Writing & Presenting Your Research

Blackboard and Web Resources

Free Resources for MU Grad Students & Postdocs

Grad Writer offers worksheets for developing a research abstract and concept paper or funding proposals.

Grad Careers offers tutorials on research posters, scholarly presentations, tips for reducing presentation anxiety, and how to create professional slides using MS PowerPoint.

To access resources login at https://bblearn.missouri.edu/ Click on the My Mizzou tab. Under the Organization Catalog, select the Student folder. Search the catalog by the word "grad." Scroll to the ID grad_writer or grad_careers. Click the down arrows to enroll. The next time you log into Blackboard, the site(s) will be under My Organizations.

Ellis Library “How To” Guides for Writing & Citing

The main MU library offers a portal site with excellent resources on scholarly writing, research papers, and discipline-specific citation styles. Note: APA, Chicago Manual et. al have issues guidelines for citing from e-books that lack page numbers. Avoid plagiarism – learn how to properly cite your sources!

MU Writing Lab

Grad students may make an apppointment with a writing tutor on papers 10 pages or less. Tutors explain how to improve the organization and flow of a paper, and can help you strengthen overall writing skills.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center

An excellent site where students can find information about the following: how to improve their writing (how to be concise and use transitions), the stages of the writing process (thesis v. dissertation), and how to cite sources according to APA, MLA, Chicago, CBE and APSA.

Advice on Academic Writing by Margaret Procter, PhD

Provides information about how to plan and organize, how to conduct research (critical research and using the Internet), how to use sources (paraphrase vs. quotations), editing and grammar/punctuation. Procter also addresses specific writing issues (i.e., writing about poetry or physics).

Arizona State University Podasts

ASU’s Graduate College offers podcasts on research and scholarship, publishing in refereed journals and conference presentations. Included are tips for honing writing skills and getting your dissertation published into a book.

Books

Boyle Single, P. (2009). Demystifying dissertation writing: A streamlined process from choice of topic to final text. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Intended for doctoral students in the social sciences, humanities and professional fields. Backed by research on PhD completion, this author presents five strategies for launching, sustaining and completing a writing project.

Heppner, P. P., & Heppner, M. J. (2004). A guide to successful theses, dissertations, and publishing research. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

An excellent guide to theses and dissertation writing, this book gets back to the basics: selecting a researchable topic, literature reviews and designing a study--including both quantitative and qualitatiive and methods. The authors also include tips for overcoming barriers to paper completion. As MU researchers and mentors, the Heppners now publicly share their extensive knowledge through their book.

Rudestam, K., & Newton, R. (2001). Surviving Your Dissertation: A comprehensive guide to content and process. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Covers the broad spectrum of how to write a dissertation, from selecting the topic and methods to collecting data and writing up conclusions. What really sets this book apart is the emphasis on writing style. Authorship and voice are an important component of this book, which provides students with tips on putting together a final draft that is readable. Found in MU's Ellis Library at LB2369.R83 2001.

Glatthorn, A. (2002).Publish or Perish: The educator's imperative: Strategies for writing effectively for your profession and your school. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Research professor Allan Glatthorn provides detailed information about academic writing. He gives a detailed account of what professional writing entails (and why it is important to publish), as well as how to gather sources and build arguments. He also discusses the differences between writing for research journals and books. Found in MU's Ellis Library at PN146.G59 2002.

Walliman, N., & Baiche, B. (2001). Your Research Project: A step-by-step guide for the first time researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Walliman and Baiche cover the basics of academic research writing. Of particular interest to new graduate students are the chapters on building and supporting arguments and the chapters on how to build a research schedule.

Articles

"Writing and Presenting Your Thesis or Dissertation" by Joseph Levine, PhD

Covers topics such as how to select a committee, writing strategies and presentation of the final product. Throughout the site there are several links to other Web sites that focus on thesis and dissertation writing.

"How to Organize Your Thesis" by John Chinneck, PhD

A discussion of what graduate research is all about, as well as definitions for each section of the thesis. There are also tips on how to complete each of the thesis sections and why they are essential to the success of your overall presentation.

"Effective Academic Writing: The Argument" by the Writing Center at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Provides the basic principle behind building an argument — something that is essential for academic writing. The Web site explains how it is necessary to make a claim, support the claim with evidence and interpret your evidence so it truly supports the claim.

"Oral Presentation Advice" by Mark Hill

Explains the differences between written and oral communication and how those differences impact the way in which you approach an audience and the information you want to convey. Hill also provides an outline of a generic conference talk as an example. As a bonus, there are also tips on how to give a bad talk or presentation.