Cynthia Jones-Shoeman

Contributor
Cindy Jones-Shoeman - Photo by Shoeman Family
Cindy Jones-Shoeman - Photo by Shoeman Family

Cynthia (“Cindy”) Jones-Shoeman earned her MA in English from Colorado State University in 2007; her thesis was "Toni Morrison's Tetralogy." She received her MFA in Creative Writing from National University in 2009. She currently teaches Composition and Creative Writing classes for Pueblo Community College in Colorado, and in the past has taught classes on job seeking, drama, computers, and life skills.

Writing, though, is Cindy’s first passion. She has published literary analysis on Toni Morrison and presented “Pariahs in Toni Morrison’s Fiction: Catalysts for Change” at the Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery (SISSI) Conference in 2008. She has also published fiction—Last Sunset hit the shelves in 2006. And over the course of more than ten years, she has had more than a dozen poems published in different venues. Her most recent published fiction can be found online in Pueblo Community College's journal The Final Note.

Cindy lives in Colorado with her husband and four children. Some of Cindy's interests include environmental issues, vegetarian and sustainable lifestyles, music, and reading, and she maintains a blog dedicated to weekly vegan menus at VegiLover.

Cindy is the Feature Writer for Academic Writing. Here is a list of her Editor's Choice Award articles:

Latest Articles

 		Essays Should be Specific, Detailed, and Avoid Generalities
Students can make their essays stand out from the rest by concentrating on specific, concrete details.
Mar 27, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman
Is Everyone Singular or Plural? Working with Indefinite Pronouns
Sometimes little mistakes can ruin a perfectly good essay. Knowing how to use indefinite pronouns correctly can help make an essay shine.
Mar 21, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman
Find and Correct Sentence Fragments to Polish an Academic Essay
While people often speak in fragments, fragments are unacceptable in an essay. Correcting sentence fragments isn't too difficult.
Mar 13, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman
Proofread to Create Perfect Essays and Keep Readers Interested
Perfect or near-perfect papers may not earn the respect of readers, but the reason for judicious editing is so readers don't notice what's missing.
Mar 6, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman
Four Reasons to Avoid Plagiarism
Students may not give much thought to plagiarism, simply because they want to be done with a paper. But there are good reasons to avoid this practice.
Feb 27, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman
Write a Quality, Full-length Essay Without Padding
Some students panic at having to write a five-page (or longer) essay, so they resort to "padding." Here are tips to help students focus on quality.
Feb 20, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman
Breastfeeding May Decrease the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
Breastfeeding is lauded for its many benefits to infants. The fact that it could possibly decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes for mom is another plus.
Feb 13, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman
Fun Argumentative and Persuasive Essay and Speech Topics
So many argumentative essays are serious (and somber). Here are some topics that might be more fun to write (and read!).
Feb 13, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman
Two Ways to Narrow the Focus of an Essay
If an essay topic is too broad, it's difficult for a student to write a concise, clear essay. So how can one narrow the essay topic?
Feb 5, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman
How Grammar Checkers Make Essays Worse
That green squiggle in word processing programs is likely to drive students crazy. What if a student doesn't know how to fix the grammar problem?
Jan 30, 2011 - Cynthia Jones-Shoeman