Guides and Statements

There are some things all students in my courses need, or want, to know:

• If you are writing a draft, and you want my feedback, I have thoughts.
• Here’s my list of interview tips.
• If you are not quite sure what a literature review is and you are in a course that requires one, here’s a basic guide.
• Revising and editing go hand-in-hand.
• You may use any citation system, preferably the one used by your major, so long as you do so consistently and competently. In the absence of any other system, please feel free to use the one employed by social scientists and humanists around the world known as the Chicago Author-Date System. (It’s easier, and makes more sense, than MLA.)
• Navigating the library proxy when connecting to online databases when you are off campus, and understanding the relationship between the library’s website and something like JSTOR can be confusing. Here’s some help.
• A (Kind of) Handbook on Writing includes sections on how to think of sentences and paragraphs as building blocks, on introductory paragraphs, on how to write summaries, and how to write thesis statements. If you need help with writing, and almost all of us do, then seek it out. Find me, find the Writing Lab, find an experienced writer – FTR, lawyers write a lot – or search the web in general or Medium or Youtube in particular.
• There is a common set of guidelines/requirements on how to be a participant in a course I facilitate. Read The Essentials.
• For my writing-intensive courses, which is almost all of them, I prefer to use Google Drive. Please make sure you have an account and you know not only how to create and edit documents, but you are also familiar with the reviewing functionality, which Google calls Suggesting. Google for Education has produced a video on how to research and write a paper using Google Docs, which also has useful tips on how to take and organize notes: Research and Writing.
• If you don’t know about [Open Culture][], then you should take a look. A variety of materials – audio books, textbooks – are available there. In particular, I regularly use their [archive of films][] for teaching.