Academic Writing
These writing-skill resources are being made available for students to use in any manner most effective for you. Please contact the Academic Success Center to meet with an Academic Consultant if you we can help you develop your writing ability!
Writing and Media Help Center: Get individual help and specific resources from the Iowa State University Writing and Media Help Center!
How to Start a Paper: This handout describes one possible method for organizing your thoughts and resources prior to writing an academic paper.
Three Steps to Better Writing: This handout provides general tips for improving your writing.
Writing a Term Paper: For courses with major writing assignments, this handout will help you organize your materials and prepare you for writing. Don't wait! Term papers are much easier to write if you start early! (Based on "Learning Success" by Wahlstrom and Williams)
How to Paraphrase Properly: All references should be citied, and many students' quote another person's words incorrectly. Use these tips to corectly paraphase information provided by the original author. (Source: Turnitin.com)
What is Plagiarism? Humorous videos from Rutgers University about plagiarism. (Source: Rutgers University)
Academic Misconduct: View our institutional policies on academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism. (Source: Iowa State University Judicial Affairs)
BibMe: This is an online resource for creating and formatting bibliographies in APA, MLA, or Chicago. It does not eliminate the work, but this free online resource will help you manage all your references and likely help you increase accuracy.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets: What we like most is that since documents are saved online, Good documents are geat for groups because you can share documents with many people, all the while editing the same file. Also great for individuals as a way to back-up your documents and/or access them anywhere.
OpenOffice.org Programs: OpenOffice.org is a source for free office software, including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. This software can also read/write files from other programs.
