Most Common Student Writing Mistakes and How to Fix Them

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Written communication skills are so important for students to learn. As a social work instructor for nearly 10 years, I often gave students feedback and guidance to improve their writing. The following list contains the most common writing mistakes I encountered and suggestions for how to fix them. This list is geared toward social science writing and use of APA Style.

Most Common APA Style Errors

Properly Using the Work of Others

Grammar

Writing Research and Other Scientific Papers

What is missing? What would you add to this list?

For additional back to school tips for social workers, check out my eBook: Back to School Guide for Social Work Students.

Wishing all the new and returning students (myself included!) much success in the coming year!

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Digital Tools for Engaging Writing Assignments #swtech

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I created the following Sway presentation for both the Teaching & Technology Center as a Teaching & Technology Faculty Advisor and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), a  “faculty development program that holds workshops, hosts guest speakers, runs retreats, awards grants, provides faculty time and space for their own scholarly writing, and supports faculty in their endeavors to improve student writing” at Bridgewater State University. The presentation contains a broad overview of digital tools for engaging writing assignments presented during a series of workshops. It includes many resources and videos with more information that could not be covered adequately during the workshops.

inSocialWork Podcast #210 – Karen Zgoda, Rachel L. West, and Patricia Shelly: Promoting Macro Social Work Through Social Media/Twitter Chats #MacroSW

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Podcast macroSWchat_204UBSSW.jpg

Listen to the podcast here: Episode 210 – Karen Zgoda, Rachel L. West, and Patricia Shelly: Promoting Macro Social Work Through Social Media/Twitter Chats

In this episode, our guests Karen Zgoda, Rachel L. West, and Patricia Shelly describe how they are using macro social work Twitter chats to promote support for and education about all forms of macro practice activities. They discuss what Twitter chats are, why they matter, and why social workers are producing and participating in them.

Karen Zgoda, LCSW, is an instructor in the School of Social Work at Bridgewater State University. She starting hosting online social work chats in 2000 and is currently a collaborator and chat host for the #MacroSW Twitter chats, focused on macro social work practice. Karen previously wrote the SW 2.0 technology column for The New Social Worker Magazine and served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member and project coordinator at CTCNet working on digital divide issues. Her research and pedagogical interests include technology in social work and education, macro social work, social policy, and research methods. You can find Ms. Zgoda on Twitter as @karenzgoda.

Rachel West, LMSW, is social media manager for the Association for Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA), where she became one of the founders of the #MacroSW Twitter chats. In 2012, she founded The Political Social Worker, a blog dedicated to community practice social work and politics. Providing consultation to nonprofits and private practices since 2013, Ms. West’s consultation focuses on a number of issues related to advocacy and community outreach, including the use of social media as a community organizing tool. Ms. West also works privately as a career coach, coaching and training macro social workers. Additionally, she is an instructor at Stony Brook University, School of Social Welfare, teaching advanced macro social work practice. You can find Ms. West on Twitter as @poliSW.

Patricia Shelly, MSW, is director of community engagement and expansion at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. She has served as a member of the LGBT Domestic Violence Committee of Western New York for 12 years and the Women in Black Buffalo movement for 15 years. Previously, Ms. Shelly was the associate director for the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender at the University at Buffalo. She is the editor of SocialWorkSynergy, the blog of the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. She is a chat partner for the #MacroSW Twitter chats and often serves as a chat host. You can find Ms. Shelly on Twitter as @PatShellySSW.

Direct podcast link here.

APA (6th ed) citation for this podcast:

Episode 210 – Karen Zgoda, Rachel L. West, and Patricia Shelly: Promoting Macro Social Work Through Social Media/Twitter Chats. (2017, February 27). inSocialWork® Podcast Series. [Audio Podcast] Retrieved from http://www.insocialwork.org/episode.asp?ep=210

Active Learning Strategies in Data Analysis to Reduce Student Anxiety #SEQuEL2017

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Here is the Sway presentation I created for the SEQuEL2017 conference sponsored by Quantity Across the Curriculum (QuAC) at Bridgewater State University. I am serving on QuAC this year and learned so much at today’s event! For more information about QuAC and for regular updates, please reach out to colleague Matt Salomone.

An All-Too-Human Grind: A Review of the Film Grinder

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Filmmaker Brandon Ruckdashel has deftly answered the call for #HollywoodMustDoBetter with his film Grinder. I’m certain that it had been included in GLAAD’s Studio Responsibility Index (2016), it would have received a good rating for avoiding many common stereotypes of films dealing with LGBT issues.

It’s too easy for an impressionable teenager searching for affirmation and love to be groomed and manipulated, especially by an abusive, power-driven predator who promises to make dreams of success, love, and admiration come true. We meet 16 year old Luke grappling with his journey of self-discovery, his abusive home environment, and flirting online with Rich. With 50% of gay and lesbian youth reporting they are rejected by their parents for their sexual orientation, it is no surprise that after his father’s homophobia violently erupts, Luke runs away to the city towards Rich and the promise of acceptance and opportunity. He joins the “gays and lesbians [that] make up about 40 percent of all homeless youth.” To watch his innocence methodically taken from him in a myriad of ways is unsettling, and yet, that his story happens daily to many young people in his situation is truly heartbreaking.

When Luke comes to the city, he meets a photographer named Tim employed by Rich. Tim’s identity and sexual orientation struggles are exemplified by his literal running to escape who he is and what he wants:

Model: “What are we looking for?”

Tim: “Something that adds texture…without taking away from the focus.”

Model smokes cigarette. “I’m trying to quit.”

Tim: “I’m trying to take care of myself.”

He photographs Rich’s men for a profitable living. When behind his camera, Tim is at his most comfortable and emotionally intimate with his male subjects, albeit at a distance. Physical intimacy only happens not with his female fiancé, who is always absent, but with his male partners after self-hating and drinking. Tim develops a fascination with Luke, and not unlike many of us feeling the weight of our choices over many years, possibly sees a younger version of himself with all the hope and simplicity in life he still wished he had. Tim fights to give Luke the opportunity and freedom he so desperately wishes for.

The real Grinder here is not the app. Rather, it is overcoming the male meat grinder stuffed with toxic masculinity, homophobia, self-loathing, hatred, identity, power, striving, and finding one’s place in the world. To become successful, how far will you go, and what will it do to you along the way? What are the paths for young men like Luke to grow up with love and support to become the man he wants to be? Or the paths for men like Tim to escape toxic masculinity and embrace his own multifaceted place in the world? How can we help more men find them, and demonstrate support? Unfortunately these men are stuck in the grinder. However, daybreak, and the possibility of new beginnings, await.

Additional Resources:

SEQuEL 2017 Conference Proposals & Registration #SEQUEL2017

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Quantity Across the Curriculum is a faculty-driven program for quantitative reasoning at Bridgewater State University. QuAC's mission is to increase student and faculty engagement and success with numbers in all disciplines of higher education.

Quantity Across the Curriculum is a faculty-driven program for quantitative reasoning at Bridgewater State University. QuAC’s mission is to increase student and faculty engagement and success with numbers in all disciplines of higher education.

Southeastern Massachusetts Quantitative Engagement and Literacy is an annual meeting of higher education faculty and staff around teaching, learning, and student success with quantitative literacy across the curriculum. Faculty and staff from the region are invited to attend, present, and share.

Thursday, January 12, 2017,
8:30am – 2:30pm, at

Bridgewater State University
Burnell Hall 132
100 Burrill Avenue
Bridgewater, Massachusetts

Math anxiety and avoidance not only interfere with students’ test-taking success; they can also keep students from engaging with quantitative content elsewhere in their coursework and career. SEQuEL 2017 invites proposals and sharing around how to understand and mitigate our students’ (and our own!) anxieties around numbers, and locating and building instead on quantitative strengths in the college classroom.

To register for SeQUEL 2017, click here.

Call for Proposals

We invite proposals for presentations, workshops, and round tables.

Proposals will be reviewed by conference organizers, and this call will close October 31, 2016. Presenters will be notified on November 18th.

To submit a proposal, click here.

Source: SEQuEL 2017

inSocialWork Podcast #199 – Karen Zgoda, Dr. Melanie Sage, Dr. Jonathan Singer, and Dr. Lauri Goldkind: Technology-Mediated Assignments for Real World Learning

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kzgoda_msage_jsinger_lgoldkindThis podcast contains follow-up conversation from our CSWE 2015 #swtech session!

Listen to the podcast here: inSocialWork Podcast #199 – Karen Zgoda, Dr. Melanie Sage, Dr. Jonathan Singer, and Dr. Lauri Goldkind: Technology-Mediated Assignments for Real World Learning

Have you considered incorporating technology or social media into your courses? If you have, then you are not alone. However, it can be daunting, given that there seems to be an increasing push to use these digital tools but not much direction as to how to do it. In this podcast, four social work educators talk about how they have used digital tools in their teaching. Professors Karen Zgoda, Melanie Sage, Jonathan Singer, and Lauri Goldkind offer examples from their work as they share thoughts about, and experiences with, integrating technology-mediated assignments into their coursework.

Karen Zgoda is an instructor in the School of Social Work at Bridgewater State University. She starting hosting online social work chats in 2000 and is currently a collaborator and chat host for the #MacroSW Twitter chats focused on macro social work practice. Karen previously wrote the SW 2.0 technology column for The New Social Worker Magazine and served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member and project coordinator at CTCNet working on digital divide issues. Her research and pedagogical interests include technology in social work and education, macro social work, social policy, and research methods.

Melanie Sage, PhD, is an assistant professor and BSSW program director at University of North Dakota, where she conducts research in areas of both child welfare and technology. She has trained over 1,000 social workers in the ethical use of social media and is especially interested in how technology is used in child welfare practice and in social work classrooms. She teaches coursework in direct practice with individuals and families, children’s mental health, and motivational interviewing. Dr. Sage holds a PhD in social work and research from Portland State University and an MSW from East Carolina University and spent most of her pre-academic social work career in child welfare and mental health settings. Currently, she’s working with colleagues, Dr. Laurel Hitchcock and Dr. Nancy Smyth, on a book titled “Teaching Social Work with Digital Technology.” You can join her for conversation and virtual coffee on Twitter: @melaniesage.

Jonathan B. Singer, PhD, LCSW, is an associate professor of social work at Loyola University Chicago and founder and host of the Social Work Podcast. His practice, teaching, and scholarship focuses on suicide intervention, cyberbullying, family-based interventions, community services, school social work, technology, and podcasts. Dr. Singer is the author of 45 publications, including the 2015 book “Suicide in Schools: A practitioner’s guide to multilevel prevention, assessment, intervention, and postvention.” He has given over 100 academic and continuing education presentations nationally for the U.S. Military, community mental health agencies, school districts, and clinical social work organizations. He can be found on Twitter as @socworkpodcast.

Lauri Goldkind, PhD, teaches at Fordham across the foundation and advanced year curricula as well as in the masters of nonprofit administration program. She holds an MSW from SUNY Stony Brook with a concentration in planning, administration, and research and a PhD from the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University. Her practice experience was focused in the in youth development, education, and juvenile justice realms. Prior to joining the faculty at Fordham, she served as Director of New School Development and Director of Evaluation at the Urban Assembly (UA), a network of specialized public schools located in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan. At UA she supported principals through the new school process, helping them earn start-up grants valued at over $500,000 per school; additionally, she provided technical assistance to principals and school-based staff on data-driven decision making, development and maintenance of data management structures and the effective use of data to improve student achievement.

Direct podcast link here.

 

APA (6th ed) citation for this podcast:

Episode 199 – Karen Zgoda, Dr. Melanie Sage, Dr. Jonathan Singer, and Dr. Lauri Goldkind: Technology-Mediated Assignments for Real World Learning. (2016, September 12). inSocialWork® Podcast Series. [Audio Podcast] Retrieved from http://www.insocialwork.org/episode.asp?ep=199