 Welcome to this language and learning support workshop, Useful Tools for University Writing. In this workshop, we will explore several tools that are useful for planning and writing your university assignments. Specifically, we will set the scene by reviewing the features of university writing and you will be asked to reflect on your own strengths as well as areas you would like to develop further. We will then examine a number of tools to assist you with reviewing and improving your draft writing. Ideally, you will use these tools regularly and they will contribute to your development as an independent reflective learner. Let's start by considering the features of good university writing. Pause this recording and jot down a few of your ideas. How does your list compare to ours? One feature of good university writing is the quality of the document itself, which includes thinking about aspects such as margins, line spacing, font sizes, and styles. Language is also an important consideration. Examples of language aspects the writer needs to consider include grammatical accuracy and variety, as well as vocabulary, which is specialized and varied. In addition, university writing has a style which is generally described as formal and academic. Referencing is another key feature of most university writing. We won't talk about referencing in this workshop, but the library offers many resources, so please take a look at the library website. Before we move on, take a minute to assess your own writing style against this list. Which areas do you feel confident about? Where would more advice and guidance be useful? Keep in mind, the Language and Learning Support Team offers several workshops which explore academic writing in more depth. So have a look at the workshop schedule and try to join one of these workshops. Good writing starts with a good plan. CDU provides you with a very useful assignment scheduler which helps you to think about the stages of the writing process and recommends a timeline for your writing project. Note that you can find this scheduler at any time by searching in your favorite browser for CDU assignment scheduler. Let's take a look at an example. This is the first screen of the assignment scheduler. It asks you to add a start date and a due date for your assignment. You should give the assignment a name and then calculate the recommended schedule. You will then receive a detailed timeline which breaks down the writing process into seven stages and includes additional videos, materials and recommendations to help you with your writing. You can also print the document in hard copy or save it as a PDF. A good working knowledge of Microsoft Word is generally expected by lecturers and tutors. So it's worth your while getting to know your way around Word. Word is a valuable tool for both formatting and language improvement. In another window, open Word Now and check that you know how to do each of the following. One, change the margins to wide. There is more than one method but the screenshot shows one way of changing your margins. Two, indent the first line of each paragraph by one centimeter. The screenshot shows two different methods. Three, change the line spacing to two. Yes, as you can see here, it's possible to view a wide range of formatting options on your home menu, including how to change your line spacing. Aside from formatting, Word can also give us insight into our use of language. Number four, find a spelling mistake. How do we find a spelling mistake using Word? You can use the editor in your review menu or look for words underlined in red. Five, how do we use Word to identify grammar errors? Again, use the editor in your review menu or look for words that have been underlined in blue. But of course a word of caution. Word can't do all your work for you. Look at the paragraph on the screen. Pause to see if you can find the mistake that Word has not identified. Did you find it? Word can check spelling, but it can't check context. This activity reminds us that we can't be over-reliant on technology. Microsoft Word can also assist us in finding better, more interesting or more precise vocabulary. Consider the paragraph above. If we right-click on the word in yellow and select synonyms, we get a range of alternative word choices. But are they all equivalent? Does my sentence keep its meaning if I substitute with the word toilets? No, it doesn't. In the context of the paragraph, toilets is not an appropriate word choice. If we want more options, we can always use the thesaurus. Let's consider this useful tool next. A good thesaurus will provide more synonym options than Word. But remember, it's important to check synonyms carefully and never use an unfamiliar word without thorough investigation. A good online thesaurus may have other useful functions in addition to suggesting synonyms. Let's look at www.thesaurus.com forward slash browse forward slash synonym. This thesaurus allows you to find synonyms and also see them in context. In the example, three synonyms for logical are placed in the same sentence to help the writer decide which alternative is most appropriate. Let's move on to a new suggestion. Google can be a very useful tool, particularly if we want to check collocations or word combinations. Using Google for this purpose is not an exact science, but Google can give us a quick and easy understanding of frequency and therefore offer clues about what is correct or incorrect. Consider prepositions, which often cause confusion. Perhaps I need to check. Should I say interested in or interested about? How do I use Google? Easy. I search for each expression using quotation marks so that my search is specific. The expression with the highest tally is most likely the correct version. Here we see that Google has over 900 million results for interested in and only 2.7 million for interested about. So we would select the first option. Let's look at another option which focuses on developing your vocabulary. When considering your writing in a university context, it is useful to be aware of the academic word list, defined as a compilation of the most frequent words in academic texts. These are the types of words you will see most often and be expected to use in your own work. But how do you know if you're using academic words? Let's look at a writing sample and a tool to assist us with looking at our vocabulary use. As an introduction to this activity, please keep in mind that the writing sample we're using is very basic. It allows you, the audience, to grasp ideas easily and later apply them to more complex texts. Before I demonstrate the tool, pause the recording and take a few minutes to read through the essay on the screen, focusing on the vocabulary. What are your thoughts? You may have noticed a high level of repetition. You might think the writer has opted for fairly simple words. Let's take a look at how we can use a vocabulary profiler to give us more information about word choice and opportunities to improve vocabulary use. The next few screenshots will demonstrate this tool. www.lextutor.ca The full address is on the screen. The vocabulary profiler provided by Lex Tutor provides the user with a detailed analysis of their word choice, including an understanding of whether academic word list vocabulary is used. When you first click on the link, you may find the software a bit overwhelming, but if you follow my instructions, you'll be able to get the information you need. On the first screen, simply copy your writing into the text box and click on the yellow submit button. In this case, we have copied the essay from the previous slide. You will then find yourself faced with an array of numbers. Let me help you understand these. Blue indicates the thousand most common words in the English language. So 86% of the words in the sample essay come from this group. Green indicates the next thousand most common words and just under 9% of the words in the sample essay come from this group. Don't be alarmed when you see high numbers of blue and green words in your own writing. These words are common because we need them. However, we might want to think about whether any of our common words can be replaced with more specific words, words which reflect the subject matter we are studying. As only 3% of the words in yellow come from the academic word list. If you scroll down further, you can find more details about your writing in the vocabulary profiler and look for opportunities to make your vocabulary less repetitive, more interesting or more precise. Even considering our very basic writing sample, can you think of some synonyms for children? If not, don't forget your thesaurus. We've come to the end of this workshop. As promised, we have reviewed features of university writing, brought about our personal strengths and weaknesses and examined tools to assist with writing review, writing improvement, long-term development and independent learning. Thank you for your time today. Please stay in touch. You can visit our webpage to find out about our other workshops and services, www.cdu.edu.au, forward slash library, forward slash language and learning support or you can email us at language and learning support at cdu.edu.au.