Thirty-Sixth Lesson

Techniques for working on your writing

Today we discuses about the fourth key concept of language studies that is called coherence.

Coherence

Coherence is really concerned with the overall sense of your written text. Having read aloud and checked the sense of individual words and sentences as you go, you need to find out if the whole assignment is coherent and has a clear structure which your reader will be able to recognize as they read through your work. 

Probably if you are not sure what to put in and what to leave out it is the best to err on the safe side and and put in the information that you feel is necessary to make the text coherent. Cohesion and reference are both elements of creating a coherent text. 

In general, as you move on to a complete new topic or new theme of a topic you will start a new paragraph. Paragraphs which are very short can be rather disjointed the read. Those which are very long can lose the reader in a sea of different ideas. Paragraph are there to break up the text into meaning chunks for both reader and writer. 

You may find that heading help as signposts for both you and the reader and can help to make the text coherent. You can check with your tutor if she or he likes the use of heading in written assignment. Again, our advice is to pay attention to the things that you are reading as their use varies from subject to subject.

Activity Twenty: Working on your finished assignment

Take you own finished assignment. Read it through aloud, paying attention to the issues that we have covered in this section; cohesion, reference; coherence.

• Does the finish piece of writing make sense?
• Are there any parts that you feel unsure about?
• Do you need to do any rewriting or final editing before handing in the finished piece?   

Thirty-Fifth Lesson

Techniques for working on your writing

Today we discuses about the third key concept of language studies that is called reference.

Reference

Reference is the connected with the ways in which different parts of the text refer to one another. When we are writing we often substitute different words and phrases when we talk about the same subject or topic again. 

This is how we create a sense of reference in the text. One of the more common ways of doing this is to substitute pronouns such as 'she', 'he', 'it' for the person or thing previously mentioned by name. 

Example  

'Pat is coming but she will be late'.

The concept of reference is, in a sense, what makes written texts more interesting. Instead of saying the same things again and again and adding to it, we use many different forms of reference to talk about and extend the topics that have already been mentioned. 

The following is the list of words that are commonly used to make reference to other parts of the text:

Its                                   His                                  Her 

He                                  She                                 They 

Their                              This                                That

Those                             These                                It

     

Thirty-Fourth Lesson

Techniques for working on your writing

Today we discuses about the second key concept of language studies that is called punctuation.

Punctuation

When we speak we can help the listener to understand through the use of gestures, facial expression and body language. We can also use pauses, hesitations and repetitions to add to the force of what we are saying and to make sure that the listener has understood what we are trying to communicate.

When we are writing we have to use different mechanisms to do the same work. This is where punctuation comes in. It allows us to divide up our ideas into manageable chunks so that the reader understands what we are trying to say.

The most commonly used punctuation marks which students have difficulties with are full stop, commas, colons, semicolons, and apostrophes. Last time we discuss only two of them such as full stop and commas and today we discuss remaining punctuation.

Semicolons:

Semicolons have two common uses. First, they are used to separate items in a list after a colon. Second, they can indicate a particular kind of relationship and connection between two parts of a sentence. They are useful to use when the second part of the sentence is still integrally related to the first; in such as case the use of a full stop would appear too final. At the same time, if you use a semicolon you are indicating a more important break within a sentence than you would if you just used a comma. A semicolon can also be used instead of 'and' when you are connecting two parts of sentence.

Colons:

Traditionally, the colon is used within sentence when the second part of the sentence expands upon the first. Another use of the colon is to introduce a list and the items in the list are then separated by semicolons. Colons are used to introduce a separate part of s text such as a short quote.

Apostrophe:

One of the most common confusions that students experience with apostrophes is the distinction between "its" and "it's". This causes a lot of difficulties for the students because the two forms look so similar but actually have completely different meanings. It's is a contraction of 'it is'. Instead pf writing 'it is' in full the 'i' of is omitted and and apostrophe used in its place. Contraction are common in English and replace parts of the verbs 'to be' and 'to have' which have been omitted.        

Thirty-Third Lesson

Techniques for working on your writing

Today we discuses about the second key concept of language studies that is called punctuation.

Punctuation

When we speak we can help the listener to understand through the use of gestures, facial expression and body language. We can also use pauses, hesitations and repetitions to add to the force of what we are saying and to make sure that the listener has understood what we are trying to communicate.

When we are writing we have to use different mechanisms to do the same work. This is where punctuation comes in. It allows us to divide up our ideas into manageable chunks so that the reader understands what we are trying to say.

The most commonly used punctuation marks which students have difficulties with are full stop, commas, colons, semicolons, and apostrophes. Today we discuss only two of them such as full stop and commas.

Full Stop

Full stops signal the end of a sentence. They indicate that the writer has completed one complete thought or idea. A full stop can come at the end of a simple or a complex sentence.

Example:

She did not want to begin the piece of work until she had finished reading her book. 

Commas

Using commas effectively can be quite difficult. Students often feel confused about where to put commas in their writing. One of the reason for this is that conventions for their use very depending on the writer and the context. If you are beginning to write for a new subject you may find it easier if you use shorter sentence to begin with. This can make it easier to order your ideas and therefore to use commas more effectively.

Example:

The strange, distributing, eerie silence was interrupted by a ghostly scream. 

Thirty-Second Lesson

Techniques for working on your writing

We are going to concentrate on examining four key concepts for language studies to help you work on your own writing: cohesion, punctuation, reference and coherence. Note that reference in this context is not the same as reference sources. Today we discuss only one concept that is cohesion. 

Cohesion

Cohesion is concerned with the way in which parts of written texts fit together to make a whole rather than a series of disconnected bits. This is particularly important when you are writing an assignment, and you need to pay attention to the connecting devices that you use. These devices connect the ideas in one sentence to the previous sentence and to the following sentence. 

They also connect the smaller parts of the sentence together, the phrases and clauses. In the same way, they connect paragraphs to each other. The connecting devise help to carry your argument along and lend structure to your writing, so that the reader finds it easier to understand. 

You can think about cohesion in your writing at different levels, in terms of connections between topics; themes; words and phrases, as in the example below regarding connecting words and phrases:

Connecting words and phrases

Then                                                                              Firstly, Secondly

However                                                                        In contrast

Despite                                                                          In addition

Consequently                                                                An example of

Nevertheless                                                                 Similarly

Therefore                                                                      Clearly

Yet                                                                                 But

Although                                                                       And

Because                                                                        As a result

Since

Activity Nineteen: Checking for cohesion  

Take a piece of your own written work. Read the text aloud. Pause at the end of each sentence. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the sentence make complete sense?
• Does it relate to the sentence which went before? How?
• Does it relates to the sentence which follows? How?
• Are too many ideas embedded in one sentence?
• How are the paragraphs related to each other?
• Does each paragraph introduce a new theme?
• How are new ideas introduced?
• Do they relate to the other parts of the text?
• Look out for the connecting devices.  

    

Thirty-First Lesson

Grammar and Punctuation

Until now we have not made a specific point of talking about grammar and punctuation in your written work. In our experience academic staff some-times focus too much on these particular concepts when they are talking about problems with writing, and students themselves often panic about their own feelings of insecurity in this area and lack confidence writing in formal written English style. 

Consequently, we have waited until later in the book to start talking about checking your work for grammatical difficulties and misleading punctuation. We hope that, if you have worked through the book, by this stage you will feel more confident about yourself as a university writer and are less likely to see that the problems you have with writing are primarily connected with grammar and punctuation. 

Although you may think that you do not know about the rules of grammar, everybody who speaks or writes a language intuitively knows the rules of grammar of that language. You may, in fact, speak a number of different languages or dialects in addition to the formal English styles that you are most likely to use for your writing for university. 

In this case, you will be a competent user of a number of different grammars. What you may not know is how to describe the rules of these grammars explicitly, using the specific words that linguists and others use to describe the constituent parts of a sentence. What we hope to do in this section is to draw on your intuitive grammatical knowledge to help you to check your own work.         

Thirtieth Lesson

Editing your work as an outsider

When you are going to edit your work you can look the answers of following list of questions while editing your work. 

• Does the editing in particular, as well as the piece as a whole, answer the question that has been set?

• Is there a sense of a satisfy editing?

• Does the introduction seem helpful as a signpost to the whole piece?

• Can you understand what you written? If not, can you see why? Does the use of subject terminology seem clear and confident? 

• Why is the particular bit of information in the piece? What work is it doing for expressing the ideas of the assignment? 

• Does the whole piece hang together? 

• Do points --- both within and beyond paragraphs --- seem to follow logically?  

• Is there a sense of an argument developing?

• Does the piece of work raise any questions that it does not answer?

• Does the piece of work have a central idea? Is this idea apparent for the reader or do you have to search for it? Is it clear enough for you for restate in a different way?  

Twenty-Ninth Lesson

Reviewing your work: redrafting and editing

We are linking the terms 'redrafting' and 'editing' in this lesson although, in practice, they are usually thought of as rather different activities. It is usually assumed that redrafting take place at an earlier stage than editing and that it may involve a more comprehensive rewrite. 

A first draft could be a piece of non-stop practice writing in which you quickly write as much as you can of your whole assignment. You then write it, and this may involve a lot of change. One way of thinking about the difference between redrafting and editing is that redrafting is usually done by the writer them self when they work towards getting down what they really think they want to say. This may take place through out the writing process, especially if you are using a computer, which make it very easy to redraft as you write. Some professional writers say that they redraft many times before they are satisfied. 

Editing may be seen more as a matter of checking over the organization and style of your work, although you may wish to deal with some content matters at this stage too. It takes place from the perspective of an outsider, even if this outsider is the writer himself. Professional academic writers, offering a paper for ab academic journal, have their work read by several referees on behalf of the editor. These readers count as knowledgeable peers and help determine whether or not the article will be published, if so, what amendments might be useful. 

     

Twenty-Eighth Lesson

Writing the conclusion

The conclusion of a piece of writing is your last opportunity to brings together what you have been saying in a form that will tell your reader, 'Thus is really where all that I have been leading; this is what I want you, the reader, to think at the end of my essay'. 

This final statement must arise out of the piece of writing itself. One piece of advice that writing advisers give is that you don't introduce new information in the conclusion. However, one exception to this is that you might point the way to further work that your piece could lead to.   

We have just suggested that you consider writing your introduction last. Now we are also suggesting that it can be useful to draft your conclusion at an early stage in your writing. This can give you a sense of direction, helping you clearly where you are heading and what you have to do in your easy in order to get your reader to your final point. 

What the conclusion may do

• Refer back to the question posted in the title and show that it has been answered. 

• Give a sense of the ending.

• Point out what the assignment has and has not answered. 

• Show that the writer has done what they proposed to do. 

• Put forward the writer's point of view in the light of the evidence they have presented.

• Allow the writer to be positive about the ideas in the assignment. 

• Point the reader forward to a new related idea.

• Summarize the answers to the questions the assignment set out to address, signalled in the introduction. 

Activity Eighteen: Investigating conclusion

Look for some conclusions in your own work or in any reading you are doing. Check them against the above list. What are these conclusion doing? Do they work well to sum up for the reader the message of the text?  

Twenty-Seventh Lesson

What the introduction may do

• Give an overview of what the piece will be about.

• Present the central idea of the assignment.

• Give reason for writing this piece.

• Explain how the title will be interpreted.

• Give reason for answering a question in a particular way.

• Make a bold statement that the rest of the essay will fill out and justify.

• Convey the writer's own relationship both to the material of the assignment and to the reader, and a sense of their own voice in the assignment.

• Present a concrete example or story which the piece will explain or elaborate upon.  

• Relate the assignment to other work in the same field. 

• Quote from somewhere else in order to interest the reader and give a feel for what the whole essay is about. 

• Give the background of the main topic of the essay; the history and/or the context. 

• Introduce the questions the essay will be dressing. 

Activity Seventeen: Investigating introduction

look at the introduction to two articles in your subject area. Where does each introduction end? What work is it doing? Which of the functions in the above list apply to them?

Twenty-Sixth Lesson

Writing the introduction

In university writing you will be expected to provide some kind of introduction to your assignment. It may seem strange to tackle the introduction at such a late stage. The reason for including here is that in practice yo can only finalize the introduction once you have written the whole assignment and expect for a final review, have got it into the shape that you find acceptable. 

Advise on university writing always stresses the importance of the introduction, and sometime the introduction is prescribed quite specifically. For example, the following is a common formula:

•  Introduction: Tell the reader what you are going to do in the easy.

• Main body: Present your argument

• Conclusion: Say how you have done what you promised in the introduction and bring every thing together.

In practice, there are many different ways of introducing and concluding a piece of work, depending on the subject, the task and the length of your assignment. On the whole, the longer the work the longer the introduction. 

Reader does need to know where the easy will take them, the exact form of introduction will vary according to the particular conventions of the subject as well as any particular requirements of an individual assignment.    

Twenty-Fifth Lesson

From the personal to the academic

On way of thinking about the specificity of academic writing is to compare it with what we can broadly term 'personal' writing, where the writer obviously at its center and there seems to be clear relationship between what is written and writer. 

Then you can think of writing for university as shift from a personal to an academic way of thinking and writing, involving shifts in the writer's sense of 'I' in their writing in specific way.

The following activity is linked to the work you did on the difference between an auto-biographical and an academic text in previous activity, but the focus in different; here we are asking you to consider things from the perspective of yourself, the writer, rather than yourself the reader, and, in particular, to think about your identity and position within your own different kinds of writing.

Activity Seventeen: Writing from a personal perspective

Identify an event in your childhood that was important to you. When you have decided on this, write one or two paragraphs about it. Imagine that you are writing for a friendly fellow student or tutor. 

When you have finished, read over what you have written and not how often you have used 'I'. Can you say from this piece what the 'I' character is liked and what he or she seems to be doing in the account?

Does the 'I' character seem to identify with the child or an adult looking on the child? 

Can you identify features of the writing that show that it is 'personal'?

     

Twenty-Fourth Lesson

Using 'I' in your assignment

Students are often puzzled as to whether they can use the first person in their university assignments. The question is closely related to the large question of your relationship to your material, and your sense of your identity as the writer of the assignment. 

There may be a wide range of reasons for the use of the first person in a piece of writing. For example, you might want to signal that the ideas your are presenting are not definitive. It might be that you want to write about your personal opinion at some points and you want separate this from some other parts of the assignment where you do not use 'I'.

Often writer use 'I' in their introduction to establish their place in relation to their material, and then go on to present the material itself in a more distanced fashion Above all the use of 'I' can establish a sense of relation between writer and reader and between the writer and their material. 

In the following activity we ask you to investigate writers' use-or non-use- of the first person by looking at the some course material.

Activity Sixteen: The use of 'I' in course materials

Check some of the books or course materials you have to hand to see whether they use 'I' and, if so, where they use it and what the reason might be. Think about what effect the use or non-use of 'I' has on the relationship between the reader and writer.     

Twenty-Third Lesson

Using your sources creatively

In this section, we are going to spend some more time thinking about how you might use your different sources in order to integrate the voice of all different authors and writers that you are drawing on when composing your own writing. 

On of the challenges you face as a student writer is finding a way to integrate the source you are drawing on in your own work, and using them effectively to build your own argument without using too many direct quotations from the authors you are using.

A helpful tool in this process of integration is to pay attention to the range of linking words you can use to make a connection in your argument between your ideas and those of the authors you are drawing from. The following activity should help you to do this.   

Activity Fifteen: How you introduce your sources

Look at an example of on of your own assignments. Make a list of some of the words and phrases you have used which signal the shift back and forth between your words and the words of your source author. 

Now take a article you have read or on you need to read for a forthcoming assignment. Use word and phrases the author has used to add to your original list. 

These are some of the ones on our list:

• Discusses
• Points out
• Illustrate
• Claims
• Shows
• Argues
• Provides evidence 
• Says
• Proposes
• Suggests
• Asserts 
• Assumes  

Twenty-Second Lesson

Thinking about plagiarism

In this section we are going to explore some of the more vexing questions around the plagiarism including:

• What is plagiarism?
• How might you plagiarize inadvertently?
• Are there any situations in which you do not have to cite your source?   

When you hand in your assignment the tutor will make the assumption that this is your work. this might seem self-evident and you might even be required to sign a form for verification, particularly if this piece of work is going to count towards your degree. By identifying yourself as the author you are by default laying claim to ownership of that piece of writing. If you don't identify your sources then you lay yourself open to the charge of plagiarism.    

Activity Fourteen: Which of the following would you regard as plagiarism

• Using a direct quote without making the source clear.

• Paraphrasing or Summarising what you have read and not indicating the citation to the original source of your ideas.   

• Cutting from a source document and pasting it into your own work without making citation to the original source.  

• Changing a few words around in the original source and then using it in your work without indicating where the idea came from.

Twenty-First Lesson

Referencing other sources

With the increasing range of sources now being drawn upon by both academics and students in their writing we cannot be definitive hare about how to reference every kind of source that you are likely to be referencing in your work.

As we mentioned already there are a range of online university sites available via the internet which deals extensively with citation and referencing. It is worth spending some time exploring these and next activity should help you to do this.

Activity Thirteen: Learning about citation

Search the internet for relevant websites which give guidance on citation and referencing for university writing. Choose three different websites. On each one follow the relevant links to find out about citing reports. 

Compare the differences and similarities between the advice given on each different site. Now make a record of the key elements that you think should be present when citing reports and in what order they should generally appear. 

When we did this task we found the key elements, which frequently appeared in this order that are mentioned below:

• Author(s) name(s)
• Date
• Title of report
• Name of institution
• Web page
• Volume and numbering  

Twentieth Lesson

Referencing systems

There are two main referencing systems in use in university. One of these uses a number system in the text with notes at the end of the chapter or article; this system often also uses extensive footnoting, and a bibliography is included of works that have been used during the writing of the text. 

The alternative system that we illustrate bellow is called the Harvard system; its use is widespread across many different academic fields of study. In this system, the author's name and the date of publication are given in parentheses in the text and refer to a section at the end of the publication, headed 'references', which in turn contains details of all the published works that have been referenced. The Harvard system look like this:

References

Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and social change. London: Polity Press.

Heath, S.B. (1982) What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and at school, Language in Society, 11(1): 49-76. 

Referencing websites

Although there are still no universal procedures for referencing the web pages, there are some general conventions you need to follow in order to inform anybody reading your work where your ideas came from. You need to provide:

• The name of the website
• The URL
• The date the page was last updated
• The date the website was retrieved  

 Example:

Harasim, L. (2001) Shift happens: online education as a new paradigm in learning, The Internet and Higher Education, 3(1), retrieved 31 July 2002. http://virtualu.cs.sfu.ca/vuweb.newe/papers/harasim_ihe_nov00.pdf.   

Nineteenth Lesson

Making good use of you sources 

Today we look at the different resources that you might be using in your university writing. Whatever course you are studying and whatever the level of study, you are likely to find yourself drawing from a wide range of sources in writing your assignments.  

In this lesson we consider the range of sources that you may be using and how to reference these in your assignments; we then go on to discuss plagiarism and how understand more about using your sources not only helps you to avoid plagiarism but can also help you to develop your own voice in your writing. 

Our first task is designed to help you to consider the range of different sources you might use in writing your assignments. 

Activity Twelve 

Take an example of one or two of your own writing assignments. Now make a list of all the different types of sources you have used in these assignments 

Do you know how to cite these different sources in your assignment writing? 

These are the some of the sources that we have seen students and academics using. How many of these of you listed?

• Books
• Articles
• Book chapters
• Government reports
• Newspaper reports
• Internet sources
• Online journal
• Website of organizations and private individuals
• Blogs
• Lectures 

Eighteenth Lesson

Making an argument by anticipating questions and objections

Our useful way of thinking about argument is in terms of having a conversation with your imagined reader. This conversation might be in terms of a dialogue, for example a series of responses to questions or objections that a reader could make

Activity Eleven:

Now apply this idea to the paragraph below by considering possible questions, objections and counter arguments from an imaginary reader.

Paragraph

An alternative feminist approach suggest that women may stay in violent relationship even when they are not weak. For these women a constituent of being a woman involves being there for their men and being able to maintain a relationship despite obstacles. These women tried to understand their violent partners and felt duty bound to cope the best way they could. For them walking out would have been an admission of failure.


Read the paragraph note down any questions or objections each sentence raises for you as you read and also consider the objections and questions of others that make you clear about your work how being others comment and object on your work.        

Seventeenth Lesson

Making an argument and persuading your reader

Your reader

Throughout this book we have thought about your reader as the actual person who will be reading your work: usually your tutor but sometimes another student. Your tutor is usually the person who will be marking your work and who also helps you to develop your ideas and improve your writing.

Your fellow student is someone who will be helping you to make your work clearer. Both of the readers should be interested in what you have say. In addition, we also talk about you yourself as the reader of your own work.   

What does argument mean

Argument is quite different term when applied to student writing because it is used in many different ways. Sometimes a good argument and a good structure mean the same thing. On the other hand, you can have a good structure in piece of writing without it strictly being an argument. Students who enjoy writing learning journals find that they are often more interested in raising questions, or playing with a range of different ideas than committing themselves to a particular point of view. 

Much of a student's work involves analysing different points of view or interpretations before they can think about making their argument. Sometimes getting a good argument as tutors see it, can be more or less equated with thinking critically: taking a questioning approach and thinking about Why or What? and going beyond the surface of what is described. 

Sixteenth Lesson

Organizing and shaping your writing

Some structure used in university writing

Here are seven examples of some structures commonly used in university writing, in last lesson we discussed three of them and in this lesson we discuss remaining four.

4- Compare/contrast writing

This is a very common structure. It shows the similarities and differences between two things and, in the process, it tells you more about each of them. One common feature of university writing is that the things may well be quite abstract or intangible - for example, two different social policies of two different psychological theories. You can handle the compare/contrast structure by moving back and forth between both things or by discussing each in turn.

5- Summary writing

You will sometimes be asked to write a summary and to give the gist of what an article or book is about as an exercise in its own right. You may also have to write briefly about what someone says, or about a particular position or way of thinking a part of your assignment. This is necessary because a lot of university writing is specifically about discussing what other authors have said about a topic. In the case, you will need to refer to just those points and ideas that are relevant to your particular assignment.     

6- Analysis writing

This is the most difficult kind of writing to explain because analysis is a term that is frequently used by the university tutors in different ways. It always demands that you say more about, for instance, what you are describing or comparing. Strictly analysis means breaking things down into their constituent parts, and this idea comes from science. This taught can be helpful in understanding what you need to do in any analytical writing.

7- Evaluating writing

In evaluating writing you have to make some sort of judgment, often about what other writers are saying. This is different from the kind of judgment you might make in daily life, for example, "That was a good film". You have to evaluate different positions, perspectives or points of view. You have to do more than say, for example, "This is a false argument". You have to give reasons for your judgment. Evaluating may involve writing about how different positions suggest certain attitudes or omit some crucial information, weighing up one against the other.       

Fifteenth Lesson

Organizing and shaping your writing

Some structure used in university writing

Now let us consider the shape of work from a different angle by looking at some ways of organizing material into different kinds of structure that are commonly used in university writing. Here are seven examples of some structures commonly used in university writing in this lesson we discuss three of them. 

1. Chronology writing 

      This structure follows time with a sense of the sequence of events, one following another. You relate or recount what happened. This may naturally, often be used in history. Chronology can be expressed visually as a timeline which shows the sequence of events during a certain period as a calendar does. A similar structure may be used to tell the plot of a novel or film. Chronology writing might well appear at the beginning of an assignment, to give the background to the rest of the piece.

   

     2. Description writing

       Description usually needs to be followed by or linked to explanation. The visual way to represent description may be as a diagram, with labelled parts as in biology. However, if we are describing something more abstract - for example, the characteristics of the twentieth-century family then a spider diagram may be a good way to build up our thinking.

     3. Cause-effect writing

        In practice you will not get far in recounting what happened without bringing in cause and effect, which relate events to each other. Take a simple example; the king died; the people rejoiced. For this to make sense we need to know why the people rejoiced. However, the idea of a straight correlation between two events - that something is caused by something else is often seen as a bit simplistic. 

    

                       

Fourteenth Lesson

Organizing and shaping your writing

Getting the assignment into shape

We are assuming that you have already done a lot of work for your assignment. 

• You have worked on the title and have begun to get a sense of where you will be going, and of your argument. you have gathered together a good deal of information from books, lectures and other relevant sources. 

• You have done various kinds of preparatory writing. 

• You may have made some kind of plan and have done pieces of various kinds of writing towards the assignment. 

• But now, probably with the deadline looming, you wonder how you are going to get it into shape as a finished product to hand in to your tutor. 

It is true that this can be a very difficult point for the writer. It is an important to realize that planning and shaping your writing happen at different phases in the writing process and in different ways. 

• You continually move back and forth between planning and thinking, as you think new thoughts and write down 'old' ones. 

• As you think and gather information you are also planning and writing bits as you go. 

• Sometimes, you may find that you have gone in a slightly different direction from the one you had planned so that now you need to revisit material you have already looked at, or even find some new information. 

• At some point you simple need to make the best of what you have got and just finish this particular piece of work.       

Thirteenth Lesson

Reading as the part of writing

Reading and note taking

One way of approaching a new piece of reading is to break it down into manageable chunks and try to assimilate things bit by bit. There is close correlation here between your reading and your note taking, and this feeds directly into your writing. 

Making mind maps from reading

Some people find that making linear notes from reading does not always work very well for them and they prefer to create a mind map as more visual representation. This helps them remember what they have read because they can visualize the different notes that they have made and the ways that they relate to one another. 

Keep records

One good way of recording your references as you go along is to use record cards. On these you can put referencing information that you need about a book or article that you have read. You can also record brief notes on why you found it useful, you can refer to important page numbers and even record complete quotes if they seem relevant to you.

Making meaning through reading

It is you, the reader, who makes sense of what you read and the meaning that you will be able to make depends to some extent on how you are reading. We are concerned with the latter kind of reading in the two tasks that is as follow:

'Fitting together' reading

Approaching your reading so that everything that you are reading and studying fits together helps you to focus on your ideas, and both to synthesize and elaborate them.

'Analytic' reading

This is less concerned with reading to fit together with what you know already than with the analysing what you are reading as you go long. Again, this is an integral part of the strategy that you will need to adopt to read successfully for your writing.  

Twelve Lesson

Reading as a part of writing

Working with your reading

There seem to be two major difficulties that students have when they are reading academic books and materials. One is struggling with the ways in which things are written. The other is the length of time that things can take to read. 

Many students express surprise at the need to make repeated readings of the same material. Academics themselves find it necessary to 'repeat-read' articles and books. 

The following activity is designed to help you to see the differences between types of text and identify what you might find particularly hard work about an academic text that you have to read. 

Activity Ten: Thinking about reading

Thinking about what kinds of things you normally read ( novel, reports, news-papers, magazines). First, choose a type of reading that is most familiar to you. Second, choose a book or article that you are having to read at the moment for your study. You are going to think about the contrast between these two pieces of text. Take a blank piece of paper and divide it in half. On one side of the paper put the title of the familiar kind of reading, for example a novel; on the other side of the paper put the title of the academic text. 

Now make a list of some of the ways in which you think the two texts appear to be different from one another.        

Eleventh Lesson

Reading as the part of writing

Reading is an integral part of the whole writing process. There are different important points regarding reading a good material that is relevant to you writing. One of them is "Choosing your reading for an assignment".

Choosing your reading for an assignment

The initial stumbling block that most students face is choosing their reading. The first thing to do is to consult the reading list for books and article that seem relevant to your particular assignment. Doing a library research, by keywords or subject, is also useful if the references on your reading list are already on loan from the library.

Once you have got a few references you need to be able to decide which will be the most useful to you. As this stage it is important that you pay particular attention to the signposting in the book; this will tell you how the book deals with subject matter that is relevant to your assignment.

Starting with the index, look up relevant words and subject areas until you find the parts of the book that seem most important. Do not choose the book if it does not seem to be appropriate to your assignment. 

Following are the important points that must be follow by the student regarding searching relevant materials for the assignment. 

Getting hold of publications

Use your reading list
Ask your tutor
Note down other up-to-date references that tutor mention in the lecture
Ask other students on your course
Use library search

Checking a publication for relevance

Check the title
Check the index
Turn to relevant chapter
Check headings
Check introduction
Read a short section to get the feel of its usefulness for you
Check conclusion
Does it seem relevant to the assignment question?

Photocopying

Use highlighters and different coloured pens to mark your own copy
Make your notes and annotations on the copy.

Tenth Lesson

Reading as the part of writing

Reading is an integral part of the whole writing process. There are different important points regarding reading a good material that is relevant to you writing. One of them is Approaching reading.

Approaching reading

With academic writing, it is necessary to maintain a constant grip on what the another is saying. The list below gives you a few a ideas about what may be important, but you will probably want to add to it or modify it to decide what would be the best for you.

• Try to set aside reading time when you will not be interrupted. 

• Try to find a physical environment that is conducive to reading: perhaps at home or may be in the university library.

• Make sure before you start reading, that you have all the things you might want to use for taking notes and highlighting: A4 Paper, index cards, different coloured pens perhaps a laptop computer.

• Make sure that you are comfortable and can write notes from your reading without feeling cramped.

• Take frequent short breaks and during this time try to digest what you have read.

• Don't except to be able to make any useful sense of your reading if you are tired, stressed or constantly interrupted. 

Ninth Lesson

Beginning with the title

There are two ways to find out a suitable title for your study.

a) Keywords

b) Analysing the assignment

Today, our focus on the Second way to find out a suitable title that is analysing the assignment.

b) Analysing the assignment

The following five points outline a method for analysing your own writing tasks, beginnings with the title.

1- Write down in your own words what you think the assignment is asking you to do.

The purpose of this exercise is to get you to consider the question in your own words and through your own ways of expressing things, using language that feels comfortable and familiar to you.

2- What do you already know about the subject matter of the assignment?

Once you began to analyze the question you can start to relate your analysis to what you already know about the subject matter.

3- What do you need to know to help you complete this assignment successfully?

This might seem a strange question but you will find that this question does help you to begin to focus on the gaps in your knowledge.

4- How do you think this assignment differs from or is similar to other assignments that you are working on at the moment? 

Each assignment title needs its own analysis and of course, as you become more proficient in writing at university, you will become much quicker at unpacking each title and piece of written work. 

5- How are you going to choose your reading material? 

Choosing what you need to read is an important part of the process of writing an assignment. Choose a book that you consider is best according to your own work.   
 

Eighth Lesson

Beginning with the title

There are two ways to find out a suitable title for your study.

a) Keywords

b) Analysing the assignment

Today, our focus only on the first way to find out a suitable title that is keywords.

a) Keywords

One way that students are often taught to approach a new title is to pick out the keywords and work with these to understand how they should approach the assignment.

With the keywords approach you pick out what seem to be the important parts of the question and ignored the linking words.

The focus is on leaving out less important linking words and piking out both the content keywords that can help to understand "what the assignment is about" and also can help to find out appropriate title to your assignment.

Some academic keywords are mentioned in list below:

Discuss
Explain
Compare and contrast
Describe
Analyse
Illustrate
Evaluate
Outline
Critically examined
Assess

Activity Eight: Identifying academic keywords

Look at the list above. Look over some of the questions for written assignment in your course.

• Do they use any of these words?
• Why do you think the lecturer has used a particular academic keyword rather than another?
• Write down your own ideas about what the academic keywords mean (do not use dictionary definitions).   

Seventh Lesson

The 'building block' approach to writing

• Writing assignment is about finding the right building blocks each time and putting them together in a coherent order. 

• In the same way that using the same raw materials is unlikely to result in two identical buildings, even if you use the same sources and answer the same question, no two assignment will ever be exactly the same.

• Using 'building block' is a metaphorical way of thinking about writing, which we hope will be helpful to you when you come to a new assignment.

• As you approach each new assignment, you, the writer, are the 'apprentice' but your tutor is more likely to be an 'experienced builder'. Your tutor will be able to tell you where you went wrong with your writing. 

• As the writer you have to be able to identify the building blocks and put them together in a way that make sense.  

• Brainstorming is a useful technique to use to now identify the building blocks, the different parts of your assignment.   

Sixth Lesson

The key element of university writing

Following are the key elements that should be exist in your university writing.

• Developing an argument

• Linking theory and evidence

• Drawing a conclusion

• Analysing

• Being critical

• Developing a central idea

• Processing information

• Incorporating facts

• Correct terminology

• Logical order

• Use of evidence to support an argument

• Use of primary texts

• Use of quotations

• Drawing on personal experiences

• Expressing own opinions

• Using personal interpretations

Activity Seven: Looking for key elements

Choose an assignment that you are working on at the moment. Work through the above list and consider key elements are likely yo apply to this particular assignment.  

Fifth Lesson

Now we are elaborating the third method of beginning to write:

Brainstorming

The next method that we look at for getting started on as assignment uses note form rather than the continuous prose of practice writing.

•  The idea of brainstorming your ideas is that you simply note down as many ideas as possible about a topic, in words or phrases. 

• Later you will select and throw out some items. you can do task as a list, but many people like to begin to arrange their brainstorming ideas spatially, which helps them to see how they relate to each other.  

• It can therefore be a good idea to use a blank piece of paper so that you can arrange your jottings where you like the page as you think of them. 

• This technique has now become very familiar and helps to select the appropriate ideas for your academic writing.  

As  in practice writing exercise, use your own topic for the following activity if you prefer.

Activity Five: Brainstorming for writing

Take the topic "The family in your country today". Write down as many points about this topic as you can, using single words or phrases. You may find it useful to arrange your ideas spatially on your page, to give you an idea of how they begin to group together. 

Now compare the brainstorming ideas that you have noted with the list below. Can you think about where your own ideas have come from?

The family in your own country today

• Parents
• Different cultures
• High rate of divorce
• Family values
• Are families in decline? 
• New kind of family emerging   
• Families religion 

Fourth Lesson

Now we are elaborating the second method of beginning to write:

Practice writing

When you are first trying to get into the method of a new kind of writing it can be very useful to make yourself to write as much as you can about a topic, as a way of getting your ideas into some kind of external form, and in the process discovering what these ideas are. since you are simply practising writing at this stage, we call this 'practice writing'.

The essential idea of this method is that it doesn't matter what the writing is like because the only reader, unless you choose otherwise, will be yourself. It doesn't matter weather it is well written, or even whether it makes sense; the point is to keep doing it.

One thing that makes writing difficult is that we are inclined to be critical of what we are writing as we do it and to try to make the writing good and correct from the beginning. If you are writing something that you find easy, where you know more or less what you want to say, this may work, and you might possible end up with a piece of writing that you can use straight away.

An important purpose of practise writing is that it separates the first thinking part of writing from the critical editing part. In addition, practise writing is an easy way of making yourself do plenty of writing. Next activity is regarding the practise writing is given below:


Activity Four: Practice writing for University

Set a timer for five minutes, then just write as much as you can on "The family in your country today". Start from any point of view you like.

When you have finished, read through what you have written. What do you think of it?

Identify what you have written about and think about why.

Have you written in complete sentences? Do you pursue one thought or jump about?

Did this exercise work for you? Are there any surprises in what you have done? 

Third Lesson

Getting started

We acknowledge that university writing can be difficult but believe that there are ways of approaching it that will build up your confidence and develop your competence. There are three well-known methods for beginning to write:

• Bridging a gap

• Practice writing  

• Brainstorming          

Today we are going to elaborate only first method that is bridging a gap:

Bridging a gap:

When you come to write at university you may find that there is a gap that you have to bridge. On one side there is you, with your background, sense of identity and ideas about the world, and on the other there is the subject you have to write about, based on academic disciplines. 

This can open up interesting new ways of seeing and understanding for you but it can also present problems of how to behave, and how to speak and write. So, the way is read as much as you can. The more you read the more you bridging the gap between what you came with and a different way of thinking and speaking.

In addition, familiar words are used differently and new terms are invented. Different uses of words indicate different ways of thinking about and viewing the world, thus it is important that you learn the new terms and meanings and that you are able to use them in your writing. The next activity will help you with this.

Activity Three: Make a glossary of terms

Take a subject that you are studying. Choose a few terms that are commonly used in it. Use your own words to try to pin down that the terms means for you. Pay attention on unfamiliar terms in the extracts and main body of the book. Use your computer to put together a glossary of terms, editing it as you learn more about the terms you have included. Print it off regularly so that you can use the hard copy for reference.    

    

Second Lesson

1- Types of Writing

• Writing consists of words and these words are put together in particular formations to make sentences. sentences are the grouped together into paragraphs.    

• In some ways we can see all writing as being the same. However, it is quite possible to communicate what we need to say in writing with an incomplete sentence. For example:          

          dinner in the oven

          three copies please

         

         As long as they were in the know, and the context was familiar, people would easily understand these simple messages, but they do not consist of complete sentence. Neither phrase contain a main verb. If we wanted to turn these into formal standard English we would have to say something like:

        your dinner is in the oven.

        Please would you make three photocopies of this article as soon as you can. 

        In these examples 'is' and 'make' are the main verbs of the sentences. So, when we write email  or letters to friends we often use informal style and leave out words but when we write something for academic purpose, must use the main verb and complete sentences. 

2- Talking for writing

• We have said already that working and share ideas with others can help you to develop and enjoy your writing.        

• Talking about ideas and material from the subject you are studying is always good way of learning the subject.  

• In talking around a subject you can also raise and explore your own questions, clarify your understanding and discover a variety of other ways of seeing a topic.  

For incorporate above mentioned tips, you should practice activity two:

Activity Two: Speaking and writing

Work in pairs, think about an assignment that you are having difficulty with at the moment. Record yourself (not more than ten minutes) having a conversation with your friends about the problems. 

When you have finished, both of you should write about the things that came out in your conversation on the paper. Discuss your writing with your friend. Listen the recording again and check what you have written a fair reflection of the conversation.   

First Lesson

The purpose of this blog is to help you to think of yourself as a writer, and to understand the ways in which you may need to adopt what you already know and do in writing.

Tips regarding write up improvement

1.  Reading

• One good way of increasing your own command of standard English is to read articles in the broadsheet newspapers. Articles about issues are more useful in this respect than reading the reported stories. 

•  In general, reading is a very good way of broadening your own knowledge of different forms of writing as well as being essential for writing your university assignments.

     2.  Working with others

• We should also emphasize the value of working with others on your writing. When you are working with other, there are many parts of the writing process where it is enormously useful to get ideas and feedback form others.

• Many professional academic writers make use of 'critical friend' to read drafts or talk though ideas.

• We are not suggesting that you co-write an assignment, just that you find a critical reader to explore and perhaps provide feedback on what you may be doing. 

     3. You as a writer 

• How do you think of yourself as a writer? You may feel more or less confident about writing, whatever your background, you will have already experienced many different forms of writing. 

• Whenever puzzling over the assignment title in front of you, gathering your thoughts and ideas together, and incorporating what you have read about the subject into your work.

For incorporate above mentioned technique, you should practice this first activity.

  Activity One: Writing your own linguistic history 

Think, and write down as much as you can, about your own personal linguistic history,the ways in which you have written, read and spoken in your life. 

you must think these three important things before writing...

• The purpose ----- why you are writing?
• The audience ----- who are you writing? 
• The types of writing----how would you describe the writing?

Purpose of blog

This blog is for new learners about academic writing. I will share various tips of writing with reference of different books and also welcome your school of thoughts about different writing skills.

I will start it with the book written by "Phyllis Creme and Mary R. Lea". The title of the book is "Writing at University" recommended by my supervisor Dr. Muhammad Muhaizam Musa. I really appreciate his efforts of knowledge sharing at different forums. I am one of the branches of this knowledge sharing tree.