6.1.2 Essay planning Carefully read the following short essay. Try to identify its strengths and weaknesses in terms of planning. Take your time, but don't think you need to be familiar with the content, you are trying to find what provides the writing's framework. Then try to answer the questions that follow in Activity 13. 6.1.1 Report planning Table 2 highlights the elements of a science or technology report, though the same general principles apply in other disciplines too. 6.1 Why plan a piece of writing? Planning is about creating a framework that will help you to make choices about what needs to be included in your assignment and what doesn't. Some people feel they don't need to plan: starting to write helps them know what it is they are going to say. If you recognise yourself here, we suggest you consider the points we raise in this section. 5.4 Identifying sources So what material do you have available to you? Your materials are likely to be your first sources of information. Any guidance notes you may have been given will sometimes tell you exactly which sections you need to look at. But don't forget that your course materials encompass more than just these texts. Make use of any handouts you've been given. Your own notes of what you have been reading or watch 5.3 Researching ‘Research’ may sound rather a grand word for what you feel you do at this point of preparation for your assignment. Don't worry: essentially all it involves is finding out more about the topic in hand. Let's use a dictionary as an example. In looking up a word, you are effectively ‘researching’ it. We tried looking up the word ‘research’ in a couple of standard dictionaries, not so much to find out what the word means, but to see if a definition might provide a useful slant 5.2.2 Opening up ideas: analysing the question What do you need to know about your assignment? Most importantly, what it's about (i.e. the topic). Once you have worked this out, you are in a better position to gauge how much you already know and how much you will need to find out. 5.2.1 When to look at the question At what stage do you look at the title of your next assignment? Note down what you think are the advantages and disadvantages of looking at the title before and after starting to work through the relevant section of your c 4.5 A different perspective If we present the list in a different way (Figure 1), you can also see that this process is not linear. It is not simply a case of beginning with an analysis of the assignment and ending with a consideration of your tutor's comments. It involves frequent revisiting of earlier stages, checking and reflecting: two steps forward, one step back. You may n 4.4 Stages in assignment writing Note down what you think the stages are that you have to go through in producing an assignment, from beginning to end. You may well ha 4.3 Essays Now let's turn to essays. Note down what you consider to be the purpose of an essay. Michel de Montaigne, a French philosopher, 4.2 Reports Let's look at reports first. Note down what you consider to be the purpose of a report. Your answer may well depend on the subje 3 The purpose of writing Let's take a step back and think about why you are writing assignments. As with most tasks, if you have an understanding of why you are doing something and how it fits into the bigger picture, it is easier to define what is required of you and therefore to do a good job. So, what do you see as the reasons for writing assignments? Here are some suggestions: to meet the assessment requirements of my course; to demonstrate my under 2.2 Developing writing styles If any of the statements on the previous page rings true, let us reassure you: many other students are feeling the same as you. Writing skills can be learned. We want to emphasise straightaway that this is a process that can be continually developed. There is no single ‘correct’ way of writing: different academic disciplines demand different styles. This can be confusing if you feel that you've mastered what is required for one course, only to find that something different is 2.1 Your feelings about writing Think for a moment about your reasons for studying this unit. Is it perhaps because you don't understand what is expected of you in your assignments, or that you aren't clear about how to improve? What are your feelings about your writing skills? What previous experience have you had (if any) of essay or report writing? 1 Good practice in writing This unit is a general guide and will introduce you to the principles of good practice that can be applied to all writing. If you work on developing these, you will have strong basic (or ‘core’) skills to apply in any writing situation. For assistance with specific aspects of any course you are to study, always refer to any guidance notes or handbooks that have been provided. This unit won't solve all your difficulties immediately; developing your writing skills is an ongoing proces Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able to: understand what writing an assignment involves; identify their strength and weaknesses; consider the functions of essays and reports; develop writing skills, whatever the stage they have reached. Introduction Most academic courses will require you to write assignments or reports, and this unit is designed to help you to develop the skills you need to write effectively for academic purposes. It contains clear instruction and a range of activities to help you to understand what is required, and to plan, structure and write your assignments or reports. You will also find out how to use feedback to develop your skills. Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit: 8.6 Research skills This kind of work teaches some very valuable skills: how to set about an enquiry how and where to find source material and information how to make your own investigations strategic planning time management cutting corners and being pragmatic analysing and interpreting primary and secondary source material forming your own conclusions< 8.5 Writing a project report Finally, you write up your project report. It is important to recognise that this will go through several drafts. You can't just sit down and write a report on this sort of scale quickly or easily. You will have gathered far too much material for that. And it may take you a little while really to get into the writing. Towards the end of the research phase, as you face up to writing proper, you may reach a kind of plateau where nothing much seems to be going on. The excitement of the pl
There are advantages to stu
Table 2 The main elements of a science or technology report
Element
Purpose
Description
title
attrac
Activity 9
Activity 8
Activity 5
Discussion
Activity 4
Discussion
Activity 3
Discussion
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