In this context the word “Right”, means right for the purposes of academic writing, not right in any more absolute sense than that. You’re already aware, I’m sure, that what’s right in one setting is wrong in another, so the aim here is to clarify what’s conventionally expected in this academic setting. It’s different from the way language is used in creative writing, in journalism, in public speaking, in conversation – there are all sorts of other kinds of discourse where the rules and the customs are different, and you shouldn’t adopt this academic discourse for every other purpose too. But it’s worth looking at academic discourse, because there’s quite a lot of anxiety around it, and quite rightly too – you’ll get lots of comments on your expression, in the next few years, that will assume that you’re part of this academic discourse community, and that you already know its rules, and that you share its values about how language should be used – and some of those comments are going to be mysterious to you because you don’t know what they’re about, and some of them are going to be irritating if you don’t in fact share all of those values and assumptions that underpin the academic style.
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The aim of this section is to look at how you can organise the information you get into arguments, and make them easy for your reader to follow. And you should expect this to take more than one draft, because trying to do it in one go is more trouble than it’s worth. There aren’t many people who can create something at the same time that they’re criticizing it. Most accomplished writers make several drafts. Experienced writers will tell you that they separate themselves into two different writers as they work: there’s the creator, who spews out the ideas onto paper and doesn’t worry about how they look, and then there’s the critic, who takes charge of the mess once it’s out there, and decides what’s good and what’s not, puts it in order, polishes the language, and remembers to put her name on the front. They don’t try to do both things at once, because it’s easy to get blocked that way. For example, some students don’t start writing until they’re sure just what they want to say, so in fact they don’t ever start writing, and the essay deadline has passed; other students may become bogged down in the first paragraph, trying to make that perfect before they’ll move on. In fact there are techniques that will free you up to make any kind of mess you need to, because you know that you have a way to take charge of it later so it’ll scrub up all right.
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Copyright K. Chanock, 2002WRITING BETTER ESSAYS - 1
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Reading and Writing: Argument and Evidence”
Some common questions that students ask about writing essays at uni are things like these:
- How is writing at uni different from writing at school or at work?
- Am I supposed to give my opinion in a uni essay?
- What should go into my notes?
- What should go into my essay?
- What does my tutor mean by “argument”, in an assignment like “Summarise Anderson’s argument in Chapter 1 of Imagined Communities”?
There are lots of things like this that are puzzling as you go into first year, and you’re wise to clarify them early on, and then you can approach your work more efficiently and more confidently. (more…)
At school, you probably had exercises where you took on a particular kind of voice to write to an imaginary “real world” audience. At uni, you don’t get that kind of assignment any more, and your audience is obviously the tutor who reads your essay. So the voice of a learner, writing to a teacher, seems the obvious one to adopt.
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(What do they want from me??)
Even in these times of space tourism and indoor plumbing, it can still be hard sometimes to work out what an essay topic is asking you to do. If it comes in the form of a question, at least, that’s a very good start. If it doesn’t, you’ve got to figure out what question Lies Beneath. Either way, there are questions you can ask yourself to get a better grip on what the lecturer hopes you will learn by writing this essay. (more…)