Doing Essays and Assignments: Essential Tips for Students

Pete Greasley

SAGE, Apr 27, 2011 - Social Science - 192 pages

This book provides students with an insider's view of what tutors and professors are looking for when they set essays and assignments. As such it will be a vital purchase for any student seeking practical and effective guidance on how to write successful essays and other written assignments.

Both lively and authoritative in equal measure, Doing Essays and Assignments: Essential Tips for Students leads its readers through all of the skills that are required for the process of essay and assignment writing at a number of levels. Pete Greasley finds the perfect balance between a humorous style and a comprehensive approach, which highlights a wide range of specific practical tips that all students could benefit from.

The tips are backed up by a survey of tutors, which highlights the things that markers are really looking for in students' work, paying particular attention to areas in which students commonly struggle. Topics include:

• planning, time management and deadlines
• reading and researching the literature
• writing introductions and conclusions
• answering the question
• critical analysis and argument
• referencing
• language, grammar and expression
• avoiding plagiarism

This will be a must-have book for all university students. The book's clear organization and broad content have been developed from the survey of tutors and Greasley's own extensive teaching experience. As enjoyable as it is functional, Doing Essays and Assignments sets the essay writing process within a manageable structure that will prove a friend to students and markers alike.

Pete Greasley is a lecturer at the School of Health Studies, University of Bradford.

Contents

• 1 An insight into the marking process: 1
• 2 How to impress and how to distress markers: 9
• some rules of the game: 17
• 4 Getting started and getting finished: 26
• 5 Reading and researching the literature: 34
• 6Introductions conclusions and structure: 43
• 7 What was the question again?: 57
• 8 Critical analysis perspective and argument: 67
• language grammar and expression: 82
• 10 Referencing an academic fetish for the anally retentive?: 93
• 11 Plagiarism: 106
• 12 How not to present graphs and charts: 115
• first impressions count: 124
• 14 Feedback and Feedforward: 131
• A sample assignment with annotated comments: 138
• Writing researchproject reports: 151
• Critical thinking and sceptical inquiry: 158
• References: 163
• Index: 168

About the author

Pete Greasley is a lecturer at the School of Health Studies at the University of Bradford. He has been marking student assignments for more years than he would care to remember, and not particularly enjoying it. He has conducted research and published academic articles in psychology, sociology, health, and education, and has also written an introductory book on quantitative data analysis. Research and teaching interests include psychological and social issues relating to health, sceptical inquiry relating to pseudo-science and the paranormal, and how to help students avoid common mistakes when writing their assignments.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Doing Essays and Assignments: Essential Tips for Students
• Author: Pete Greasley
• Publisher: SAGE, 2011
• ISBN: 1446242293, 9781446242292
• Length: 192 pages
• Subjects: Literary Collections / Essays; Social Science / Essays