Writing Tips

Writing Tips Regardless of the topic or the task, it is very important to understand and analyse the assignment question before embarking on any assignment writing exercise. A clear interpretation of the question and a well-structured plan are essential. This may involve discussing your questions, needs and concerns with your tutor, lecturer or subject coordinator to clarify the assignment question or by speaking to a HELPS Advisor. Creating a diagram or outline allows you to put pen to paper and start organizing your ideas. Don't worry or agonize over organization at this point, just create a moderately organized format for your information. As you progress through school, you'll be required to write essays. And the farther along in school you get, the more complex and demanding the essays will become. It's important that you learn early on how to write effective essays that communicate clearly and accomplish specific objectives. If you feel that you need more help in writing an assignment - then you can get free help at the HELPS unit. We’re located in building 1 level 3 room 8, just across from the Concourse café and the Careers Office. Please feel free to come and visit us and chat to an Advisor about receiving academic language support to complete your assesements. Naturally, you will need to do some background reading to consolidate your ideas before your start planning your essay. We will try to make it clearer for you by actually using a sample introduction that was written for a real-life academic essay. HELPS is dedicated to providing English language and academic literacy support to UTS undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students via free con-credit programs and services. This is the third paragraph of our introduction which contains a preview of the essay. This is designed to orientate the reader and provide them with some sort of context beforehand. It is absolutely critical to prepare your reader with this type of background information-do not immediately launch into your argument. Let’s imagine then, that we have spent some time and worked on our first draft of our essay and have written the introduction to the essay question. In addition to commencing your paragraph with a clear topic sentence, it is important to use linking words and phrases to create cohesion within and across paragraphs in your writing. The words you see on your screen are what we call transition signals or signpost words, and they can help the reader follow the order and flow of your ideas. In a previous online tutorial video we introduced you to a real-life assignment question and talked about how to structure the introduction and conclusion to an essay. Today we are going to have a look at the structure of a body paragraph â€" these paragraphs make up the most substantial part of an essay, report or case study. This functions as kind of map to navigate the reader. We can tell that this is a preview from the use of key words such as “this essay will focus on”. Notice that further into this paragraph, signposting language is used to designate the structure of the essay, for example phrases such as “the first, second and last section”. Notice too that even a preview into the conclusion is mentioned here. This outline of your essay will set up a sort of contract with your reader, explaining what you will deliver to them in the body of your essay. Now let's try and identify the essential elements to a paragraph by looking at an example taken from our assignment question. You’ll notice the first sentence is the topic sentence which clearly states the theme of the paragraph. This is followed by the explanation or argument and then substantiated through the integration of evidence and demonstration of examples. Notice that it is important to include some form of critical analysis or observation. Finally, your concluding statement should articulate your voice or opinion. We can analyse the text in our sample introduction and look at the elements it needs to contain. Please refer to the assignment question on the right hand side of the screen. Notice the key words which in this case they are ‘academic learning and literacy centres’. Also notice these key words ‘ the most effective approach’. Writing Essays does not cover every type of writing you will do at university but it does cover the principal types. So you will find guides to essay writing, dissertation writing, and report writing. You will also find a section dealing with the differences between writing for the humanities and writing for the sciences and social sciences. The information and guidelines in these sections will provide blueprints you can apply elsewhere.