Reading and Writing

Writing and reading are essential elements of the online learning experience. Online students must be comfortable communicating in writing to complete assignments and work with instructors.

Improving Your Reading Skills

Princeton University developed a resource to help you improve your reading of college texts: Active Reading Strategies: Remember and Analyze What You Read (or Word version).

The Princeton article talks about bracketing text, writing notes in the margin, etc. You may be wondering how you can do that if the text is online. Google Chrome has an Annotation Expert Extension that allows you to do these same things online.

Improving Your Writing Skills

One of the best ways to improve your writing skills is to take advantage of the resources we have here at Salt Lake Community College. We have a Writing and Reading Center that offers online tutoring for students. This Center has also provided a list of resources that you can look at to find more information related to specific subjects such as science writing, proofreading, English as a second language, and citation.

Netiquette

With all the writing you will do in online courses, it is important to remember that communicating in writing can be tricky. Written messages lack the tone of voice and facial expressions that help us to express ourselves in person. Netiquette is a term describing how to interact clearly and respectfully with others in an online environment.

Every online course at SLCC has a netiquette policy that you will be expected to follow. While they may vary a little from course to course, netiquette policies will include some of the same policies as this netiquette policy from Arizona State University Online.

This brief introduction to netiquette hasn't prepared you for every situation you might encounter online, so let's practice with a few more.

Imagine yourself in the following situations and choose the best response.

1. Your classmate leaves a response in all capital letters, but the response has a positive tone. How should you respond?

They were definitely yelling at me and probably trying to start something. I should yell back and try to get people on my side.

Try Again. It’s important to give your classmates the benefit of the doubt and assume their intentions are positive. People make mistakes and it’s more likely a mistake was made than a classmate was intentionally insulting. Also, remember you can’t unring the bell. Once you hit send, you have said what you’ve said. Responding in anger to a technical error will have lasting impacts on your ability to communicate in a course.

They probably hit the “caps-lock” button instead of the shift. It’s probably an accident and I should ask some more questions.

Correct! It’s important to give your classmates the benefit of the doubt and assume their intentions are positive. People make mistakes and it’s more likely a mistake was made than a classmate was intentionally insulting. Also, remember you can’t unring the bell. Once you hit send, you have said what you’ve said. Responding in anger to a technical error will have lasing impacts on your ability to communicate in a course.

2. Your classmate changes the way their name displays in Canvas and begins signing their comments with their new display name. How should you address this classmate?

Use their current display name and how they refer to themselves because they have demonstrated a preference for this name and it would be rude to use another name.

Correct! The platinum rule is the idea that we should treat people the way they want to be treated because its what we would want for ourselves. If someone changes their display name or refers to themselves in a specific manner, it is important to respect their decision. It’s a rich and diverse world in which we live. We all come with different perspectives, so please be respectful and resist the urge to tell anyone they are wrong. Understand they have had different life experiences and all of our world views are simply different.

Use their original display name, that was obviously what the school calls them and you can’t just change your mind every semester.

Try Again. The platinum rule is the idea that we should treat people the way they want to be treated because its what we would want for ourselves. If someone changes their display name or refers to themselves in a specific manner, it is important to respect their decision. It’s a rich and diverse world in which we live. We all come with different perspectives, so please be respectful and resist the urge to tell anyone they are wrong. Understand they have had different life experiences and all of our world views are simply different.

3. How would you verify the tone of a discussion post before adding it to an online forum?

Read it out loud to ensure your meaning is clear and appropriate for an academic setting. This way you will be able to find the appropriate tone.

Correct! The academic environment expects a higher-level language. Write as if you were writing a term paper. Correct spelling, grammatical construction, and sentence structure are expected in every other writing activity associated with scholarship and academic engagement. Online discussions are no different. Avoid profanity. Read your post out loud before hitting the send button. This will tell you a lot about whether your grammar and sentence structure are correct, your tone is appropriate, and your contribution clear or not.

Post your response on an open public forum on the internet to receive feedback from strangers before posting it to your course where your classmates and instructor know you.

Try Again. The academic environment expects a higher-level language. Write as if you were writing a term paper. Correct spelling, grammatical construction, and sentence structure are expected in every other writing activity associated with scholarship and academic engagement. Online discussions are no different. Avoid profanity. Read your post out loud before hitting the send button. This will tell you a lot about whether your grammar and sentence structure are correct, your tone is appropriate, and your contribution clear or not.

4. In your discussion post, you quote this week's main theory from the course textbook. You think about citing it, but decide not to waste your time because you only have one text for this class and everyone will know where it came from anyway. What rule of Netiquette did you violate?

None, you were just saving time and you only need to cite sources external to the course.

Try Again. The academic environment expects a higher-level language. Write as if you were writing a term paper. Online discussions are no different. If your contribution to the conversation includes the intellectual property (authored material) of others, such as books, newspaper, magazine, or journal articles (online or in print), they must be given proper attribution.

”Be Scholarly” If your contribution to the conversation includes the intellectual property (authored material) of others, such as books, newspaper, magazine, or journal articles (online or in print), they must be given proper attribution. This includes the course textbook!

Correct! The academic environment expects a higher-level language. Write as if you were writing a term paper. Online discussions are no different. If your contribution to the conversation includes the intellectual property (authored material) of others, such as books, newspaper, magazine, or journal articles (online or in print), they must be given proper attribution.

5. You have a really cool story that you want to share with everyone! Why not share it with your online class on the weekly discussion board, where you get credit for participation? What should you do?

Share away! It doesn’t matter what you talk about, as long as you are talking and participating.

Try Again. This is a shared learning environment. No lurking in the cyberspace background. It is not enough to log in and read the discussion thread of others. For the maximum benefit to all, everyone must contribute. However, it is important to be mindful of everyone’s time. Many people work, have family responsibilities, and go to school. It’s your responsibility to keep on topic and ensure you are advancing the conversation towards deeper understanding. It’s okay to share personal anecdotes as long as they relate directly to the topic.

Maybe save this one for the family. More class participation is better, but it should relate to the topic of discussion and study.

Correct! This is a shared learning environment. No lurking in the cyberspace background. It is not enough to log in and read the discussion thread of others. For the maximum benefit to all, everyone must contribute. However, it is important to be mindful of everyone’s time. Many people work, have family responsibilities, and go to school. It’s your responsibility to keep on topic and ensure you are advancing the conversation towards deeper understanding. It’s okay to share personal anecdotes as long as they relate directly to the topic.