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Purdue OWL News for June 29, 2004
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The Purdue OWL Staff
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Jun 29, 2004 13:04 PDT
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The Purdue OWL News
June 29, 2004
Welcome to the Purdue OWL News!
The Purdue OWL News is an online newsletter about happenings in the
Purdue University Writing Lab and the Purdue University Online Writing
Lab (OWL). You can visit our website at
<http://owl.english.purdue.edu>. To subscribe to the newsletter, visit
<http://www.topica.com/lists/purdueowlnews/subscribe/>. To unsubscribe
from the newsletter, click on the link at the bottom of this email.
**During the Summer Session at Purdue (through August), we'll be sending
out the OWL News every two weeks.
Writing Question of the Week
Hello OWL: Soon I will need to write a literature review for research
methods and statistics course and I have never written one before. I
have checked Google and obtained a few outlines but curious of what you
think the best way to complete the assignment. The reader is advised not
to begin each paragraph with the name of the researcher. What are some
examples of how to start new paragraphs?
Answer
It's difficult not to begin the sentence with the name of the researcher
when the researcher is the subject of the sentence. You can add
introductory elements to vary the style, just as you would in any other
type of writing, and you can also simply use the author's name in
parentheses.
For example:
Jones (1988) claimed that research should be conducted with a sample of
subjects that is large enough that generalizations can be made. However,
as Frederick (1992) noted, large sample sizes are difficult to obtain in
certain types of studies. It is possible to replicate studies with
smaller sample sizes to generalize the cumulative results (Markeson,
1995).
My best advice is to pay attention to the way the lit review sections
are written as you are reading the articles that you are going to
review. You can try to adopt the writing style that you see.--Gigi
Taylor, Purdue Writing Lab Tutor
The OWL Help Nest
Each week we'll publish a request for advice or information. If you wish
to contribute a response to the topic, please write to us at
owln-@owl.english.purdue.edu. Please let us know if you want us to
include your name and/or your email address when we publish your
response. The following week, we'll publish the best information and
advice that we receive in the newsletter. If you have a question for our
readers, please send it to us at owln-@owl.english.purdue.edu.
Last Week's Question
I keep hearing that it is no longer necessary to have two spaces after a
sentence-ending period. I was repeatedly taught in elementary school
that two spaces are required, so single spaces look incorrect to me. Of
course, when people put one space after one sentence and two spaces
after the next, that's clearly wrong; beyond simple misuse, though, is
there truly a stylistic preference? Two spaces just look better to me:
they more clearly define the structure of a paragraph, and often
eliminate confusion when a sentence ends with something like "etc.".
Answer:
I am a computer technology teacher, and I constantly have to defend the
"one space after marks of punctuation" convention. I researched it
thoroughly, and the two-space rule was followed by teachers who taught
typing on a manual typewriter, where the size of the keystroke was
always uniform. Hence, the two spaces made reading the sentences a
little easier. With word processing, however, the letters are not
uniform in size, and one space after the period or other mark of
punctuation is perfectly adequate. One of the articles on this topic was
written by a typesetter who vowed that never in the history of
typesetting were there ever two spacers put after a period. Even
Microsoft Word will prompt an error if you put two spaces after a
period. This feature can be turned off, but the fact that it exists
attests to the one-space rule.--Carolyn Stanley, Connecticut
Next Week's Questions
What's Happening on OWL
OWL Eye on...Job Changes
Former OWL coordinator Karl Stolley is now the Purdue OWL webmaster, and
Chris Berry has joined up to fill Karl's old position. Karl and Chris
wish to say Thanks! to Erin Karper for her years of service to the OWL.
Erin has completed her PhD and accepted a job in the Northeast.
OWL Eye on...What Are Your OWL Dreams?
This summer marks the beginning of work to transform Purdue's OWL from a
massive collection of HTML pages into a streamlined database that will
deliver content dynamically to the Web. As we make plans for this
transition, we'd like to hear from you as to what you'd like to see on
Purdue OWL in the future. Please email Karl Stolley, OWL
Coordinator/soon-to-be OWL Webmaster at ka-@owl.english.purdue.edu with
your wildest dreams and suggestions.
What's Happening in the Writing Lab
OWL Eye on...Summer Schedule
The Writing Lab will continue to offer services for students and
teachers in Summer Session courses. One-on-one tutorials, in-lab and
in-class workshops, lab tours, conversation groups, and Writing Lab
resources will all be available every weekday from June 14 through
August 6, except for July 5.
Summer Session 2004 Writing Lab Hours:
Tutoring Hours: M-Th 9-4; F 9-1
ESL Conversation Groups: M & Tu 3-4; W & Th 11-12.
OWL Eye on....Summer Session In-Lab Workshops
Tues. July 6: APA
Tues. July 13: PowerPoint
Tues. July 20: Writing for an American Academic Audience
Tues. July 27: Sentence Clarity & Combining
Tues. August 3: MLA
Final Thoughts
Thanks for reading our newsletter. You can email us at any time at
owln-@owl.english.purdue.edu. You can also email the OWL coordinator,
Chris Berry, at coordi-@owl.english.purdue.edu and the webmaster,
Karl Stolley, at webma-@owl.english.purdue.edu. (Chris and Karl take
turns writing the newsletter.)
If you received this newsletter as a forward and would like to get your
own subscription, visit
http://www.topica.com/lists/purdueowlnews/subscribe/ to subscribe.
This newsletter is copyright (C) 2004 the Purdue University Writing Lab
and Purdue University. Purdue's OWL is located at
http://owl.english.purdue.edu.
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