How to Use this Page
Below are resources that University Writing has developed to support students and instructors across the disciplines in their writing and writing instruction. We define writing broadly, so you will find resources on ePortfolios, visual design, professional communication, and presentations in addition to traditional writing tasks like reflective writing, literature reviews, peer review, and editing and proofing.
Please use the keywords on the right-hand side of the page or the search bar above to navigate these resources. If you would like to use these resources in your course, please follow the Creative Commons information located at the bottom of each resource. If you plan to use the source in its original format, we ask that you leave the University Writing branding intact.
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In order to effectively share our research findings with others, we must be able to deliver presentations clearly and impactfully. These resources include tips about oral and visual communication as well as visual design principles that will help engage and inform your audience.
Materials designed by Colby Axelberd, Christopher Basgier, Katharine H. Brown, Amy Cicchino, Carly Cummings, Megan Haskins, Layli Miron, Annie Small, Heather Stuart, and Parker Wade
This brief handout outlines elements of oral communication
Once you have a draft of your oral presentation, this peer review worksheet can help you self-assess or get feedback
This handout will help you decide the best way to visually represent your data
This handout introduces you to four principles for visual design: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity
This worksheet is meant to help you put together a presentation. It has been designed for students in aerospace engineering
Designing Presentations in Aerospace Engineering Worksheet Word Document
Designing Presentations in Aerospace Engineering Worksheet PDF
This handout will introduce you to scientific posters and analyze example posters
This worksheet will help you self-assess a draft of your scientific poster or gather feedback from a peer
This worksheet is designed to help you articulate how you “see” visible materials and what you expect students to do with visible materials in your courses
This document outlines ways of managing nonverbal mechanics, including the upper and lower body, with attention to accessibility for speakers with disabilities
Whether they’re high stakes or low stakes, writing assignments are more effective when faculty articulate clear expectations, explain necessary steps, detail the rhetorical situation (i.e., audience, purpose, and genre), and name criteria for evaluation. Such assignments set students up for success by leaving the guesswork out of assignment basics so they can focus on more substantive matters such as analysis, evidence, and working with sources. Use the resources below to design writing assignments with these features in mind. After you’ve designed your writing assignment, check out our section on scaffolding assignments and writing-to-learn assignments
Materials designed by Christopher Basgier, Amy Cicchino, and Amber Simpson
Faculty who want to integrate writing into their courses can use high stakes assignments, low stakes assignments, or some combination of each. This handout defines each kind of writing and explains how you might integrate it into your course
This handout introduces you to effective writing assignment design using principles from transparent assignment design and The Meaningful Writing Project
Once you have a draft of your assignment sheet, you can use this self-assessment worksheet to reflect on how well your assignment is achieving the principles in the handout above
Once you have a draft of your assignment sheet, you can work with a colleague in your department or institution and use this peer assignment worksheet to get feedback on how well your assignment is achieving the principles in the handout above
Refresh your writing assignment by asking students to address a new audience, purpose, genre, or medium of communication as they explain their knowledge of content. This handout will explain what it means to create a new rhetorical situation for your assignment
Revising Assignments for New Rhetorical Situations Handout Word Document
Revising Assignments for New Rhetorical Situations Handout PDF
This worksheet will help you compare the existing and redesigned assignment across elements of the rhetorical situation, like audience, purpose, genre, language, organization, and content. While not every rhetorical element needs to change in your redesign process, you should reflect on how changes need to influence scaffolding activities and evaluation criteria
Revising Assignments for New Rhetorical Situation Worksheet Word Document
Revising Assignments for New Rhetorical Situation Worksheet PDF
This handout will help you think through the process of converting an online multiple choice test into a writing assignment
Ditching Multiple Choice: Reasons to Design Writing-Base Assessments Handout Word Document
Ditching Multiple Choice: Reasons to Design Writing-Base Assessments Handout PDF
This handout provides an overview of different kinds of rubrics you might want to use, as well as ways of describing performance levels. It also includes advice for developing a successful rubric
Peer review can be an effective means for engaging students in writing projects. In peer review, students give one another feedback on a draft of a writing project, or a portion of a writing project, using a set of clear criteria as a guide.
Materials designed by Christopher Basgier, Amy Cicchino, and Amber Simpson
This handout will introduce you to peer review and help you learn how to develop a successful peer review for your course
This handout will help you articulate the role of peer review in your course, both for yourself and for your students. This page includes a set of questions about the role of peer review in your course, and the reverse describes the elements of effective peer feedback
This resource will help you facilitate a successful peer review across four modalities: online (asynchronous), online (synchronous), hyflex, and in-person with safety protocols in place
This brief handout can communicate peer review guidelines to your students
Dr. Djibo Zanzot developed this writing-to-learn prompt and peer review protocol for his Honors Organismal Biology course
Scaffolding is a means of breaking down assignments or tasks into manageable chunks in order to promote student learning and success. A well-scaffolded writing assignment should help students understand your expectations, learn course content, communicate with audiences, and write with a purpose in mind. These resources will help you develop scaffolding writing assignments in your course.
Materials designed by Travis Adams, Christopher Basgier, Margaret Marshall, Alyssa Pratt, and Djibo Zanzot
This handout details three approaches to scaffolding you might use in your course: checkpoints, parts of the whole, and upping the ante
This handout presents two example assignments aimed at evaluating students’ prior knowledge in a particular area. By determining prior knowledge, you can get a better idea of the support students will need as they complete future assignments related to content knowledge and writing in your course
This worksheet will help you identify and define a difficult concept, and then map different levels of understanding for that concept. You can use these definitions as a basis for crafting your effective assignments
This handout presents two activities that would help students in scaffolding a research paper. The first one focuses on breaking down the big goal in a series of small tasks so as to provide students with direction. The second one will help you map the syllabus timeline according to the learning required for assignment completion
This handout includes a range of writing assignments and activities you can ask students to complete in your course in order to promote their learning. Many of these assignments can have high stakes or low stakes versions
Writing-to-learn prompts can help you design writing prompts to reinforce content learning in your course. Be sure to check out our section on writing-to-learn.
Scientific posters communicate research in a visually engaging way and can be paired with an oral presentation or audience discussion. Posters can be designed for other experts in your field or for interdisciplinary or general audiences who are outside of your field. In either case, it’s important to critically consider your audience, purpose, content, and layout. Use the resources below to plan, draft, and assess your scientific poster.
Materials designed by Katharine H. Brown, Amy Cicchino, and Carly Cummings
This handout will introduce you to scientific posters and analyze example posters
This worksheet will help you self-assess a draft of your scientific poster or gather feedback from a peer
As writers within the sphere of building science, building construction, construction engineering, and construction management, these handouts and worksheets can be utilized to help you effectively communicate in your discipline.
Materials designed by Muhammad Umer
This handout introduces various types of data visualizations, explains their expected data types, and offers tips to make these visualizations appealing.
Data Visualization Made Beautiful: Techniques and Best Practices Word Document
Data Visualization Made Beautiful: Techniques and Best Practices PDF
This handout complements the above handout, “Data Visualization Made Beautiful: Techniques and Best Practices,” and provides exercises to practice data visualization. It concludes with a self-test on the relevant concepts.
Not everyone is an expert in visual design, but these resources will help you learn some core principles for an effective and accessible ePortfolio design.
Materials designed by Heather Stuart and Parker Wade
This handout introduces ePortfolio creators to four basic design principles: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity
This handout introduces ePortfolio creators to introductory concepts of accessibility like navigation, use of heading styles, color choice, alternative text, link embedding, and captions. If you would like to learn more advanced strategies for accessible design, please see our entry on Accessibility and Writing
