Writing Guides
Dr. Patton's Writing Tips
I wrote these tips in 2007, for English university students who were studying theater. As a result, the language is advanced, the examples are heavily theater-focused, and the spelling in English. Having said all that, the advice is all applicable to writing in my High Tech High classes.
Ms. Clark's Essay Tips
These tips come from Ms. Clark from High Tech High North County, with slight modifications by me, and they are AWESOME. They are especially good because the provide a comprehensive outline for writing an essay. If you follow it, you won't go wrong!
Generic Essay Outline Template
You can save a copy of this document and fill it in, and it will help you create a very good essay draft.
Lots of good grammar guides
This is an excellent collection of grammar advice
I wrote these tips in 2007, for English university students who were studying theater. As a result, the language is advanced, the examples are heavily theater-focused, and the spelling in English. Having said all that, the advice is all applicable to writing in my High Tech High classes.
Ms. Clark's Essay Tips
These tips come from Ms. Clark from High Tech High North County, with slight modifications by me, and they are AWESOME. They are especially good because the provide a comprehensive outline for writing an essay. If you follow it, you won't go wrong!
Generic Essay Outline Template
You can save a copy of this document and fill it in, and it will help you create a very good essay draft.
Lots of good grammar guides
This is an excellent collection of grammar advice
Citation (our team uses APA format)
Our team uses APA format for all research citation. The APA format was developed by the American Psychological Association.
There's a great guide to APA citation here. It should tell you everything you need to know about citations. If you have any further questions, ask me.
There's a short, useful guide to citing social media (tweets, facebook posts, etc.) here
What's the point of citations?
There are two good reasons to cite your research:
I've probably written thousands of citations in my life. I had to write hundreds for my PhD thesis alone, then when I got articles published, I needed to change every single citation in my article to fit whatever citation style the journal I was writing for used. Then, when I worked at the Innovation Unit after I finished my PhD, I had to go through drafts of articles written by people more famous than me, putting in all the citations they'd left out. This had to be done, because if you present research without citations, you're basically saying "Hey, trust me! This stuff is all true! Why would I lie to you?" And nobody trusts people who sound like that.
Have you ever noticed that Wikipedia gives you a warning whenever you look at a page without very many citations? It does that because nobody trusts you if you don't cite.
There's a great guide to APA citation here. It should tell you everything you need to know about citations. If you have any further questions, ask me.
There's a short, useful guide to citing social media (tweets, facebook posts, etc.) here
What's the point of citations?
There are two good reasons to cite your research:
- It allows you to back up your words with other peoples' authority. If you tell me something, I can quite reasonably ask why I should trust you. But if you cite reputable sources for your information, it lends weight to your words.
- You are helping other researchers, because it provides them with a pathway to your sources. One of the most effective research techniques is to find one article, and then look up the sources that the author has cited. So, if you read one article, and that article cites five sources, and then you look up those sources and THEY all have five sources, suddenly you've found 31 sources for your own article! This is great, but it only works if everybody does their part.
I've probably written thousands of citations in my life. I had to write hundreds for my PhD thesis alone, then when I got articles published, I needed to change every single citation in my article to fit whatever citation style the journal I was writing for used. Then, when I worked at the Innovation Unit after I finished my PhD, I had to go through drafts of articles written by people more famous than me, putting in all the citations they'd left out. This had to be done, because if you present research without citations, you're basically saying "Hey, trust me! This stuff is all true! Why would I lie to you?" And nobody trusts people who sound like that.
Have you ever noticed that Wikipedia gives you a warning whenever you look at a page without very many citations? It does that because nobody trusts you if you don't cite.
Plagiarism Checker
First of all, here's a nice explanation of how to avoid plagiarism.
I recommend running any essay you write through a plagiarism checker before you make it public. They won't catch everything, but they might catch phrases that you forgot to cite! Here's a free one that seems to work well:
I recommend running any essay you write through a plagiarism checker before you make it public. They won't catch everything, but they might catch phrases that you forgot to cite! Here's a free one that seems to work well:
Writing good literary criticism
16 literary terms, explained using Disney films - this sounds like a joke, but it's extremely useful
Crafting an argument
An illustrated book of bad arguments - this is a (genuinely) beautiful little guide to logical fallacies. Have a read, and make sure you don't use any of these!
Design and publishing
Readlist: Combining Typefaces - if you're creating work for publication, you've got to think about typefaces. This is a great collection of helpful resources. It's made for professionals, but I'm confident you can handle it!
Collections of good-quality stock photos
Collections of good-quality stock photos
One last "resource" for writers, courtesy of Dean May...
(Just so we're absolutely clear, this last one is a joke).