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Scholarly Writing and Citation Resources
Academic Style | Understanding/Evaluating Information | Writing | Plagiarism | Lit Review | Annotated Bibliographies | Style & Citing | Citing Online Resources | Citing Dissertations
Writing Resources
CIIS Center for Writing and Scholarship
The Center for Writing and Scholarship (MyCIIS login required) assists CIIS students, staff, and faculty in developing the skills necessary for effective reading, writing, literacy, and communication through our programming, presentations, publications, and pedagogy seminars about writing, research, and the teaching of these skills.
Academic style often includes the techniques of summarizing a research article, and critiquing or evaluating other writings. It can use a more scientific style or voice. These guides from the Psychology Writing Center at the University of Washington may help.
What Is an Academic Paper?
This guide from Dartmouth, although written for undergraduates, covers many valid graduate level topics such as constructing an informed argument, finding a rhetorical stance, and using appropriate tone and style.Writing Research Essays in North American Academic Institutions: A Guide for Students of All Nations
This work from ACTS Seminaries is directed toward students who may not have been brought up with the American approach to academic writing.Understanding & Evaluating Information Sources
Evaluating the information you read is a critically important skill. Before you give too much weight to something you read, take a good look at where it is coming from.
How to Evaluate the Information Sources You Find
This guide from Cornell University addresses all types of information sources, including books, journals, and web sites.Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from Other Periodicals
Academic writing usually emphasize scholarly articles, and articles in reviewed journals. This resource will help you limit your research to the scholarly literature.Evaluating Information Found on the Internet
Johns Hopkins' libraries developed this guide specifically for evaluating information found online.Elements of Style (Strunk & White)
This classic reference book (pubished 1918) is a basic reference for writers. It gives in brief space the principal requirements of plain English style and concentrates attention on the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated.Thesis Statements -
Creating a Thesis Statement
From the OWL at Purdue gives a short tip sheet on the creation of thesis statements with examples.Developing Your Thesis
From the Dartmouth Writing Program gives a more in depth explanation of how to refine the thesis statement.How to Make an Outline
Often academic writing proceeds from an outline. This University of Washington guide describes how to do it.Online Writing Lab (OWL)
A variety of handouts: general writing concerns (planning, writing, revising), researching and writing etc.Models for the Creative Process
Just because a paper is academic in style doesn't mean that it's not a product of the creative process. In this piece, Paul Plesk describes many different ways to think about creativity as it applies to writing.The distinction between incorporating others' ideas and plagiarism is not always clear. When in doubt, cite!
Plagiarism and Its Consequences
Avoiding Plagiarism: Practical Strategies
Excellent guides from Duke University. Includes plagiarism identification and avoidance strategies for every stage of the research-writing process. Of particular interest is the section on taking notes while reading in "Avoiding Plagiarism".Plagiarism and Student Writing
A shorter guide from the University of Washington defining plagiarism and ways to avoid it.The Literature Review: A Few Tips…
From the University of Toronto, this gives a good overview of what is a literature review, plus lists of questions to ask.Review of Literature
This guide from the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison breaks the literature review down into its component parts: introduction, body, and conclusion.What is a Literature Review?
This guide from the Gary Library at the Union Institute & University is aimed at literature reviews for dissertations.Writing a Psychology Literature Review
Literature reviews in psychology are somewhat different from other fields; this guide from the Psychology Writing Center at the University of Washington details how.How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography
Explains what annotated bibliographies are and how to write them. From Cornell University Libraries.Annotated Bibliographies
From the Writing Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Addresses format, content, and writing style for annotated bibliographies.
General Guides
American Anthropology Association Style Guide
AAA uses The Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition, 2003) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition, 2006). This guide is an outline of style rules basic to AAA journal editing. Downloadable guide (no need to sign in) is in PDF format.APA Style Citations and References
From the Psychology Writing Center at the University of Washington, this Acrobat document gives the general rules for APA-style citations, and lists several examples of how to cite journal articles, books and book chapters (both as in-text citations and as the reference list).Duke University Libraries' Guide to Citing Sources
This resource provides examples of various citations for APA, Chicago, MLA and Turabian styles.UC Berkeley's Guide
This resource provides descriptions & examples of APA, MLA and Chicago's styles.
APA Style.Org: Electronic References
Web site contains excerpts from the 5th edition of the Publication Manual (© 2001). The material provided covers commonly asked questions regarding how to cite electronic media.MLA citation Formats for Online Resources
Downloadable PDF from The City College of San Francisco based on the MLA 6th Edition.
Style Sheets for Citing Internet and Electronic Resources
From UC Berkeley’s Teaching Library, this guide covers APA, MLA, Chicago, and Turabian styles for Web pages, email messages, newsgroup postings, etc.Practical Steps in Evaluating Internet Resources
It can be tough to determine the author or source for a Web page – this guide from Johns Hopkins University shows how to find these elements to properly cite an Internet resource.
