Grace Murra
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
UROP Fellowship: Community College Summer Fellowship Program
Grand Rapids Community College
Research Mentor(s): Patrick Barry, JD, PhD
University of Michigan Law School
Presentation Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2020 | Session 3 | Presenter: 10
Authors: Grace Murra
Abstract
The impact someone can have is astonishing when they express their thoughts, intentions, or wants in a clear and compelling way. Being good with words benefits all who attempt to learn: in school, at work, in relationships, and when trying to connect with others. There are many ways to learn and improve the way you interact with and use words; online resources, tutorials, traditional and nontraditional classes, or simply reading books and articles can help highlight where one might need improvement in their own writing or teach them a new valuable skill. The “Good With Words: Writing and Editing” course provides a look into some of the more common areas where someone might struggle in their writing. Accompanied by both Good With Words: Writing and Editing and The Syntax of Sports, Class 1, this online course provides lessons on word choice, word order, structure, organization, drafting, and revising, alongside weekly grammar and nuance specials to help improve one’s writing even further.
Our goal as research assistants is to make that learning experience for those taking the “Good With Words” course as easy and accessible as possible. Making our way through the individual sections for each week of all four courses available to take, we work to find grammatical, punctuation, and technological errors that might trip students up while taking the course. Looking to add more information to future sections of “Good With Words,” we have worked through the upcoming Notes on Nuance manuscript to make sure the quotes and citations are correct for the book’s future readers and learners. Additionally, we have researched and attempted multiple ways to make this online course more interactive: a Google Form where participants of the course can “edit our edits” and submit errors they catch along the way, discussion prompts, and webinars that are welcome for all to attend to further their learning. Although this project does not contain the traditional research elements such as data collection, lab reports or experiments, results can still be seen from the accomplished work. These results include the improved online course, correct information for future learning, and a more interactive way for people to learn how to become good with words. We intend to use the results from “Good With Words: Writing and Editing” to create another online course called “Good With Words: Speaking and Presenting.” Our hope is to provide resources and learning techniques that are as helpful as they are accurate.
Google Slide Presentation
Presentation Script
Research Disciplines
Arts and Humanities
