctly by restating them in your own words.

Paraphrase: Restate the author's ideas in your own words.

Quote: Copy the quotation exactly as it appears in the original source. Put quotation marks around the text and note the name of the person you are quoting.

Why Outline?

Oultines provide a means of organizing your information in an hierarchical or logical order.

For research papers, a formal outline can help you keep track of large amounts of information.

How to Create an Outline?

To create an outline:

Place your thesis statement at the beginning.
List the major points that support your thesis. Label them in Roman Numerals (I, II, III, etc.).
List supporting ideas or arguments for each major point. Label them in capital letters (A, B, C, etc.).
If applicable, continue to sub-divide each supporting idea until your outline is fully developed. Label them 1, 2, 3, etc., and then a, b, c, etc.

Example Paper Outline
Use this example outline for your research paper.

Incorporate Source Material

Paraphrase Exercise - Purdue OWL

Introduction to Graduate Writing Series

Learn more!
Learn more about Graduate Writing with the Purdue OWL Introduction to Graduate Writing Video Series.

Effective Writing

Effective Writing Infographic

Habits of Effective Writers