Tips on writng the main body

Tips on writing the introduction

Tips on writing the conclusions

This is a short audio featuring tips on writing a thesis.

This presentation defines connotation and denotation. It also introduces the terms subjectivity and objectivity.

This is a one-minute video featuring the rules of photo composition. The photos were taken in Discovery Park in Muscatine. Eileen Moore is the author.

This is an interview with Mary Savage, a tour guide director at the Henderson Underground Railroad and city museum in Salem, Iowa.

This episode features and interview with Mary Virginia Lynam, tour guide, at the George Hitchcock House near Lewis, Iowa. The Hitchcock House was once a stop on the Underground Railroad through Iowa.

Welcome to podcasting

This episode explains the difference between the two types of process essays - explanatory and directional.

Composition I student reads her Cause - Effect essay, demonstrating how a decision changed her approach to life.

When storytellers relate a tale, they give thought to how the story is arranged. Thus, all essays need a structure.

Many stories can be told about the oak tree in the yard, but all the rich detail does not necessary mean there is a focus. The storyteller needs a thesis, or focus.

Here are tips on how to create a narrative.

This is a look at the Iowa Monument at Shiloh. Featured is Fame, who pens an enduring message to the Iowa Soldiers who fought in the Civil War battle.

Brother walks through a tunnel at Vicksburg. The tunnel is in an area where Northern soldiers dug trying to surprise Southern solidiers fortified on a hill.

Kathy Trosen, Academic Achievement Coordinator at Muscatine Community College, discusses how students can improve their chance for success in the classroom.

This is a Quick Time version of the Minie Ball Pregnancy.

Here is an incredible tale as to how a minie ball passed through a Civil War soldier and through a woman. The story goes that the woman became pregnant in this fashion.

This presentation features a discussion of tone and style within an essay. The focus is upon formal, informal and moderate tones and how to create them.

This presentation discusses how to write cumulative and periodic sentences.

This is a video using Logitech's avatars to introduce the rules of photo composition to students. This was set up as a teaching tool for a College 4 Kids summer program and is aimed at fourth through sixth graders.

This lecture warns defines plagiarism and other aspects of academic dishonesty.

This lecture focuses upon the structural decisions writers make in creating a comparison and contrast essay.

This video presents an essay that Toni Ochletree wrote featuring her love for Barrel Riding competition. Toni does an excellent job of presenting rich detail to describe how she prepares for an event.

This essay presents how difficult it is to give up something, even a good habit such as running. It is made easier when one realizes that time can now be given to new opportunties.

Corey Gevaert, a student in my Comp I class in the spring of 2006, wrote this essay in response to the final assignment of the semester. Corey used Pirate lingo to describe to incoming students his Comp I experience. It is a clever essay.

This episode discusses techniques in writing the extended metaphor.

This episode features explanation of formal definition and extended definition. How definitions are valuable additions to the essay is also discussed.

This episode features common fallacies and explanations.

This episode offers explanation and examples for how to link cause and effect to each other. Also presented are explanations and examples of Post Hoc and Non Sequitur fallacies. Finally, tips on how to structure a cause and effect essay are offered.

Kari Anderson discusses four components of building a successful business website. She created a successful website to support her pearl business.

This audio features points useful in writing exemplication essays as well as using examples to support any essay.

This essay uses viewpoint and rich detail to demonstate how a bus driver, even though he had done is best, finally reached his limit in providing customer service.

This narrative features the story of how the original traveling trophy, The Boot, started. The trophy is on the line each year West High and City High play football against each other in Iowa City.

This discussion focuses upon how to use transitions to improve an essay.

This discussion features the steps writers move through when moving from initial idea to finished essay.

This discusses the building blocks of the basic 5-paragraph essay.

This lecture discusses how to write a process essay using the directional approach.

This audio features the reading of an article about former baseball coach George Long of Muscatine.

Jeremy Bentham is a philosopher who decades ago requested he be placed in an upright position as if thinking and so he was. He now sits behind a glass covering in a box on the University of London campus.

This is an essay featuring Dan Gable, Olympic legend and former University of Iowa wrestling coach. Gable oversees the toughest workout of the season in this aritcle. The workouts are known as Red Flag Days.