Using writing and citation video tutorials

The video tutorials offer your students reinforcement of concepts they learn in class about research, citation, argument, and analysis. Each tutorial pairs engaging and lively video content with a number of practice items that report conveniently to your gradebook. Half of the tutorials address MLA and APA documentation, and the other half are organized in clusters to give advice for three common college assignments: writing an argument essay, writing an analysis , and writing an annotated bibliography. Here are a few ways you might ask your students to engage with the content.

Assign tutorials as a preview to class instruction about research, citation, argument, or analysis. For instance, if you are planning to cover critical reading in class, assign students to view “How to read critically” and complete the three practice items as homework in preparation for the class.

View the videos together as a class. For a difficult assignment like annotated bibliography, it may help students to see one or more videos in class and participate in a discussion about what makes summary different from evaluation, for example, or about how to format an annotated bibliography in MLA style. You can still assign students to complete the practice items, but you can assign them as review after the lesson but before students start their own drafts.

Offer opportunities for reflection about which kinds of resources work best for learning about citation. Some students may find the static book/e-book pages more useful for modeling citation practices. Other students may prefer the step-by-step videos for learning how to, for example, cite an article from an online journal. Ask students to try both resources and to write briefly about which format is more helpful and why.