Psychology

This document will discuss the importance and meaning of scholarly communication. After you have reviewed it, you will use it to answer a discussion question and discuss others’ answers to demonstrate your understanding. The objectives of this learning activity are:

· To identify the resources available to improve your academic writing.

· To explain the importance of scholarly communication in academic and professional settings.

Integration of Writing Resources in Scholarly Communication

You will note that resources for writing are provided as part of Capella's Writing Across the Curriculum Initiative. At this point in your program coursework, you have completed learning activities that helped you think about your writing. . In this unit, you will deepen that thinking and improve those skills, including learning more about the Capella Online Writing Center.

Academic writing is a rigorous genre. Academic writers are presenting ideas supported by evidence. Such a writing goal leaves little room for error or opinion. Academic writers focus on:

· Presenting ideas.

· Supporting those ideas with evidence.

· Interpreting those ideas in the context of the study or project being discussed.

While the format seems simple, it takes a well-developed writing process to present new ideas and research in such a compact and concise package.

At Capella, we believe that the hard work involved in conducting new research deserves clear writing, so we have developed an 11-step academic writing process for writers using the American Psychological Association (APA) writing style. Our process, a combination of resources from the Capella University Online Writing Center and the Capella University Library, is not fancy. Our process is meant to give academic writers a concise process that can be tailored to individual needs.

The Writing Feedback Tool

The Writing Feedback Tool defines our 11-step writing process and puts you in direct contact with the tools for each of those steps. Notice that the 11-step writing process begins with:

· Reading the assignment.

· Reading the resources you will use for research.

The first seven categories (or criteria) in the tool address what we call the big-picture items—the global issues involved in:

· Mining your research.

· Drafting or outlining your paper.

· Developing the information into a well-organized, well-evidenced format.

The last four categories in the tool address what we call the close-up items—the local issues involved in perfecting:

· APA citation.

· Grammar.

· Punctuation.

We encourage you to work from global to local in your writing as you navigate and learn from the tool. For example, why fix the period and comma issues (criterion 11) in a section that you may move around, delete, or revise (criteria 4 and 5).

We have used this tool over time and rely also on research in the field of academic writing; evidence indicates over and over again that going from global to local in revisions saves time—no matter the writing task. It takes time to define your personal writing process. As you begin to work with these tools, remember that developing a skill requires practice. Also remember that even the strongest writers can grow and improve.

Notice that the Writing Feedback Tool offers these feedback categories:

· Needs Work.

· Satisfactory.

· Exceptional.

These categories were initially included for our faculty to provide focused feedback on learners’ writing. As the tool continued to evolve, our learners utilized the tool to offer focused peer review on writing. We encourage everyone to follow this lead. Learn the tool and put it to work for your individual writing process. Then, use the tool to give peer reviews of your peers’ writing across the academy.

Skill development requires:

· Identifying what you do well.

· Then focusing on what needs improvement.