OWRC Handouts

Quick help on citing sources and tools for storing and organizing sources.

Use this helpful guide to help you determine how to best allot your time when writing a course paper.

A strong body paragraph explains, proves, and/or supports your paper’s argumentative claim or thesis statement. If you’re not sure how to craft one, try using this handy guide.

A claim persuades, argues, convinces, proves, or provocatively suggests something to a reader who may or may not initially agree with you. Learn more about making claims in your writing.

People read differently for different purposes. When you read in order to cram for a quiz, you might scan only the first line of every paragraph of a text. When you read for pleasure, you might permit yourself to linger for a long while over a particular phrase or image that you find appealing. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that when you read in order to write a paper, you must adopt certain strategies if you expect your efforts to be fruitful and efficient.

Making sense out of your observations about a text is a difficult task. Even once you’ve figured out what it is that you want to say, you are left with the problem of how to say it. With which idea should you begin? Should you address the opinions of other thinkers? As to that stubborn contradiction you’ve uncovered in your own thinking: what do you do with that?

Most of us who compose on a computer understand revision as an ongoing, even constant process. Every time you hit the delete button, every time you cut and paste, every time you take out a comma or exchange one word for another, you’re revising.

Good reading makes good writing, time management, importance of spelling, reading your writing aloud and more.

Preparing to Write: To write a good summary it is important to thoroughly understand the material you are working with. Here are some preliminary steps in writing a summary.

No sentence in your paper will vex you as much as the thesis sentence. And with good reason: the thesis sentence is typically that ONE sentence in the paper that asserts, controls, and structures the entire argument. Without a strong persuasive, thoughtful thesis, a paper might seem unfocused, weak, and not worth the reader’s time.

Find strategies and resources to help you find a workflow and setup that works for your writing style.