The Academic Skills Handbook

Your Guide to Success in Writing, Thinking and Communicating at University

Diana Hopkins, Tom Reid

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781526452061
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Forschung im Bildungswesen

This is your complete guide to acing your assignments and getting themost out of your time at university. Packed with tips, tools and a digital companion loaded with real-life examples, this book will help you:

• communicate your ideas with confidence and clarity
• watch your skills grow with diagnostic tools
• create your own study plan tailored to the skills you need
• know what your tutor is looking for and how to deliver
• turn your skills into success after university.

This book is specially designed to show you where your strengths are and what you need to work on, so you get a practice plan that is perfect for your needs. It then arms you with the principles and practice to get ahead in your academic writing, presentations and group work.

The Student Success series are essential guides for students of all levels. From how to think critically and write great essays to planning your dream career, the Student Success series helps you study smarter and get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips and resources for study success!

Part 1 Writing Skills

The big picture

Academic writing is at the heart of all scholarly activity. During your studies, you will be required to complete a range of written assignments and examinations in a variety of genres and formats; from essays and reports to critical reviews, case studies, technical reports and reflective writing.

Academic writing can be challenging because you will be expected to use a range of academic conventions that may be unfamiliar and difficult to apply in practice. These may include adopting an unfamiliar formal style and incorporating a critical and evaluative approach in written tasks and assignments. It is vital therefore that you acquire, develop and extend your academic writing skills to maximise your success in your studies.

Skills you’ll learn

This Part will provide you with a practical, easy-to-use skills toolkit to help you get started, plan and write successful academic assignments. By following this step-by-step approach, you will be able to:

• establish a solid foundation on which to build your academic expertise.
• learn from real students’ work, short tasks and activities.
• develop, practise and apply the five principles of good writing in your academic work: being accurate, being clear, being concise, being appropriate and being informed.

Chapter One Getting Started on Your Essay

Diagnostic

How confident are you about your academic writing ability?

On a scale of 1–5, where 1 = little or no confidence and 5 = very confident, score the following statements about your academic writing ability.

For feedback on your score, go online at: https://study.sagepub.com/hopkinsandreid

The academic essay

An academic essay is a piece of formal writing designed to demonstrate to your tutors that you have understood, questioned and evaluated a topic in depth. In general, academic essays follow certain conventions and share common structural features that will need to be incorporated into your work.

Writing an essay is a process with clear and logical steps. Knowing how to begin is the first step and there are then a number of further steps you can follow to enable you to complete your essay successfully and make the whole process more efficient and less daunting.

This chapter will provide you with an easy to follow step-by-step process to help you get started, plan and structure your essay, incorporate key structural features and academic conventions, and edit and proofread your draft. These steps will ensure you meet the expectations of your tutor, and build your essay writing skills.

The complete essay

Go online https://study.sagepub.com/hopkinsandreid to see an example of a complete essay, with annotations to help you identify and understand the features that contribute to successful writing. There are information boxes (purple) that focus on points relating to structure.

There are also (grey) information boxes that focus on communication features (language), etc. These boxes also refer you to the relevant chapters for more information on the particular feature of the essay/writing.

Essay types

During your studies, you may encounter different types of essays. These can be divided into:

• a. ‘Show what you know’-type essays. For example:
  • Argument/Discussion Essay
    • Requires you to investigate a topic, collect and evaluate evidence and present a reasoned and supported position.
  • Problem–Solution Essay
    • A type of argument essay that identifies a problem and proposes one or more solutions, supported by your investigation and research.
  • Cause and Effect Essay
    • Focuses on reasons why something happens (cause) and what happens as a result (effect).
  • Reflective Essay
    • Requires the writer to reflect and examine his or her own personal attitudes, experiences, thoughts and feelings about a specific topic or activity, and how this has impacted on their learning and/or life.
• b. ‘Show what you think’-type essays. For example:
  • Definition or Factual Essay
    • Explores and explains what a specific term means. Terms can be concrete (e.g. nuclear fusion, greenhouse effect) or abstract (e.g. trust, caution, fear).
  • Review Essay
    • Asks you to summarise and critically evaluate one or more texts (e.g. a journal article, case study, chapter of a book).

Your Turn

Task 1

Indicate whether these essay titles are (a) ‘show what you know’-type questions or (b) ‘show what you think’-type questions.

1. To what extent do you consider the legacy of the Olympics justifies the expensa / be of staging such an event? a/b
2. How is Homo sapiens adapted to environmental variatia / bon? a/b
3. How can Archaeology be used to identify and explain the characteristics of the state? What are the key arguments used to explain increasing social complexity during primary a / bstate formation and in your view, which are the most convincing? a/b
4. Critically assess the impact of the Challenger disaster on the effectiveness of engineering policy in the a / bUSA. a/b
5. What is the role of slow- and fast-twitch muscle fibres in exercia / bse? a/b

Answers online at: https://study.sagepub.com/hopkinsandreid

Essay structure

Academic essays tend to adopt a standardised structural format. This includes a short introduction which establishes the context and reason(s) for writing the essay, main body paragraphs which develop key themes and topics around the writer’s position or argument (thesis), which link together to produce a coherent and logical progre...