Many graduate students find the research and writing process to be quite overwhelming. Responding to requests from international doctoral students for extra support in navigating academic writing, the Campus Writing Program (CWP) created the Learn & Write series in the fall of 2024. CWP joined with the Writing Center and Mizzou Libraries to offer a Learn & Write series for graduate students. Each writing session included a brief program specific to graduate and academic writing.

CWP Associate Director Christy Goldsmith had co-presented on literature reviews with Kimberly Moeller, the education and social sciences librarian at Mizzou Libraries, for over five years, so she asked Moeller to present in the Learn & Write series. Bailey Boyd, the assistant director for the Writing Center, felt that Moeller’s presentation stood out for its clarity and practical value, and she invited her to present again when the series evolved into GradsLearn. Moeller was also asked to speak at the January 2025 Dissertation Acceleration and Navigation Group, a week of focused and dedicated time designed to accelerate the dissertation writing process.

One of the standout moments in Moeller’s presentation was a detailed demonstration of Zotero. Seeing how the citation tool could automatically update references—even removing entries when in-text citations were deleted—was a game-changer. Learning to use Zotero can be a significant time-saver for graduate students juggling complex drafts and sources.

Boyd strongly encourages others to use the Mizzou Libraries’ support services. “If you haven’t worked with the Libraries yet, you should definitely reach out to your subject librarian,” she advised. “They’re not just there to help you find books—they can be real partners in your research process.”
Boyd also points to the Libraries’ website, which hosts a robust archive of past workshops and events. Whether students need help with citation management, organizing research, or finding scholarly resources, a wealth of knowledge is already available online.

Reflecting on her academic journey, Boyd credits the Libraries with playing a crucial role. While working on a Master’s thesis, her advisor recommended connecting with a subject librarian—a decision that transformed how she approached research. Since then, Boyd has strongly advocated the use of libraries. “They’re an essential part of the writing process. I’ve seen firsthand how much they can help, and I always recommend that other grad students make the most of what the Libraries have to offer.”

Goldsmith concurred with Boyd and said, “I have become so much more adept at source searching, management, and citation thanks to my partnership with Kimberly. It’s made my own research process so much smoother! We always have something to learn from librarians!”

As a first-generation student, I have always been passionate about supporting first-generation students! After joining Mizzou as a Student Success Librarian, I started supporting first-generation student initiatives. Eventually, I became a member of the First-Generation Student Success Advisory Board, which meets regularly to ensure we continue supporting our first-generation students best, promoting services, starting initiatives, and creating goals for the First-Generation Student Initiatives coordinator.

When students in Tri-Alpha, the first-generation honor society, answered a question about which campus resource impacted them the most, they all answered the library. One student wrote, “The library and the helpfulness of the faculty! The library has been an amazing resource as someone who needs to study and lives in a place with multiple roommates. The faculty has helped guide me throughout my years here and point me in the direction I needed.”

In the past year, I have built tools and initiatives at the library that support our first-generation students both directly and indirectly. I’ve presented at student events, to student parents, and at tabling events to share library tools with first-generation students, and I am so excited that they have found our resources helpful! Here are a few resources that might be helpful for first-generation students or faculty and staff who are interested in discussing how to support first-generation students better:

• A new library webpage for first-generation students sharing resources and tools that are curated specifically for first-generation students. Find it here: https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/firstgen
• The NEW Wellbeing Collection on the first floor of Ellis Library includes resources for first-generation students and other campus groups, as well as books for leisure reading.
• A Faculty and Staff First-Generation Initiative, where any faculty and staff can join our reading group. We meet to discuss articles on first-generation topics monthly, and one book per semester.

For more information, contact me: Jill Kline, jill.kline@missouri.edu.

The University Libraries Undergraduate Research Contest seeks to recognize and reward outstanding research conducted by undergraduate students at the University of Missouri.

This year the winner of the first place prize of a $500 scholarship is Nina Schmolzi, a senior studying anthropology. Her project was “Tracing Routes Through Roots: Unraveling the Bantu Migration Through Linguistics and Archaeology.”

The second-place winner and recipient of a $250 scholarship is Benjamin Peter, a senior studying electrical engineering. His project was “Robust Defense Against Extreme Grid Events Using Dual-Policy Reinforcement Learning Agents.”

In addition Jackson Huenefeldt, a senior studying chemical engineering, was given an honorable mention for his project, “Sounds of the Energy Transition.”

Revision of article written by Clare Starkey, Haley Lykins, and Kelli Hansen

The University of Missouri’s division of Special Collections holds over 100,000 items, dating from the eighth century to the modern era, and focuses on books, periodicals, manuscripts, maps, posters, printed ephemera and artifacts. Though the typical patrons are collegiate researchers, classes for elementary and middle school students are common and are an important part of the University of Missouri’s mission to benefit all Missourians. In the spring of 2024, Special Collections at the University of Missouri hosted a series of field trips for every sixth grader in the Columbia Public School (CPS) district—more than 1,300 students—under the theme of “Ancient Writing Technologies Lab: Cuneiform, Papyrus, Palm Leaves, Oh My!” This workshop gave students a chance to experience ancient writing technologies from across Africa and Asia while interacting with primary sources. Conceived in consultation with the school district’s social studies coordinator, the Special Collections staff provided hands-on activities on the history of the book to complement the school curriculum on ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China.

Public Services Archivist Haley Lykins stated, “It was exciting to see our primary sources utilized by a new age group. The experience taught us to look beyond the walls of our academic institution for opportunities of outreach and instruction.”

The students rotated between three workstations representing the ancient world. Items from the University’s collection were included to provide a real-life example of the focus of each station and included cuneiform tablets, papyrus fragments and a facsimile palm leaf book. The students visited the University of Missouri campus over the course of 14 field trips throughout April and May. In addition to Special Collections, students visited the University of Missouri’s Museum of Art and Archaeology, Museum of Anthropology, and Francis Quadrangle. Although Special Collections hosted only 10-25 students at a time, around 100 students overall visited each field trip day.

In each 25-minute session, groups of 3-8 students would spend 7 minutes at a station before rotating to the next one. Each station began with a short informational presentation about the collection item before moving onto the activity. The workshops included making replica cuneiform tablets using playdough, drawing hieroglyphics on papyrus using calligraphy markers, and creating replica palm leaf books by writing stories on long strips of paper and tying them together with yarn. The learning objectives for the workshops were to discuss different writing surfaces from different times and different parts of the world, to describe the advantages and disadvantages of the different surfaces; and to interpret, analyze and evaluate primary sources.

After the field trips, Joy Bass, the social studies coordinator for CPS, said, “Just wanted to let you all know that teachers AND students have rated your ‘station’ very high in their reflection surveys and SO many have said it’s been their favorite.”