Essay writing techniques in Higher Education (Intuition session)

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1 Essay writing techniques in Higher Education (Intuition session) This commentary supports the Learning Quality Support Unit s (LQSU) Essay writing techniques in Higher Education intuition session and includes the following sections: Why is Writing Important, Getting going: ideas generation, Introduction, Main body, Main body tips, Conclusion, Review, Finally, before submission!! and How to avoid academic misconduct. Why is Writing Important? It is important to develop your essay writing techniques for several reasons. One of the most important at the foundation level of study and as you progress through your degree, is in order to address both the School of Human and Health Sciences generic assessment criteria and module specific assessment criteria by communicating that you understand the topic (both of these can be found in module handbooks). Developing essay writing techniques will help you to effectively communicate your understanding of the topic to your reader (generally your marker). A key component of effectively communicating through writing is ensuring that the structure and organisation of your work is logical and explicitly meets the assessment criteria (this attracts marks!). Essentially, your degree is training for when you graduate and join your chosen profession or postgraduate level study. For example, depending on the course you are studying you may have to write a report on a topic or carry out primary research (generally a dissertation in the final year of a degree programme); these are intended to develop skills that could help you within a postgraduate career or programme of study. Significantly, as much of your undergraduate study time is invisible to your marker, your writing techniques allow you to show off your knowledge and this indicates that you have spent time on the assessment rather than just throwing something together the night before it is due. Getting going: ideas generation The first component of essay writing is ideas generation; not generally about the topic you are researching but rather this is focused around the title or question you are addressing. In order to ensure that you do not lose this focus as the assignment develops, copy the learning outcomes and question onto the assignment so that you can keep a check on your progress (remove before you hand in the assignment). Break the title down into its component parts, for example consider this essay type question: The dramatic increase in student numbers in Higher Education has meant that teachers have had to change their teaching methods and develop new ones. Consider the implications of this on students What are the implications of this statement? After an initial reading, you might get the idea that the changes in the HE sector may have impacted on the learning experience for students. At this point, it is important to realise that this question is non-directional; it is not saying that the teaching methods are worse after the increase in students neither is it saying that they are improved. Therefore, you are being asked to explore to what extent having to adopt new teaching methods to account for a dramatic increase in students has impacted on students; what the possible or actual effects of this are. It is important that you 1

2 make a note of these initial ideas; even if you change your mind in the future, because it is so easy to forget ideas (especially when you are working on more than one assessment at the same time). At this stage, your ideas should be a mixture of fact and description note that the description component will be greatly reduced as you develop your work to include critical arguments (see the LQSU s Intuition session for year 1 on critical analysis for more information). If the learning outcomes for the assessment indicate that you should be examining relevant theory to support your answer; at this initial stage you should be considering which would be the most appropriate. Next, create a plan that includes not only key points but how these should be developed to meet the learning outcomes. Introduction As a general rule, the introduction should be approximately 10% of the overall word count. The introduction is your first opportunity to impress your marker, so avoid starting the introduction in the same style as everyone else. For example, beginning with This essay will this is particularly important as the essay can t actually do anything! Therefore, try to be a bit more inventive. Each component of an assignment does a specific job ; therefore it is important that you include all the necessary components for each section. The first component of an introduction involves introducing the topic area to your reader; giving brief details to set the scene. At this point, you might find it useful to define key terminology; if you use a direct quote to do this, ensure that you include an appropriate in text citation (see the LQSU s Intuition session materials on referencing for guidance). The second component of the introduction is the map to the assignment, this is where you state what you will be covering (in the order that the material appears in the main body). Although you are limited on word space, you need to ensure that you have made it clear what the content will be covering; you can include brief examples if this helps. Note, although there are two components to an introduction, these are generally contained within one paragraph; this enables your reader to be able to instantly identify where your introduction finishes and where the main body begins. Importantly, although there is no rule for when you write your introduction, if you like to complete your introduction prior to writing the assignment, do not consider your introduction finished until you are certain that the structure makes sense. Main body The main body is where you present your main points, arguments and supporting evidence. Ensure that you follow the order from the introduction, for example the first paragraph should only contain information or an argument about the first point you mentioned, followed by the second point and so on Within the majority of assignments you complete you will be expected to show evidence that you can develop a critical argument (see the LQSU s Intuition session and supporting documents for year 1 critical thinking and analysis). Paragraphs are used as a tool to allow you to evidence your argument as logically and clearly as possible. However, it is important to avoid using paragraphs that are too small or large, as a rough guide try to keep to a third of the page as a minimum approximately three paragraphs per page. Some students have been taught that they need to keep all the information/argument around one topic contained in one large paragraph. This is not necessary at undergraduate level and can make it very difficult for your reader to remain focussed. Instead of this approach, use subparagraphs to split the paragraph and highlight key or interesting points within the topic. Whilst paragraphs are clearly an important tool for 2

3 your assessment and if used correctly can help you gain marks; they can also be ineffective if you do not show your reader how one paragraph or topic is related to the previous or the next paragraph. The danger of not doing so is that your work reads like a list. In order to avoid doing this use linking words and phrases such as Further, Interestingly, On the other hand or In line with this. This is a key skill to develop as putting your work into order and linking ideas/issues together shows clarity of thought. Main body tips Do not use complicated language that your reader will have to reach for a dictionary to understand! To avoid this it is often useful to think that, rather than writing to your marker (who is often an expert in the area), that you are writing for someone who is at the same academic level as yourself. Consider then, whether they will be able to understand what you mean. Don t use abbreviations, as they can be used in the wrong context, so for example write that is rather than i.e.. Also, make sure that you are not repeating material or saying the same thing twice or more in one sentence or paragraph your reader only needs to know once. Sometimes this happens because students use direct quotes rather than paraphrasing. For example, the direct quote is introduced, then given and then commented on (paraphrased) your marker would prefer the latter. Note, always ensure you include the original source when paraphrasing (see the LQSU s intuition session on referencing for further information). Write in the third rather than the first person unless you have been specifically asked to do so (for example: Within this essay rather than I shall ). One of the most important things to develop is using summaries when you have finished on a topic/point. These summaries should tell your marker how the material/argument that you have just developed addresses the question or learning outcome. This does not mean that you restate the learning outcome/s or the question just that you indicate to your marker that all the content in the previous section is there because you know that it is addressing them. Conclusion The job a conclusion has to do is to summarise all the important points from the main body to your reader; they should be able to read the conclusion without reading the main assignment and it should be very clear what you have found. If you have summarised these points in the main body, this should be the easiest component of your assignment. If you list these points in the order that they appeared in the main text; this provides an opportunity for you to check that your assignment is organised in a logical order; that it makes sense for the points be arranged in the order that you have presented them. However, do not just copy and paste your summaries into the conclusion, paraphrase or summarise them making it clear why these are important in relation to the question. Try to be concise when you do this as the word count for this section is limited to approximately 10% of the overall word count. At this point it is essential that you check that you have met the learning outcomes; if you have not done so then it is important that you address them in both the conclusion and amend the main body accordingly. Ensure that you have not included any new information; the conclusion should only include points that are supported with evidence and/or a clearly developed argument. One of the dangers of introducing new material into the conclusion is that this could highlight to your reader that there is another line of enquiry that makes the logic of the argument you have presented problematic or in some cases ineffective. 3

4 Similarly, avoid summarising at the end with a direct quote; this can sometimes indicate that you have missed something. Alternatively, if you do want to include an overall summary it is much more effective to use the final sentence to do this. Review It is essential that you conduct a review before you submit the assignment; this includes double checking that you have addressed the question. Consider if there are any components that lack focus and need amending to ensure that they explicitly address the question. List the main points that you have covered, check to see if you have missed anything and whether there is enough detail (will your reader be able to understand the point that you are making?). It is then important to check that you have not made any unsupported claims; have you included a logical argument or examples to support the claims that you are making? If you haven t, this will be considered as your opinion; even if your ideas are correct you are unlikely to receive marks for unsupported opinion. The last (but equally important) check should be that you have included academic support for all your claims; that you have provided an in text citation and corresponding reference in the reference list (see the LQSUs Intuition session materials on referencing for more details). Finally, before submission!! Ensure that you leave yourself enough time to check for spelling and grammar errors as these lose marks. Avoid relying on your computer spell checking programme for this; whilst it will generally recognise misspelt words it will not pick up words that are spelt correctly but are the wrong word; which could alter the context of your work. Also, it is important that you thoroughly proofread your work before you submit the assignment. However, do not just rely on yourself to do this because you may be so familiar with your work at this point that there is the possibility that as you know what you meant to put, your brain will fill in any gaps or skim over errors, which could mean that you miss them. To help you overcome this, in the School of Human and Health Sciences we have provided you with a text-to-speech programme (Serif WordRead 2) to enable you to be more effective at proofreading (see our instruction hand out for how to use this). You could also try asking another person to proofread your work for errors (but not the content) or record yourself reading the assignment out loud and listen to it back. Have a final check to ensure that you have included an in text citation for all the sources you have used and that there is a corresponding reference in the reference list. Further, check that you have included page numbers, your name and student identification number on the script. Lastly, ensure that you save your work in more than one place as the university does not accept electronic failures or losing your USB stick as a reason for late or non-submission. How to avoid academic misconduct Academic misconduct happens when students deliberately or inadvertently do not provide the source/s for their work. In universities, this is regarded as unprofessional and in some cases academic theft. Importantly, depending on the extent of the misconduct, in some disciplines (such as nursing) this can mean that the student is unable to gain the necessary registration to practice. In order to avoid this, ensure that you clearly identify when you are directly quoting from a source (see the university s referencing guide for the correct style). 4

5 Also, when paraphrasing, do not just keep the original sentence structure and change words; read the material and then put it to one side and write it in your own words do this more than once. Importantly, when you have paraphrased you must still provide the source where you have found the original material from (as these are still their ideas/research). Note, that you will not be required to change the words that are expected terminology within your discipline. To avoid inadvertently missing a source, it is useful to add the full reference to your reference list at the time that you are taking your notes and also distinguish between material which is paraphrased and direct quotes by including speech marks and the appropriate page number/s. Also, do not share your work with other students, even if you regard them as friends. This is important, as every year students are brought before the Academic Misconduct Officer in relation to cases of collusion (where more than one student submits the same piece of work). Lastly, avoid self-plagiarism; this is where students submit one piece of work (or parts of) for more than one assessment. Be particularly careful with this where you are writing about the same topic over more than one assessment. Andrea Gaynor (2013) and The Learning Quality Support Unit (LQSU) 5