Academic English Skills

Before starting, it is important that you read the assignment question carefully and make sure you understand what you are being asked to do. If you are unsure, check with your lecturer or tutor.

Once you understand the question and what it is you are being asked to produce, generate your initial thoughts and ideas about the topic through brainstorming and writing them down, no matter how 'creative' or 'simple' they may be. Consider the following:

• Do you have any initial responses to the question?
• What could a possible answer (or answers) be?
• Do you have a particular opinion about the topic?
• What prior knowledge do you have about the topic?
• What are the key concepts relating to the question?

Generating some ideas before you start your research will help you to focus your reading. Without a sense of direction, it is easy to get lost in the research process.

If you really do not know anything about the topic, start by skimming and browsing the required or recommended readings to identify a few ideas and key concepts.

At this stage, it is also important to check your course outline for assignment guidelines and be certain about the following:

• What format your assignment should follow: An essay? A report? A critical review? etc.
• What the expected length is: This will affect the amount of research required, how much depth you should go into and how many references are needed.

As you conduct your research, your understanding of the topic will develop and your initial ideas are likely to change. The research process is something that evolves over time as you gain a deeper understanding and further engage with the subject area. 

For academic research, you must use credible sources. These are sources that can be trusted. We trust that the author's ideas are his/her own and can be backed up with evidence, i.e. a source with a solid authority within its discipline.

 Textbooks

 Books published by recognised authors and publishers

 Papers published in journals

 Scholar and official websites that are regularly updated

 Scientific and scholar database

Tips

• Save interesting sources
• Take notes
• Summarise the main points
• Make a note of the reference

After you have generated some ideas and conducted some research, it is important to sketch out your assignment before you start to write. For your outline, use:

• Short sentences to describe paragraphs
• Bullet points to describe what each paragraph will cover

A draft is the preliminary and initial effort of your essay. It is going to be subject to revision, amendments, refining, etc. When writing your first draft:

• Don't worry (yet) too much about your introduction
• Pick the way that is most comfortable for you (location, laptop/desktop computer/free hand, etc.)
• Start writing your first draft in plenty of time so you have time to revise it and make changes

Note: Keep a copy! It is important to keep copies of any drafts you write. This will help you in case there is any dispute about your work in the future.

Remember to proofread your essay! This means examining your essay cautiously to spot and correct mistakes in grammar, style and spelling. 

The proofreading process:

1. Eliminate unnecessary words - write short, clear, concise, direct sentences
2. Look at comments on old assignments and set a list of mistakes to watch out for
3. Proofread using a hard copy of your assignment before going back to on-screen editing
4. Read your assignment out loud to spot run-on sentences and hear other problems you may not spot whilst reading silently
5. Use a spell checker
6. Once you have edited your mistakes, proofread again!

Some tips:

 Review and amend the most important aspects of your content

 Don't make corrections at the sentence and word level if you still need to work on the focus, organisation, structure and overall writing of the paper.

 Give yourself time between writing and proofreading your assignment (this will help you spot mistakes faster and more easily)

 Many people do not like to watch violent horror movies.

 Today's movies do not have the emotional impact of the classic horror movies of the 1940's.

 Rap music is the best music ever.

 Although many people find rap music offensive, it has had a positive impact on today's youth.

The recycling of one aluminium can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours. 

 Recycling is one of the most important jobs a person can do to protect our environment.

Quoting should be done sparingly - you must have a good reason to use a direct quotation! Direct quotes should support your own ideas, and not replace them. For example, make a point in your own words, then use a direct quote from a credible source as evidence to support what you have said. 

SHORT QUOTATIONS appear as a continuation within the main paragraph and often work well integrated into a sentence.

Example:

Social mechanisms are important in instances of scarcity as ‘[m]aking the best use of scarce resources will … involve forming agreements with others’ (Ricketts 2002, p. 4). 

LONGER QUOTATIONS (more than 3 lines of text) should start on a new line and be indented.

Example:

Researchers have examined the role of social mechanisms in instances of scarcity:

As part of a community of individuals, however, individuals …usually find that their best strategy is not to cut themselves off from all communication with their fellows, but rather co-ordinate their activity with that of other people. Making the best use of scarce resources will therefore involve forming agreements with others, and economics then becomes the study of the social mechanisms which facilitate such agreements (Ricketts 2002, p. 4).

Paraphrasing involves saying the same thing as the original source, but in different words, using a different sentence structure.

 What to avoid:

• Do not just replace words with synonyms
• Do not simply reorder the sentences
• Do not simply remove or add words or phrases
• Do not use some new phrasing but keep much of the original phrasing
• Do not forget to cite your source

 What to do:

• Make sure you fully understand the information you would like to paraphrase
• Break up and combine ideas
• Expand on or shorten some ideas
• Use common language (words that do not have a likely synonym and must be used to describe a topic)
• Maintain the idea of the original passage as truly as possible

Example:

Original Text

In order to communicate effectively with other people, one must have a reasonably accurate idea of what they do and do not know that is pertinent to the communication. Treating people as though they have knowledge that they do not have can result in miscommunication and perhaps embarrassment. On the other hand, a fundamental rule of conversation, at least according to a Gricean view, is that one generally does not convey to others information that one can assume they already have.

Nickerson, R. S. (1999) How we know-and sometimes misjudge-what others know: Imputing one's own knowledge to others. Psychological Bulletin, 125 (6): p. 737.

 Unacceptable Paraphrase

To effectively communicate, it is necessary to have a reasonably accurate idea of what is known or not known that is relevant to the communication. Assuming people have knowledge that they do not have can cause miscommunication and sometimes embarrassment. However, an important rule of conversation is that people do not generally convey information that they assume of thers already have.

 Acceptable Paraphrase

Nickerson (1999) suggests that effective communication depends on a generally accurate knowledge of what the audience knows. If a speaker assumes too much knowledge about the subject, the audience will either misunderstand or be confused; however, assuming too little knowledge among those in the audience may cause them to feel patronised.

The amount of detail included in a summary depends on the length of the original text and how much information you need/would like to provide. 

What to do:

• Highlight the main points in the text
• Make notes of the main points, omitting examples
• Rewrite the main points in your own words