ECII B2+2 FEEDBACK ON ACADEMIC ESSAYS

ECII B2+2 FEEDBACK ON ACADEMIC ESSAYS

TIME MANAGEMENT

Many students went over time and some didn’t finish. Too many people were writing up to the last minute when they should have been checking and writing your references. It was obvious that the majority of students ignored my advice on how to divide your time (10 - 20% for planning, 40 - 60% for writing and 10 – 20% for checking) as your essays were often poorly organised and contained many basic mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar. Some scripts were unfinished or failed to address all the points in the question, yet a number of students spent a large part of the 2 hours chatting in Italian.

Time limits and word limits create a level playing field – it is much fairer to see what you can produce when given the same restrictions. If writing is giving as a homework exercise it is often the case that one student will spend several days and write several thousand words while another will spend a couple of hours and three hundred words – how can you compare the two? In class writing is a much better indication of where your true strengths and weaknesses lie.

CONTENT

The question had three parts –
(1) How had the country coped with the financial crisis?
(2) What measures had the government introduced and whether they were effective or not?
(3) The state of the economy now.
If you don’t address all parts of the question, it is very difficult to pass. When researching the question make sure that all areas are covered. If you couldn’t find information on one part of the question (though I find this difficult to believe) you still have to address the issue (e.g. It is still too early to tell if these measures have been effective or Results so far have been inconclusive.)

ORGANISATION

Introductions and conclusions were generally weak and paragraphs were often unclear. Despite my warnings there were still too many one sentence paragraphs. A good introduction should address the question and offer a brief overview of what you are going to discuss. It should also grab the reader’s attention. Similarly, your conclusion should remind the reader of your main arguments and leave him/her with something to think about. Many introductions just talked about the origins of the financial crisis and didn’t even mention the country they were analysing.

REFERENCES AND CITATIONS

Although we had talked about how important this area is when writing an essay, many students ignored the rules and suggestions that we had studied in the previous lesson. All sources must be cited in the text especially when you are quoting someone’s exact words or statistics. Paraphrase rather than quote and don’t quote long stretches of text. You MUST also include references at the end in the APA style that we looked at in class or in the preferred style of your university. If you are unsure of how to do it – go to http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm or http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/

IF YOU INTEND TO STUDY ON THE ERASMUS PROGRAM YOU MUST LEARN THESE RULES – INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITIES WILL EXPECT THAT YOU KNOW IT.

WRITING STYLE

Keep sentences short and simple. Sentences shouldn’t be longer than 20 words. Don’t use colons (:) and semi colons (;)which turn you sentences into long complicated lists. Keep your subject, verb and object together at the beginning of the sentence. Make sure that every sentence has a subject (remember “it” and “there”).

ACCURACY

• Mistakes in vocabulary or collocation (due to translation) can make your essay difficult to understand so always check for false friends.
• Countable/Uncountable nouns, singular and plural forms, noun verb agreement (this/these)
• Tenses
• Articles – overuse of “the”