Workshop Information

The Following Workshops are offered at the Writing Center
All Workshops are 50 minutes unless otherwise stated

WORKSHOPS FOR STUDY SKILLS

Reading and Note-taking: Learn techniques for effective and efficient reading. This will help you better understand your textbooks and will improve your researching skills.

Personal time Assessment and Management: How much time do you really have?  How can you maximize that?  This workshop helps you determine how much time you have and gives you strategies for making the most of that time. This workshop is 30 minutes.

Learning Styles and Strengths:  Discover what type of learner you are (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) and learn how to use your unique strengths to your best advantage in college. This workshop is 30 minutes.

WORKSHOPS For WRITING ESSAYS

Breaking Writer's Block: Learn pre-writing methods and overcome your fear of the blinking cursor. Learning Outcome: Knowledge of several methods for starting a paper and greater understanding of the methods for pre-writing that best suit the individual student.

Creating a Workable Topic:  Generate a workable topic and thesis.  A great session for starting on an argument and persuasion essay or a research paper. Learning Outcome: Ability to generate a well thought out topic and to form a clear thesis.

Essay Structure: Learn simple ways to create an organized and unified paper. Learning Outcome: Ability to take an idea and break it into parts that follow a clear structure in an essay.

Thesis Statement: This workshops gives students a chance to focus on the art of writing a thesis statement.  Learning Outcome: Awareness of the elements of a thesis, ability to match a thesis to the purpose of a paper, and greater confidence in generating multiple thesis statements.

Developing Body Paragraphs: Practice methods for paragraph development that use support and description to expand and/or clarify your writing.  Learning Outcome:  Ability to write a paragraph that is unified and developed through support, explanation, description, analysis, definition, or comparison as needed.

Write now: group writing session:  Procrastinators wanted!  Come in and get started on your writing assignment. Learning Outcome:  Expanded confidence in writing and awareness of the flexibility of ideas and words.

Descriptive Writing:  This workshops gives students a chance to practice and develop descriptive writng skills.  This skill has applications for improving the clarity and quality of research writing, documentation of scientific labs, documentation of clinical work, journalism,,and creative writing (fiction, poetry).  Learning Outcome: Development in the individual student's ability to clearly describe what she/he see, hears, smells, tastes, feels or experiences (i.e. what she/he observes) in the world.

WORKSHOPS FOR RESEARCH PAPERS and CITATION FORMATS

Research structure: Learn the forms of research structure and the ways each can help you create a frame on which a paper can be built.

What does a Good Research Paper look like? Join a reading and discussion of sample research papers. We will examine good and not-so-good papers for their use of structure, content, and citations.

Finding and Using Valid Sources:Learn how to use library resources and the Internet to find valid, relevant, and reliable sources.

Incorporating Evidence and Analysis:  Improve your writing by developing your writing with evidence and analysis. This workshop also teaches a simple five step process for showing logical reasoning and unity.

MLA (Modern Language Association) Citation Format:  Research papers for English courses and many other courses in the humanities require that you acknowledge your source.  If you based any idea in your paper on a source-a book, an article, a interview, a lecture, a song, a commercial, etc-you must note that source. This acknowledgment must be done using a citation format known as MLA format.  We offer two workshops for the format:

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  • MLA Works Cited Page
  • MLA in-text citations

On-line Workshop for MLA citation: Both the Works Cited page and in-text will be covered in this online session.  Register in COL MO5 (for free under "College") to attend on-line, or go to

http://67.202.209.161/launcher.cgi?room=_moorpark_s_256013001_525486

APA (American Psychological Association) Citation Format:  APA format is used for the fields of psychology, medicine, business, and education.  Workshops for this format separately will cover three components: 

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  • APA Document Format
  • APA References List
  • APA In-Text Citations

On-line Workshop for APA citation: Both the References page and in-text citation will be covered in this online session.  Register in COL MO5 (for free under "College") to attend on-line, or go to

http://67.202.209.161/launcher.cgi?room=_moorpark_s_256013001_525486

WORKSHOPS TO IMPROVE YOUR REVISION AND EDITING 

Avoiding the Top Five Grammar Errors:  This workshop will provide understanding of the most common grammar errors, and it will provide an opportunity for students to practice identifying and correcting these errors in their own writing. Learning Outcome: Ability to recognize and correct in one's own writing the following: Run-on sentences, comma splices, sentence fragments, unnecessary passive voice, pronoun errors.

Punctuation Review—Commas:  Knowing where to use a comma not only can help a writer clarify his/her intent, but also can help a writer avoid errors such as run-on sentences, mixed sentences, and comma splices. Learning Outcome: Ability to use commas appropriately.

Punctuation Review—Semi Colon, Colon, and Dash:  This commonly confused marks of punctuation lend style and tone to writing; additionally, when used well, they can help writers avoid comma grammatical errors. Learning Outcome: Ability to use semi colon, colon and dash appropriately.

Collaborative Editing: Learn editing techniques, and join others in a hunt for your personal grammar errors. Bring a rough draft of your current work.  Learning Outcome: Awareness of strategies for editing and revising.