More about saving work!

To follow up on The Unfortunate Story of the Student Whose Paper Vanished in Cyberspace-- this happens too often! However, there is more than one way and one place to save documents whether working at Delta, from home, or on Wifi at the local coffee shop.

In Delta labs, of course, you cannot save permanently to the hard drive because everything vanishes when you log off (or if the power blinks). If you just save to the computer when you are working, the material goes automatically to the My Documents folder on the hard drive; that can be a little tedious to search for. Here's my best advice for when you don't have your flash drive with you, and even for when you do. Smart people save a backup copy!

1. Save the document to the Desktop when you first create it, before you've even typed more than your name and the date. Then you just have to hit the Save icon at the top of the page every paragraph or so. The document is also easier to find on the desktop.
2. When you have a complete document, there are three ways to save it for later access when you don't have a flash drive. You can
3. E-mail it to yourself as an attachment.
4. One of your classes must have you using a Desire2Learn site.  If you go into D2L, you will see a link at the top called "My Locker." It's just that-- online storage for your stuff!  Click on the link and follow the simple steps to upload your document to the locker, where it will be accessible to you from your home computer.
5. Have you checked out your "My Portal" Delta site?  It's a link at the top of almost all Delta website pages.  Scroll all the way to the bottom of your Portal page, and there's a My Documents tab. Again, follow the easy steps to upload your material, and there it is for access other times and other places.

If you are writing something lengthy, it's probably wise to save your stuff to your e-mail, D2L, or MyPortal before it's done, just in case of electronic disaster. If the power goes out or software crashes, you have at least a partial draft saved.

Posted by E. Dewey

What is the Delta WRIT Center?

Welcome to the Delta Writ Center's new blog!
First, here are some questions you may ask about the WRIT Center...

What does WRIT mean?

The WRIT stands for Writing, Reading, and Information Technology. These are the areas that we consult students in.

Does the WRIT Center proofread papers?

The Delta College WRIT Center helps a student with letting him or her improve their English skills by  helping the student form ideas to improve for themselves.We do not do line-by-line editing while you idly stand by. We prefer an interactive session where we offer feedback on grammar issues, spelling help, structural improvement, and the paper as a whole. We will gladly assist you to learn how to form a more organized paper, and help you learn how to look for grammar and punctuation errors on your own.

How can I get my paper looked at?

There are a couple of ways to have your paper reviewed by us. First, you can stop in for a session. We are located at the back of the Delta College LLIC (library), near A-125. We are open Monday-Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. We ask that you give us about a half hour window per session to properly assist you.

If you have more questions on what a writing center is or does, please visit these other writing centers' links for their policies:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/writinglab/policies
http://www.svsu.edu/writingcenter/home/why-visit-us.html
http://www.delta.edu/writingcenter.aspx

You can also submit your paper for review online by going to www.delta.edu/writingcenter and clicking on the link labeled  Writing Center Submission Form.

Any questions? Please email us at writingcenter@delta.edu.

Save Your Documents, Save them often!

Today, we had one unfortunate student who ended up losing her entire document she was working on while working on one of our computers. The important lesson learned from this: Save your work, and save often.

She had been working on this paper for over a couple hours. She never saved her document because she didn't bring in her flash drive. Then the computer blinked out unexpectedly, and Word disappeared from her taskbar--the document had closed on her, or Word had unexpectedly closed. Unfortunately, because this student never saved, there was nothing we could do to help her. We even went to get assistance from our IT help desk, and from the computer lab desk, to see if any one knew how to retrieve the missing file that had mysteriously disappeared. Nobody could help. We looked everywhere, but the file no longer existed, because the document was never saved, not even by the Auto Recover.

One strong word of advice we give to all of our students--save early, save often. You can not foresee if something happens to the program or to the computer to hinder the recovery or retrieval of your document, and we can not be of any assistance if the document is not saved. We really do not want to see you have to start from scratch on a paper that you have worked hard on for the last two hours, and we would like to help you succeed as much as possible. So please, take my advice: Save early, save often!

Citing Sources (MLA)--Introduction

*Not all source types may be given in this post--if you need more help, please email us at writingcenter@delta.edu and we will be sure to assist you. Remember, you can also submit your papers for a consultant to assist you at www.delta.edu/writingcenter.aspx.

Why Source?
    Citing sources correctly allows you to give proper credit to the person who originally gave ideas or facts that are used in your paper and allows the reader to assess the validity of the sources that you use and can further expand on the subject by looking at the sources for themselves.

Cite information, facts, and ideas that are not common knowledge. Use citations in direct quotes or when paraphrasing.

MLA: In-text Citations

In Text Citations

• Use author if given. If no author, use title or the beginning of the title for a reference point.
• Main thing is to make your in-text citation the first word or phrase that will occur in your Works Cited page (to simplify referencing for the reader.)
• Use parenthetical referencing at pause of sentence, or at the end if possible.
• Block quotes can be placed either before or after the source quotation (preferably before--see examples below.)
• The number in the reference is the page number.
• No punctuation is between the name and the author.
• Use direct quotations sparingly to enhance meaning of a subject. Use your voice more, summarizing or paraphrasing sources.
• One Author-last name of the author
• In-sentence: 
• Jane Hopkins calls the Western the "only true American entertainment form" (67).
• Parenthetical:                                                                                                                                                                   
• The Western is the only American entertainment that belongs to us (Tompkins 67).
• Two or three authors:
• Rico and Mano point out a number of books that are appropriate for quality multicultural education (83-90).
• The authors point out a number of books that are appropriate for quality multicultural education (Rico and Mano 83-90).
• Four or More Authors:
•  use the first named author, then the phrase et al.
• Medhurst et al. describe the relationship between Brezhnev and Nixon as "heated" (137).
• The authors describe the relationship between Brezhnev and Nixon as "heated" (Medhurst et al. 137).
• Corporation or organization: 
• For long names, try to use the name in the text and only the page number in the parentheses, so reading is not interrupted by long parenthetical references:
• According to a study performed by the National Research Council, the population of China in 1900 was increasing by more than 15 million annually (15).
• In parenthetical referencing, shorten the terms commonly abbreviated:
• The population of China was increasing by more than 15 million annually (Natl. Research Council 15).
• Pre-retirement planning also has a measurable effect on stress levels (NIMH 22).
• No Author:
• Use first few words of the title of the source. Italicize if book title or use quotations if an article.
• Croatians are unhappy about the time when their country was part of the former Republic of Yugoslavia ("Croatia in Crisis" 26).
• The filmmakers, on the other hand, clearly presented Mozart's deaath as murder (Amadeus).
• If you are quoting or paraphrasing something that is a quotation itself, use the term "qtd. in" (quoted in):
• Samuel Johnson admitted that Edmund Burke was an "extraordinary man" (qtd. in Boswell 450.)
• For electronic citations where the page numbers may not be apparent, use only the author's name. For pdf files, use the page numbers:
• The Western is the only American entertainment that belongs to us (Tompkins). 

Taken from "Citing Your Sources-MLA Format" by the Delta College Library

How do I...? Words that Sound Alike (Spelling)

Many words sound alike but have different meanings when put into writing. This post will help distinguish between some of the more common words we see that sound alike.

Words:


Accept/Except

• Accept: Verb-to receive or agree:   I accepted the letter that was delivered yesterday.
• Except: Preposition-all but or other than:  Everyone went to school except John.

Affect/Effect

• Affect: Verb-to influence: Lack of study may affect your grades.
• Effect: 
• Noun-Result or consequence:  Lack of study may have an effect on your grades.
• Verb-to bring about; to accomplish:  The efforts of lobbyists have effected major change in our nation's policy.

Advise/Advice

• Advise: Verb-to recommend, suggest, or counsel:  I advise you to not take too many courses.
• Advice: Noun-an opinion, recommendation about what could or should be done: I need your advice on what classes I could take.

Conscious/Conscience

• Conscious: Adjective-awake, perceiving: Although I was knocked very hard on my head, I remained conscious during this ordeal.
• Conscience: Noun-A sense of obligation to do good: My conscience was not allowing me to lie to my parents about my grades.

Idea/Ideal

• Idea: Noun-a thought, belief or conception held in the mind; a general notion or conception formed by generalization: My idea for this project was to research home prices.
• Ideal:
• Noun-someone or something embodies perfection; the ultimate object or endeavor: Jon was the ideal for the rest of the student body.
• Adjective-embodying an ultimate standard for excellence or perfection; the best: Bob was the ideal father.

Its/It's

• Its: Possessive adjective (possessive of it): The dog stood on its hind legs.
• It's: Contraction for it is or it has: It's still raining; it's been raining for two days now.

Lead/Lead

• Lead: Noun- metallic element: The pipes had to be replaced because they were made of lead.
• Led: Past tense ot the verb to lead (to guide or direct): He led the dog back to his parents' home.

Than/Then

• Than:
• Used in comparison: She is a better writer than I am.
• Used in preference: I would rather read than write.
• Used to suggest quantities of a greater amount: I was told to write more than two pages.
• Then:
• A time other than now: She was less aware of consequences then. I will start working then.
• Next in time, space, or order: First you do your chores, then you can go play.
• Suggesting a logical conclusion: If you study hard, then your grades will improve.

Their/There/They're

• Their: Possessive of they/them: Their house is very large.
• There: Suggesting a place: I put my cup over there.
• They're: Contraction of they are: They're on the football team.

To/Too/Two

• To: Preposition; first part of the infinitive of a verb: We went to the library to study.
• Too: Very,also: I was too fast for him to keep up. He ran fast, too.
• Two: Number 2: There were two cans of soup left.

We're/Where/Were

• We're: Contraction of we are/were: We're going swimming this summer.
• Where: Location: Where is your car?
• Were: Past tense of the verb to be: We were in serious trouble.

Your/You're

• Your: Possessive pronoun: Your car is over there.
• You're: Contraction of you are: You're not leaving until you find your car.

Worse/Worst

• Worse: Less good or more severe; used in a comparison: Your test score was worse than your previous ones.
• Worst: Superlative of bad, badly, ill; can't get any more bad: This was the worst grade you ever earned.

The IT in WRIT

So what does the IT in WRIT stand for? The IT is information technology, though one specific strand of this very broad category. When most people think of information technology, they think of the Geek Squad or computer/network maintenance folk. Our IT is not concerned with hardware/software systems, but communication output. Essentially, we help students present information using technology, such as blogs, digital stories, and audio essays.

Multimodal compositions or new media writing is what we can assist with through:

• giving students access to a scanner, a digital recorder, and software to complete their multimedia essays.
• offering technical advice on using social media sites, such as blogger.com and twitter.com
• helping students understand their rhetorical situation (audience, purpose, genre, stance, medium)
• being an audience for students to test run ideas
• working with students to develop thoughtful, well-organized, and engaging texts

Our new WRIT Center recognizes the Position Statement on Multimodal Literacies by the National Council of Teachers of English.

Welcome!

Hello writers! Welcome to the Delta WRIT Center Blog. I hope that you enjoy this new way of communicating with us as we have in creating this blog. As this is a first for us, we will probably start out by asking that you post any questions that you have for us that do not regard any assignments you have. We will be improving this blog as we get more feedback from you, our users.Please help us contribute to the blog by commenting on this post. We want to try to make this as interactive as we can.

Thank you,
The Delta College WRIT Center Staff
www.delta.edu/writingcenter