Writing Skills

Develop your academic writing skills

A large part of your academic studies will be spent communicating your work through writing. By putting effort into developing your academic writing skills, you are taking the opportunity to express the range of reading you have undertaken, and your critical analysis of that research.

Often, when we put our thoughts down on the page, it does not accurately reflect the level of understanding that we have gained in the course of our study. For the person marking your work, they have no way of attributing marks other than by what is presented on the page. So it really is important to commit to developing your academic writing skills from the start. But as with all skills you will develop over the course of your studies, do remember your writing will develop over time. You are not expected to be an expert from day one. You are however, expected to engage at a minimum with using the relevant referencing system as directed by your faculty, and attribute all your sources appropriately and avoid plagiarism.

Why do I need to reference?

When writing and submitting assignments you are expected to support your arguments by providing evidence from other published works. These references can come from a variety of sources – academic journals, textbooks, newspaper articles, websites, reports etc.

Credit is given to the work of others that you have used.
Referencing allows you to clearly demonstrate the depth and the breadth of your own reading and research.
Consistently applying a particular referencing style allows those who grade your work to easily identify and locate the references you have provided.
You will avoid accidental plagiarism.

Good research practice = Improved academic writing

By engaging in good research practice and taking the time to understand the referencing system your faculty expects you to use, you will avoid accidental plagiarism. You will also get into good habits that will allow you to engage with the subject and get a better understanding of both the topic and develop your own critical thinking.

Get into the habit of noting down where you have read something that interests you, where you found an article, a page number where you got a quote from. There are many approaches that you can take, finding the approach that works well for you is well worth some time and thought in the long run.

The library is here to support you in your studies and will assist you with understanding referencing styles and academic writing. We offer a range of workshops on how you can best use a range of academic databases and research software to assist you in your studies and assignments. If you wish to make an appointment for one to one guidance or to arrange a group workshop please contact us.

Writing Guides and Resources

There are many useful guides to help you get started with your academic writing. Often learners are under pressure for time and a well placed guide or short, interactive lesson at key points can save a lot of time in the longer term. We have a compiled a number that we recommend, which many students have provided very positive feedback on.

How can I avoid plagiarism?

By taking care to reference your work correctly you will:

Avoid committing accidental plagiarism. You must acknowledge any work, or part of any work, that you quote, paraphrase, summarise or copy.
If you write a sentence and do not include a reference, it is assumed that it is all your own work. Therefore, if you have in fact paraphrased someones work it is considered to be plagiarised.
If you use a quotation, and reference it but not do use quotations, that is taken that you are representing that the words are your own and can be considered to be plagiarism.
Take care not to include too many quotations, too much summary or paraphrasing. If most of an assignment is simply a listed presentation of other peoples work, you cannot claim it is your own work and this is considered a form of plagiarism. Often it is a question of a lack of confidence in expressing personal thoughts and insights in an academic style that leads to this issue. We have recommended textbooks to help with this, and also some very useful guides to help you articulate your research.
You must treat websites in the same way you would any source.

For more help in understanding what constitutes plagiarism, take a look at our Avoiding Plagiarism section.

Manchester Academic Phrasebank

The Manchester Phrasebank is an excellent resource for all those looking to develop their academic writing at all levels, be they undergraduate, Masters level, or academic staff. It presents lists of phases broken down into areas such as “introducing a topic,” “being critical,” “comparing and contrasting,” “classifying and listing,” and much more. It will help you to articulate your research, by prompting critical analysis of your research.

Academic Writing Template

Many of our learners have found this template very useful, taken from the recommended book, They Say / I Say : The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Cathy Birkenstein and Gerald Graff. It is a very useful guide to refer to when you are looking to articulate your research in an assignment.

It is a common problem for many, that despite having conducted a range of research into a topic, it is then difficult to demonstrate the level of understanding gained in a written essay.

This template helps to move away from merely listing research undertaken, and instead demonstrate critical analyses of sources, viewpoints, arguments and research.

They Say-I Say: Academic Worksheet Templates

Literature Review & Search Strategies

All Aboard Higher Education / Conducting a search strategy:

This 30 min interactive lessons introduces search strategies, and discusses how you might define a topic. Its aim is to “equip you with the skills needed to manage the volume, velocity and variety of data while distilling and refining your custom search strategy.”

Zotero Referencing Software

Zotero – Supporting Research and Academic Writing

Zotero has many strengths that can support each stage of your research journey. It can act as a bookmarking tool for your initial research stage, you may also add notes to each record to allow you to retrace your research and to make connections between sources. In the written stages of your work it can help you with your academic referencing, providing an easy to use Word plug in for in-text citations. This can create automatic bibliographic records for the Griffith College Harvard referencing style.

The Library provides training guides and online videos to support you as you learn to incorporate Zotero into your academic work. We can also offer face to face support or remotely. Contact us to find out more.

To get started, visit our Zotero Referencing Software section