I Only Have 5/20/60 Minutes! Which Writing Center Resources are Right for Me? -->

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I Only Have 5/20/60 Minutes! Which Writing Center Resources are Right for Me?

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Have you ever told yourself that you'd practice your writing if you just had a little bit more time? Today's post makes that excuse irrelevant. The Walden University Writing Center has on-demand resources that can be useful in any time-increments. Read on to learn how to continue improving your academic writing in manageable periods each day. 
Title Image for this post. A smart watch being consulted.


One of the biggest complaints I hear from students is “I don’t have time for that.” There’s no way to sugarcoat the situation: Time is your natural enemy. In any given 24 hours, you may be working your professional job, engaging in Walden coursework, preparing a meal, exercising, commuting, managing parental duties, and getting a few hours of sleep. It’s hard to think of adding more to that list of activities.

But in order to succeed at Walden, you will need to carve out some time for skill development above and beyond your classroom requirements. Writing proficiency is something that will serve you in your program by way of confidence, clear communication, and swift achievement of milestones. It is also something that you take with you after completing your degree, with the potential to impact your career as a scholar-practitioner. 

So the question is: How can you hone your writing skills without losing the precious work-life-school balance you have achieved? Two years ago, in a WriteCast podcast episode, my colleagues Nik and Brittany introduced Writing Center resources and tips appropriate for short nuggets of time. In this blog post, I update their list of resources with a few of my own. So the next time you’re about to forgo writing because you feel like you don’t have the time, hopefully this can be you instead:

“I want to utilize the Writing Center’s resources to practice my scholarly writing, but shoot! I only have…”

5 minutes:

Read a Writing Center blog post, skim a web page, or view a video. Have you identified one writing issue you’d like to work on? It’s a great idea to have goals for each quarter or semester. Once you have chosen your writing goal for this term, you can learn about it in short 5-minute bursts. Use the website’s Search button in the upper right to find appropriate blog posts, web pages, and videos—and then bookmark and work through them one at a time. Perfect for: waiting for the water to boil on the stove.

Freewrite or journal. It might seem silly, but getting in the habit of writing will make your “for real” academic writing better. Keep a journal nearby where you can freewrite for 5 minutes about the weekly course topic, your research process, or even about your day. Perfect for: sitting in the parking lot waiting for kids to finish sports practice or school.

20 minutes:

Listen to an episode of our WriteCast podcast, a casual conversation for serious writers. The audio podcast tackles such subjects as the writing process, the perfect paragraph, writer’s block, and word choice. Downloadable to your device of choice. Perfect for: commuting to work or exercising.

60 minutes:

Watch a recorded webinar. The Writing Center presents three to four live webinars per month, and all of these get archived on the website. Start with What Is Academic Writing? and then work through the webinars in the Scholarly Writing category for an overview of key writing concerns. Each recording is roughly 1 hour. Perfect for: viewing while munching on your lunch break.

Take a grammar or APA module and then apply what you learned. Feeling interactive? The Writing Center offers modules on APA style and on grammar issues such as verbs and sentence structure. These are 30-45 minutes in length and include quizzes, videos, and text-based instruction to support your learning. After taking one of these modules, reread a past discussion post or paper and analyze what you would do to improve it, based on your new knowledge. Jot down a few tips to apply to a future assignment. Perfect for: taking a breather from a strenuous assignment; staying writing-minded during the weeklong hiatus between quarters.


Now do you see how writing skill development can fit into your life? Yes, you do have time for that—even if it’s just 5 minutes a day. 





Hillary Wentworth has been mentoring Walden writers since 2010—first in the Writing Center and now in the Academic Skills Center. In addition to teaching, she serves as the Academic Skills Center’s Manager of WCSS Faculty Development and Graduate Writing Courses to ensure quality instruction. Hillary edits an online literary journal and writes her own nonfiction from her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota.



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