...Study Skills Essay Writing Essays remain an important method of assessment and enable examiners to discriminate between candidates, while also enabling candidates to display the skills and abilities which they possess. As the essay paper has evolved it has become more demanding with much more emphasis on posing questions which allow candidates to display the higher order skills. The following identifies a pyramid of skills which examinations try to test. [pic] The pyramid of skills: the bottom two layers are 'Lower-order skills', while the top four layers are 'Higher-order skills'. As there is now less emphasis on testing the lower order skills this implies that it is not possible for candidates to perform well in the essay paper by rote learning of notes. Command words in essay titles Examiners report that many candidates underperform because they fail to interpret the key words of an essay title. Below is a glossary of some of the most frequently used command words with suggestions for interpretation: 'Account for ...' Explain how a particular event or situation came about i.e. 'Which factors would have led a large retailing company to...' 'Analyse ...' Break down an argument or information into component parts and identify ways in which these parts are related. Always recognise the underlying assumptions. 'Analyse the extent to which ...' Show judgement over the relevant importance of different arguments or events. 'Assess ... 'Make some kind of judgement...
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...PRINCIPLES OF WRITING: 1. Clarity- It is the clarity of thought and expression. (a) Clarity of thought: This is important when the idea is being generated in the mind of the sender. At this stage, three points should be checked upon. (i) One is supposed to be clear about the objective of the communication. This begins with the generation of an idea in the mind of the transmitter. The writer should be able to answer the : What is the objective of writing (ii)What is to be communicated? E.g. A song, play, poem etc. (iii) Which medium is appropriate for the purpose of communication? E.g. letters ( b) Clarity of expression The following points deserve attention. (i) Use of simple words- simple words is more effective than heavy words. (ii) Use concrete expression- these provide visual images which are easy to register so instead of vague generalized statements give definite facts. (iii) Prefer active construction- these are easy to understand other than passive i.e in passive form “ your report will be discussed by the committee’’ but in active form ‘’the committee will discuss your report’’ (iv) Avoid excessive use of infinitive (v) Avoid jargon- these are special languages of a trade or a profession (vi) Avoid ambiguity- this is where a word has more than one meaning (vii) Use short sentences- short sentences are easier to comprehend for they are not complex and do not demand greater concentration...
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...1 ESSAY WRITING SKILLS © Graham Davey WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO WRITE A GOOD ESSAY? 1. 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2. 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3. 3.1 3.2 4. 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 5. WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOU START ANYTHING Am I familiar with the Assessment Guidelines? Am I certain that I know the Submission Deadline? How much does the mark for my essay contribute to the final mark for this course/module? Do I know what the word limit for this essay is? How many credits do I get for completing this particular course/module successfully? HOW TO PREPARE BEFORE PLANNING & WRITING THE ESSAY What essay titles can I choose from? What references do I need to read? At what level am I writing the essay? What internet resources should I access and use? Can I use my lecture notes as a source of information for my essay? PLANNING YOUR ESSAY How much should I read and when should I begin writing? How can I get the most benefit from my reading? WRITING YOUR ESSAY How should I structure my essay? Am I sure I’m answering the question? How do I write a scholarly essay? How should I present my reference list or bibliography? How should I format my essay? How can I avoid plagiarism? THINGS TO REMMEBER AFTER YOU’VE FINISHED WRITING YOUR ESSAY Essays are arguably the most widely used form of assessment for psychology students. They allow an examiner to assess a student’s factual knowledge, as well as their ability to create logical arguments and critically...
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...Essay Writing Skills This guide is designed to help students to structure their work. Like any written work, essays require careful planning, reading and note taking, appropriate academic style, referencing and structure. An essay is different from a report in that it is generally written as one flowing document that uses paragraphs to separate ideas, without the section headings, underlining, numbering and bullet points that are used in reports. Usually, essays do NOT have diagrams or appendices. Essays have 4 vital sections: Introduction, Main Body, Conclusion and References/Bibliography. The word count applies to three essay sections, NOT including the References or Bibliography. The Introduction paragraph/section This helps set the context for the essay. It introduces the main ideas of the essay and draws the reader into the subject. A good Introduction gets to the heart of the subject and captures the interest of the reader, acting as a trailer to what is to follow. It tells readers what to expect by addressing Who, What, When, Where, Why and How? The Introduction outlines the main issues on which you intend to focus and others you just intend to mention. In this way it sets your parameters. It defines any terms or concepts that you need and acknowledges possible issues raised by the question and explains your approach. It could include a comment on the importance of the topic. It may act as an overview in summarising the issues, to show an understanding...
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...To have a good writing skills, a person requires lots of reading and trainings. Writings skills and reading experiences are both need to sharpen by time. If we did not have time to sit down and read, we must need other people as sources to assist our writing. I was the child who refused to read and “un-educated” child. Boys tent to learn things more physically compare with girls, and I was the kind of child. To sit down and read would be the hardest act for me. My mother was an elementary school teacher. She retired several years ago, and she known very well about how a young child should be learning. Which means I had different education than other kids. While other students were suffering by their parents’ pressure on their grades, I was...
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...tell you, writing is a critical skill in daily life. Whether you’re writing a business email or a text message, it’s important to understand the fundamentals of English. As writers, we all have our strengths, weaknesses, and goals. Nobody is perfect, and that’s okay. English is one of the hardest languages in the world, after all. I think I’ve always been good at allowing my voice to flow in the essays I write. It’s a very tricky skill, but after years of writing for different classes, It’s a skill that kind of develops on its own. The different between an okay essay and a great essay is being able to hear and understand the voice of the writer who wrote that essay. If you allow your voice to come through,...
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...become a great writer. Also, I found there where some writing skills I like in addition to some that I dislike. I do have some concerns with writing in the future, but I hope that my concerns don’t happen. Some of the areas I must improve on are clarity, completeness, and changing passive words to active words. The articles did a great job at explaining what writing skills we need in the work force and to improve on. Before I came to Murray State University for Engineering Graphics and Design. I went to Rend Lake College for Automotive Technology. I did my internship during the fall semester. I ran into a problem with completeness. The manual...
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...Cory Joyce Mrs. Lapp, English 12 Preliminary Writing Assignment 31 August 2012 My writing skills have many positives and negatives, the positives would be I am good at research; I am also good at proofreading, revising, and editing. Even though my writing has some good quality to it, it also has some very bad areas that need major improvement in, such as hand writing, my hand writing has been bad ever sense I have been in school and it never seems to get better. Some other negative things about my writing skills are my introductions and conclusions, as well as my paragraphs with unity and coherence. My writing goals while being in English 12 this year is to become a better writer in all areas especially the ones that need major improvement. There are many writing skills that I have confidence that I am good at and that I show it in my writing, such as research, I always organize my research accordingly to how the essay is being written so I find what I need efficiently and then move on the next part of the essay, I also know how to incorporate research material into the topic well so it mixes and the reader doesn’t feel that I am talking about a completely different subject. Another thing I am also good at is proofreading, I can proofread any kind of written work that needs proofread and can find what needs changed. I also do well with revising and editing, after proofreading a piece of work I can revise and change or edit what was wrong or should have been changed...
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...Importance of Writing Skills as a Paralegal Tanya Buckmaster May 27, 2014 CM107-10 College Composition I Professor Gregg A paralegal is a professional that has obtained the required education and experience to Perform legal work under the supervision of an attorney. In order for paralegal students to strive in their chosen field, they must learn and demonstrate exceptional writing skills. Writing well will not only help you strive as a paralegal in the law office, it can also imp- rove your communication skills. So much of the communication in a law office is through writing. With excellent writing skills you have the ability to advance to a higher position, such as Paralegal Director. Good writing skills can save you and the law firm time and money. Writ- ing well will improve your own self-image and will gain you respect from the attorneys you work for. Writing is one of the primary parts of your job; it is communicating. A successful paralegal doesn’t begin a writing process without answering the who the writing is aimed towards and what the writing is focused on. As a paralegal, you must be able to separate the important information from the unimportant information. The purpose of writing a report, memo, or a brief is to make something happen. The clearer your writing is, the more likely you are to attain the results you are aiming for. When writing, write as if you were talking face to face with your reader...
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...What is the impact of brain based learning on writing skills? Since the 1990s, there has been a mass production of academic research reflecting on the learning processes of the brain, and the need to implement brain-based methods in education. Paul MacLean believed that the brain was developed in three layers. He also stated that each section had a specific function in regards to learning processes. Caine et al. (2008), suggests that curricula should be developed around brain-based principles that require learning to be psychological and social, by using interactive...
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...If you cannot rely on yourself to get work done, then you might as well stop reading this essay and rethink taking this course. Time management, organization, and self-reliability are the key to succeeding in English 1301 (Composition 1). This course will test your ability to get work done on time and of the highest quality, all while relying on yourself to get it done. There is no sitting in a room with fellow students or teachers to remind you of that deadline that is closing in quickly. Nevertheless, if you chose to take on this challenging course, you will learn new skills that you had not been introduced to before. Your writing techniques will improve, and you will notice that you look at pieces of writing and other forms...
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...There are several ways I plan to improve my writing skills this school year in this class. These goals are to help me improve for my future writing experiences. Having goals is good to have in life and it helps us achieve what we need to do. I have severals goals for this class, specifically for writing but also to improve my future. These goals may change in the near or far future but that may mean I achieved these goals or there are far more important goals to improve on. But there are several that I need to specifically look at during this time. How I plan to improve my writing skills this school year is to make sure i’m trying my hardest to learn and understand everything and get the best grades that I can achieve. I want to manage my...
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...Assignment 10 Self-Study of Writing Skills 50 points Course Objectives: mastering this assignment allows you to practice and improve in these areas of the course objectives: • Apply principles of business writing • Understand the writing process • Demonstrate skills in writing effective business messages and use of technology • Apply principles of format and document design • Show ability to think critically, creatively and independently Background: Now that you have come to the end of the material for this class, you should revisit your skills level. Directions: Write a memo to me about your writing skills. A table is shown below to help you analyze your current skills in specific areas because you now have more skills, and more knowledge of applying them. Use your completed table to organize your thoughts; do not merely turn in the table. Transfer the information to paragraphs and build the memo. Format: Use interoffice memorandum format. You are welcome to make any additional comments about your writing not mentioned in the table. | |Where do I use this skill? |What am I good at? |What do I need to develop? |What can I do? | |Skills | | | | | |Can I generate ideas for | | | ...
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...Impact of Reading and Writing Skills on an Individual 2 Running head: Impact of Reading and Writing on an Individual 1 Impact of Reading and Writing Skills on an Individual First Name, Middle Initial, Last Name University Abstract This paper discusses on the impact of the person' s skills on writing and reading on his life and on the society. Moreover, it discusses the importance of reading and writing on ones social and economic aspect. The Impact of Reading and writing Skills on an Individual The knowledge of writing can be traced back to 3500 B.C. It started as simple scribbles on the surface of rocks or on the bark of the trees. It was first developed as people' s way of recording their goods. From that simple use of writing it has evolved to be used as a new way of expressing something and interpreting symbols. As time evolves, the context and knowledge of man on writing also evolved. Though its evolution did not happen only for a short time, but it has leave a great impact on the civilization and to the life of people exposed to writing. Just as people learn to write they also learn to comprehend the symbols and characters they have seen, and so the knowledge to read has also acquired. Both the ability to read and write is important skills necessary in communicating with other people in the community and civilization. It is not only necessary in expressing ideas and feeling but it also affects on the individual' s way of interacting n the society. Just...
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...remember when teaching writing is that writing is a process. Very few native speakers will ever start writing at the top of the first page and continue straight through until they finish at bottom of the last one. The entire process has five steps, but the first step in the writing process is coming up with your thoughts and ideas, also known as prewriting. Prewriting helps students gather ideas and give them a bank of possibilities for their writing. This way, as students write they do not have to make decisions simultaneously about content and language. Help your students get a head start before they write with any of these six methods for prewriting. The bank of ideas they will generate will be an invaluable resource as they write. How To Generate Writing Ideas Brainstorming Brainstorming is an activity with which most people are familiar. The object in brainstorming is to compile as large a list as possible of potential examples for a given topic. This is a great activity to do in small groups or with the entire class. Brainstorming a list of ice cream flavors is an easy one to start with when introducing the concept. Naturally, one idea will spark another, so it is helpful to have students working together when brainstorming. Give your students permission to be as creative as they like. Anything goes with brainstorming. Challenge your students to come up with as many examples as they possibly can for whatever topic you give them. Free writing Free writing is an individual...
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