07:780 Graduate Scholarly Writing (NET)

Course Description:

Students will analyse and practise a variety of forms of written communication, including recovery of meaning (through analysis, synthesis and evaluation), conceptualization, categorical frameworks, exposition, autobiography, editing, and bibliographic notation, modeled on current practices in research and scholarly publication in education.

Instructor: Dr. Marion Terry

Spring 2018

Reflection:

I shudder to think at the amount of trees that I killed during the course of this course.  I find it hard to read articles online.  I like to have the papers in my hand, with my highlighters and sticky notes at my disposal.  Since there was so much information available about school attendance and absenteeism, I found that I needed to skim through (too) many articles in order to find the meaningful or quality articles for my research.  (Thank you course 01-751 for teaching me how to choose quality articles!)

The first assignment for this course was to apply Kolb's Learning Styles theory to myself as a learner.  Since I had not yet heard of Kolb's learning style or his inventory, I found this intriguing.  I learned that I am an assimilator, which helped explain many of my type A personality traits as it relates to my own learning and my work preferences.  It also helped me understand why I sometimes find it hard to relate to others - social-emotional learning is an ongoing area in need of growth.  

Even though I had previously taken two other courses with Marion, there was still so much to learn about scholarly writing. I remember being disappointed with the corrections that came back in a variety of colours after I submitted my final assignment.  I still earned a high mark, but my perfectionistic tendencies are hard to ignore. At this point, I decided to view all errors as learning opportunities.  I began to record each my errors in a section of my journal so that I wouldn't repeat them in future assignments.  This was a very helpful strategy because I used these notes for every future course.  Despite the numerous errors, what I most remember about my getting my first assignment back in this course was the sentence, "You have a mature writing style".  This comment inspired me to absorb everything I could about scholarly writing.  Since I had never been confident in my writing skills, this single phrase filled me with pride.  (I took this as a full compliment, so if it means something other than that, please do NOT tell me!).  This sentence was an acknowledgment of the learning and growth that had occurred in my writing during my first two courses with Marion.  

 Marion taught me how to adjust my searches in the BU library catalogue and how to "assemble a research-based essay" and how to "think in three's".  This was exactly what I needed to help me learn how to write for academic purposes.  

I am surprised that this course is not a required course for all students.  Although extremely rigorous, it helped solidify my academic writing skills.  

07:780 Chosen Assignment: Kolb's Theory

I chose to include this assignment on Kolb's Theory because it was a turning point in how I viewed myself as a writer.  I felt an increased confidence when writing my draft papers in subsequent courses.  

Marion's courses were tough, but I so appreciated everything that I learned in them.  She pushed you to the edge, but made sure you had something to hang on to so as not to go over.