Services for Individuals
I offer services to individuals, with a specific focus on undergraduate and graduate/professional students.
Scholarly/Academic Writing Mentorship
Are you struggling with finding your academic/scholarly voice? Have your professors/advisors suggested that you consider getting help with your writing? Are you frustrated with the services provided by your university’s writing services? Do you need more support than an editor provides? You are not alone. And, you are not alone in the development of your writing.
Academic writing can be one of the most difficult tasks encountered in graduate school. This specific form of writing comes with its own set of ground rules and conventions that distinguish it from other types of writing. Many students enter graduate programs without a solid foundation on which to build the necessary academic writing skills. They also may not be afforded the critical mentorship from seasoned scholars that can facilitate either the refinement of established skills or the growth of new skills.
I can help. I provide individualized academic writing mentoring and support, starting where the student is. My ultimate goal is to help you learn how to evaluate and revise your own writing, improving both the product and process so that you successfully transition from writing like a student to writing like a scholar. I work with individuals at all stages of the writing process and in a variety of disciplines – from the social sciences to the humanities to the natural sciences. I provide feedback designed to help individuals with the larger conceptual issues of structure, organization, style, and argument as well as the smaller mechanical issues of sentence clarity and grammar. We talk about your writing and thinking process in order to help you develop the analytical skills, stylistic approach, and self-confidence necessary for successful scholarly/academic writing.
My approach to writing mentoring is largely based on my experience as a Writing Associate when I was an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, and the belief that, "Writing is the culmination of understanding." The Writing Associates Program has been helping students become better writers for over 20 years. I also draw on the personal experience of receiving writing mentorship from a renowned Social Work scholar/academic (Richard P. Barth, PhD) whose research articles have been cited more than 1,000 times, among the highest citation rates in Social Work. Dr. Barth and I collaborated on four peer-reviewed journal articles during my doctoral studies (see Publications).
Thesis/Dissertation Defense Preparation
Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Are you nearing the end of this journey but face the final push to prepare for your defense? Feeling overwhelmed by this final step? Are your family & friends unsure how to support you? If any of this sounds like you, I can help. I work with individual students at all stages of thesis/dissertation defense preparation and in a variety of disciplines. My services include:
- Presentation (i.e, Powerpoint) conceptualization and preparation
- Defense practice
- Mock Q&A
- Stress management training
Fellowship/Scholarship Application Preparation
In addition to providing Writing Mentorship and Thesis/Dissertation Defense Preparation, I also provide Fellowship/Scholarship Application Assistance. I am qualified to offer my expertise in this area as I applied for and received 4 fellowships while pursuing my PhD at the School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
- Predoctoral Fellowship, National Institute of Child & Human Development
- Society of Fellows Lovick P. Corn Dissertation Completion Fellowship, UNC-Chapel Hill, Graduate School
- Interdisciplinary Research Scholars Fellowship, UNC-Chapel Hill, Graduate School
- Predoctoral Fellowship, Duke University, Center for Child & Family Policy