University of Roehampton [pic]
Department of Life Sciences

Health Sciences – Undergraduate/ Postgraduate

General Principles for Essay Writing (and reports)

FORMATTING

• An essay should be structured into three main sections: introduction, main body and conclusion. A good rule of thumb would be to divide the word count into these three sections as follows: 20% introduction, 60% main, 20% conclusion (this will be different for reports). For more specific guidelines on what to include in each section, please consult one of many study skills handbooks available in the library or speak to an Academic Learning Advisor. The following advice is based on the most common mistakes that students make. • Introduction: should present the general topic that you will write about as well as the structure of the essay • Conclusion should NEVER include new material. • Essays usually do not have headings (although scientific reports always do). You can choose to include them, though, as long as it makes sense and it assists with the flow of argument. Please note that the shorter the essay, the least number of headings there should be. • When writing your essay on microsoft word, make sure you select English (U.K.) as your main Language. This is also the language you must use when running spelling and grammar check – which you should always do to every document. • Graphs and figures should always have a number, title, legend and indication of the source (where you copied the image/graph from, written in the same style as you would a reference). Similarly, every graph or figure should be mentioned in the text. For example:

[pic]

• Please use these as standard guidelines when formatting your page:

Margins

Left: 3cm
Right: 2cm
Top: 2cm
Bottom: 2cm

Spacing

1.5 or double spacing

Font

Arial, size 11

• Word count: always include word count on the word count box of your Coursework Coversheet. This should be the actual number of words in your essay (reference list excluded) and not the word limit set for each assignment! Please ask your tutor what the word limit is, or check the module handbook for information on this.

EDITING

Careful editing is key to ensure a well written essay – which in turn translates into a good mark! Here are some aspects to bear in mind when editing your essay.

• Avoid speculation! This means you should always use references to back up what you state in your essay. You are entitled to have an opinion on a topic, or even resort to general statements, but remember this is academic writing, and therefore you should always use a reference to support it – otherwise it comes across as a weak argument that is unlikely to be validated by the person marking. One example: AVOID: “Mothers and fathers should look after what their children eat, as when they fail to do this it is likely that their kids will grow up to have nutritional problems.”

INSTEAD GO FOR: “Poor parenting skills have been shown to be related to nutritional deficiency in children and young adults, as Smith (2012) reported.”

• Please check with your tutor about whether it is suitable for you to use the first person when writing. Some tutors may accept this, whereas others may not. In any case, please note that, unless you are writing a personal, reflexive account, you should always use the third person. • Similarly, when using the third person, try not to be directive, i.e. Avoid statements like “As research indicates, you will be more likely to access good health care services if you live in an urban centre.” Here you should replace the underlined you for one. • Always aim to write in academic English, using relevant terminology that you may have learnt in the lectures as much as possible. This means you should avoid writing colloquially (as you speak), or using texting spelling (u, c, dat, wat, wiv, and many more). Similarly, do not use contractions: will not should be used instead of won’t, do not instead of don’t, cannot instead of can’t and so on. • Avoid telegraphic writing. This refers to using separate dots to indicate a new section, as in this document. Telegraphic writing is useful for lists, but should not be used in essays. • Carefully review the verb tense you use. For example, when reporting on what an author has found in his study, you should use the past tense, as this has occurred in the past. Use this throughout the essay. “Smith (2012) reported a high incidence of grammatical errors in second year university students, whereas Michaels et al. (2010) indicated that these were due to poor editing skills.” • References: a major part of editing your essay is the reference list, and the use of references in the text. Revisit the referencing guidelines on your programme handbook – these are stardard for the whole university and you should have a good command of these by now. Marks ARE deducted for poor referencing, so make sure you review this very carefully. Just one small word of advice to ensure that when you list several authors using ‘et al.’, this should be written as shown here: Smith et al. (2012), i.e. use a full stop after al. • Also note that every essay should have a REFERENCE list, not a bibliography. This means that you should ONLY include the authors mentioned in the text, without leaving any of them out. Carefully check if you have included them all, as tutors do check this and will deduct marks for missing or additional references.

We believe that, if you address all of these points in your essay, you are on the right path to securing a good mark!

If you have any questions or doubts about this document, please consult with your personal tutor or an Academic Learning Advisor.

November 2012

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Legend

Source, with date

Number and Title of the graph