New Generation of Citation Resources

If you’ve been using Son of Citation Machine to help cite sources for your writing, you may want to think about upgrading to Zotero. Zotero is a free web-based tool used with Firefox that helps writers formulate and store citations for academic papers. Zotero’s tagline is “It’s never been easier to collect, manage, cite, and share your research sources,” and the range of services that it offers to users certainly seems to back up that assessment. Zotero offers the below (http://libguides.depaul.edu/zotero):

• Automatically capture citations
• Remotely back up and sync your library
• Store PDFs, images, and web pages
• Organize with collections, tags, and related
• Access your library anywhere
• Fully searchable PDFs, notes, and citations
• Cite from within Word and OpenOffice (link)
• Take rich-text notes in any language
• Import/Export your library
• Collaborate with private or public groups (link)
• Open source, free, and updated constantly

If you have an iPhone, you can also take advantage of a Zotero plug-in called BibUp. This app allows you to create a citation by scanning a book's barcode. The BibUp allows you to easily create bibliographic references by scanning books barcodes and extracts of text. "The references, including the OCRed text, can be viewed on a web page and collected using the Zotero plugin for Firefox." For more information on BibUp, visit here.

A similar application for the iPhone is Quick Cite. To be used independently of Zotero, this app allows you to scan a book's barcode and then emails you the citation in APA, MLA, Chicago, or IEEE styles. To download, visit here.

Reading at Loop Campus on March 1st

As part of The Association of Writing and Writing Programs (creative writing) conference held in Chicago from February 29th through March 3rd, SNL Faculty members Deborah Holton and Patricia Monaghan will join other writers in presenting a short program of original fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Please join if you can and feel free to invite friends! The reading will be at the loop campus, 1 E. Jackson Blvd. Chicago, IL - The DePaul Center (Room 8011) on Thursday, March 1st at 6:15PM.

Calling all SNL student writers!

The 2011-2012 SNL Writing Showcase wants YOU to submit your best writing to snlwriting@depaul.edu for consideration today!

Think about submitting any "A" paper or an Independent Learning Project that received glowing feedback. You may submit up to three pieces of writing. Entering the showcase allows you to share your accomplishment with others and provide inspiration to your fellow SNL students as they work on their writing assignments. Excellent submissions will be recognized at the Spring Awards Luncheon.

To download this year's application and to view entries of previous winners, please visit http://www.snl.depaul.edu/writing/WritingShowcase.html.

The importance of failure in the creative process

“The success of failure: Pulitzer winner’s surprising road to the top” discusses not only the writing process, but also more generally the importance of failure and grit for creativity. Jennifer Egan, the Pulitzer winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, sometimes writes up to 50 or 60 drafts of her novels. While she calls her first drafts “terrible,” she tirelessly works to improve upon them by editing, outlining, and discussions with other writers; and then by repeating each step as many times as necessary. "The key is struggling a lot," Egan says. Egan allows herself to engage in the creative struggle, which requires her to “fail” several times in her writing process before she finds her way to the often-successful end product. In writing and other creative endeavors, failure can actually pave the way to creativity; one just needs to allow themselves to learn from mistakes rather than be paralyzed by them. Read the full text here:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/20/living/jennifer-egan-creativity-failure/index.html