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Writing Skills

Individual Appointments:

Students are encouraged to make use of individual appointments with BU/CMB Writing Skills staff members to discuss the requirements of their assignments. Appointments can include, but are not limited to:

how to start an essay
essay, paragraph, and sentence formats
proper referencing techniques
recurring grammatical problems
concerns with punctuation
learning from professors’ comments on marked papers

Please note that BU/CMB Writing Skills staff members are not content specialists (for example, they cannot explain the use of imagery to develop the theme in a specific book or poem, but they can explain that the examples used in a paper do not support the theme specified in the thesis statement of the paper).

Students are encouraged to book their appointments well in advance as the service has limited last-minute availability. Please note that the staff are unable to discuss midterm or final exam work with students. To book an appointment, use the following toll free number: Alex at 866-706-9768. Students should remember to email or fax their papers to Alex (at least 24 hours in advance).

Email Consultation:

Students with specific questions about are encouraged to email Alex (brauna@brandonu.ca), Monday-Friday (excluding holidays). While response times may vary, students can expect a reply within 24 hours.

Referencing Guides Online:

Online Tutorials:

To improve their writing skills, CMB Students can access online tutorials on the following topics:

Essay Structure
Critical Reviews
Plagiarism and Paraphrasing
Evaluating Electronic Resources
Punctuating Between Sentences and Around Quotation Marks
APA Style (American Psychological Association) and APA Reports
MLA Style (Modern Language Association)
CMS Style (Chicago Manual of Style)
ASA Style (American Sociological Association

CMB students can access writing skills assistance from BU Online through the Moodle page at http://wolf.brandonu.ca/moodle/. In Moodle, go to Communication Websites, then to the Academic Skills Centre: Writing Skills Classroom.