InfoGuides: Computer Game Art & Design: Write & Cite

Get Help with Writing & Grammar

Mason Writing Center
The Writing Center provides students at all levels advise and help to become better writers. Check out their Writing Resources page and their services for Graduate Students.

Check the "Resources" on the Mason Writing Center website to get writing and grammar hints. Here are several of their guides:

Check out these websites to get tips to help you become a better writer!

Grammarly - The tools on this website can help you to become a better writer and fix grammar issues. Create a free account to use it.
Grammar Girl https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl
- Get answers to your grammar questions and find tips to improve your writing. Here are several articles containing links to short episodes explaining each item:

Tutorials from Linked-In Learning -- Do a module or two or complete the whole course. Look at the Contents tab on the left hand side of the screen to identify individual modules to view.

Writing in Plain English (1 hr 51 min total) This video has many modules addressing specific issues so you can pick and choose what you want to view.
Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing (41 min 54 secs total)

So, You Have to Write a Literature Review by Joshua B. Lenart; Catherine G. P Berdanier
ISBN: 9781119555063
Publication Date: 2020-09-19
"Is a literature review looming in your future? So, You Have to Write a Literature Review presents a dynamic and practical method in which engineering students--typically late-career undergraduates or graduate students--can learn to write literature reviews, and translate genre-based writing instruction into easy-to-follow, bite-sized activities and content. Written in a refreshingly conversational style while acknowledging that writing is quite difficult, Catherine Berdanier and Joshua Lenart leverage their unique disciplinary backgrounds with decades of experience teaching academic engineering writing in this user-friendly workbook"

Creating Citations

APA Formatting & Style Guide
Format your paper in APA style, 7th ed., and create in-text citations and list of references. (OWL, Purdue University)
The Basics of APA Style
Tutorial Video from apastyle.org

MLA Formatting & Style Guide
Format your paper and create citations in MLA style using this guide. (Purdue Univ.)

Video games are considered software In APA style and are cited using the rules for software citation. This page (Western Washington University) has examples of video game citations

http://askus.library.wwu.edu/faq/116850.

If you need more information than this, check out the APA Style Blog's information on software citation.

Citation Tools & Resources

Zotero

Generate accurate citations and quick bibliographies using Zotero. Get started with the printable guide, or these video tutorials:

Using Zotero for Academic Writing (a 7 minute video taking you through ALL the basics)
Zotero Quick Introduction (<2 minutes: how to generate a bibliography with Zotero)
Zotero Tutorials - Learn to use Zotero using these tutorials. Works well for group projects too!

Do you need a specialized citation style beyond APA, Chicago, or MLA? Check out Zotero's Style Repository for other formats.

The Libraries provide workshops to get you started using Zotero. Check the workshop calendar for times and locations. logo for Zotero citation tool

Mendeley

Use Mendeley to generate accurate citations and quick bibliographies. Watch the videos below to learn more (~3 minutes each).

More tutorials and guides are available to assist you with using all the features offered with Mendeley. The University Libraries also provide workshops to get you started using Mendeley. Check the workshop calendar for times and locations.

Online Writing Lab (OWL), Purdue University
Find APA and MLA style and citation resources at the OWL from Purdue.
ZoteroBib
This easy to use citation generator from Zotero can help you create citations on the fly. Choose your style from their library. Easily create your reference list too!

Check out these resources to help you work with LaTeX and create bibliographies with BibTeX;

LaTeX Resources
This LaTeX guide highlights resources to help you learn about LaTeX and create documents using it. It is especially helpful with papers containing mathematical expressions.
How do I create bibliographies in LaTeX?
This page from MIT's IST Knoweldge Base provides directions for 2 ways to create bibliographies in LaTeX.
BibTeX
"The BibTeX program sorts and writes a document's bibliography (.bbl) using style files (.bst) and formatting-independent (in principle) bibliography databases (.bib). It works with LaTeX, plain TeX, and other TeX variants. BibTeX is currently distributed through TeX Live and other software collections."
Citation Management Tools: LaTeX & BibTeX
This guide from MIT discusses LaTeX. It also provides information on using standard citation managers (Zotero or Mendeley) and specialty citation managers for LaTeX (Jabref ) to manage reference and create a bibliography.

Mason Writing Center
The Writing Center provides students at all levels advise and help to become better writers. Check out their Writing Resources page and their services for Graduate Students.