Workshops and Presentations for Students
Fall 2017 Presentations and Workshops
As of now, our presentation and workshop offerings for fall 2017 are as follows. Please check back frequently for updates.
Working with Sources: Avoiding Plagiarism and Working Effectively with the Texts of Others (presentation)
Being able to present the ideas, language, or data of another writer in both an effective and ethical manner requires specialized knowledge and a great deal of work. Standards and practices for attribution vary meaningfully by discipline, and they also often depend upon genre and audience. How can students feel confident they are not misappropriating ideas or language? What resources exist at Caltech to help students do this work?
This presentation helps students understand not only the common practices of academic attribution of ideas, but also the values that make correct attribution so important to the scholarly community. Students will leave the presentation with a broad understanding of the many kinds and causes of plagiarism, along with an awareness of the work required to prevent it in their own college writing.
Dates and times:
TBA. Check back on 9/25 for details.
If you are required to attend this presentation and have classes during all scheduled presentation times, please email us at writing@caltech.edu so we can accommodate you.
Location: Hixon Writing Center
An advance reservation made by October 6th is required to attend this workshop. Ready to sign up? Sign-ups occur in the Writing Center Scheduler via access.caltech.edu. Please consult these instructions for detailed instructions about how to make your reservation.
Graduate School Application Essay Workshop
Writing an excellent statement of purpose for graduate school admissions is difficult. It calls upon writers to use narrative and voice in ways that have little in common with the writing college students typically do. It asks you to showcase your own intelligence and merit, which is a stance that is uncomfortable for many students. The stakes are high, which makes the writing process stressful. In response to this challenge, many writers make similar mistakes, including waiting far too long to start writing, not seeking enough feedback on drafts, and relying upon inappropriate rhetorical strategies.
In recognition of the challenges of producing your statement of purpose, the Hixon Writing Center is running a number of small group workshops led by our writing specialists (professional tutors). Participants will be grouped with 2-4 other writers, and you will work together to improve your working drafts. Together we will discuss common challenges of the statement of purpose and ways to negotiate them successfully.
We recognize that the nature of graduate admissions is that you may be competing against your classmates for admission, so groups will not contain individuals applying within the same disciplines.
Before attending one of our group workshops, we strongly encourage you to attend one of the Statement of Purpose presentations offered in the Career Development Center. This presentation help you understand key features of the genre and create a draft. Our workshops will help you improve an existing draft.
Interested? Great! Fill out this survey before Monday, October 23rd, and we will get back to you with information about a group you can join.
Questions or feedback? Email us.
