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Video: Military Writing Tips for Developing an Academic Writing Voice
Welcome! My name is Dr. Cheryl Lentz. In working with a variety of students over the tenure
of my career as a college professor these last 10 years, I am seeing some unique similarities
with my military students. I find that they often share many similar struggles with their
writing that I want to address in this video. First, military training typically encompasses
short bursts of communication. Often military members think in bullet points and 30 second
sound bytes when communicating with others. As a result, many military initially may struggle
when trying to develop their academic writing voice.
This video is intended to offer a few writing strategies that might be of help.
First, donít fight it. For many military students, your training might be from 4 years
to 24 yearsóa long time to develop communication habits. Letís simply embrace it and use your
strengths to your advantage. Since most in the military excel in giving
presentations or briefs to your superiors, particularly in PowerPoint, why not consider
first crafting your paper in terms of a PowerPoint Presentation? Within the writing process,
this is similar to beginning with an outline from which a paper is crafted. Since many
in the military can speak to nearly any slide in a PowerPoint presentation, why not begin
with this end in mind? Simply craft your bullet points within a PowerPoint presentation first,
then craft your paper based on this presentation. Many assignments within academia have a presentation
that works in tandem to the assignmentóso you may even be ahead of the game!
Simply remember good writing fundamentals and begin with a Writing Roadmap Strategy
as the fundamentals are the same whether writing a paper or crafting a PowerPoint Presentation.
First begin with an introductionótell your audience what to expect. For a PPT, this might
be the form of an agenda, however the principle is the same.
The bullet points of this agenda then become your body paragraphs of your writingóthe
points for which you will talk to within a presentation and write to within a writing
assignment. Lastly, be sure to offer a conclusionóa wrap
up of your presentation that often culminates in a Q/A. What are the main points you want
to leave your audience with? For a paper, this is the same, simply review your main
points as offered within the paper, and review your writing objectives from your introduction
to prove that you accomplished what you set out to do.
For more tips and tricks on academic writing, please visit me at Http://www.drcheryllentz.com
or the blog at http://www.refractivethinker.com/wordpress. Thank you for joining me. My name is Dr. Cheryl
Lentz and I hope you find these suggestions helpful. Good luck!