ACADEMIC WRITING: SESSION 1

We will be looking into approaches to academic writing and how to miss the pitfalls in writing for our dissertation.

Today's session will include:

• Reading
• Researching
• Paraphrasing
• Referencing

Reading: it's important to be strict with yourself and efficient when it comes into reading you work. Keep your reading extremely focused when it comes to writing an essay. If you are confused about a section in a book look at the end of a chapter were the author summarises it.

Skills: surveying, previewing, peripheral vision, pointers. Read and write gold software is very useful for when you are tired or are against the clock.  

Research: When you find a topic write down a range of questions, what you expect to find and what you want to look for. Read and research with a purpose in mind. Always think HOW this is done.

Skills: critical thinking and reading, have an opinion on what they are saying and how they are putting it across. Always be aware of context. Use quotations but not too many as it doesn't show the variation of your opinion.

Critical Thinking: Synthesis is the idea of bringing all your ideas together and creating something new. You need to be critical in your writing as it is essential in raising your mark.

Skills: process, understand, analyse, compare, synthesise, evaluate, apply, present a point of view.

Note Taking: Be organised when it comes to taking notes, your should have them in order and that they are clear for you to read! Highlighting with notes and annotation is much more beneficial.

Skills: bibliographic information, analytical annotation, potential arguments, 

Paraphrasing: Make it clear that you are writing, making sue if you use a direct quite you use quotation marks, paraphrasing through using different colour pens when taking notes.

Skills: Use a paraphrase make restructure it, and use it to fit in with your argument.

Referencing: Citing references within the text.

Practice Summary: Looking into a piece of theory by Oliver Sacks who talks about autism we had to create a 50 word summary on what it was about.

In conclusion there are a multitude of facts behind the cause of autism, some which are stated by Kanner (1987) who suggests it is down to bad parenting. However it is hard to judge on what the causes of autism are due to the international scale in which it affects people.