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Are You Ready for Academic Writing? These Questions (PDF 160.5KB) and Answers (PDF 77.1KB) can help ensure you are.
Your lecturer may have marked your assignment and suggested that you need to improve particular academic skills. The modules below contain links to online tutorials / activities that will help you build these skills. Most of these are from Monash University Language and Learning Online and the RMIT Study and Learning Centre. You may like to browse through these sites as they have other useful resources.
To be successful in assignments you need to analyse the topic so that you correctly understand it, and work out what you need to do to fully address it. The process of analysing the topic will also help you to:
How do I analyse the topic?
The sources of information you use for an essay or written assignment are critical to successfully tackling the topic. The sources you use should
To find good sources you need to be able to:
To use databases and websites to find relevant articles you need to be able to:
How you structure your assignment depends partly on your analysis of the topic and partly on the type of assignment you have been asked to write (for example, an essay, report, case study, literature review). An essay is probably the most free-form of these types because its precise structure will depend on the topic.
Different types of assignment
How do I plan my essay?
How do I begin to write my essay?
Good academic writing depends on how well you bring together information and ideas from relevant publications into a whole that addresses the topic and supports your argument.
The ability to re-formulate what you read into your own words is critical, as not doing so can mean that you have, intentionally or not, plagiarised. This process is called paraphrasing, and it is, with correct citing and referencing, absolutely vital to successful writing.
How to paraphrase
About plagiarism
A well-written essay brings together the work of various authors into an integrated whole, with a coherent argument. The process of incorporating and citing the work of others in your text is somewhat technical. The following tutorials contain activities to help you learn the technical aspects as well as the process of combining information or ideas from a number of sources into one statement to support the argument you are making.
The success of your writing will depend on how well the essay or assignment is organised (structured) and how clear the individual arguments and themes are developed and linked together. Poor organisation will confuse your reader and obscure what you are trying to communicate.For overall organisation of your assignment refer to the tutorials in Module 3. Use the tutorials in this module and Module 6 to improve your ability to organise and logically express the points you are trying to get across.
The success of your writing will depend on how well the essay or assignment is organised (structured) and how clear the individual arguments and themes are developed and linked together. Poor organisation will confuse your reader and obscure what you are trying to communicate.
For overall organisation of your assignment refer to the tutorials in Module 3. Use the tutorials in this module and Module 6 to improve your ability to organise and logically express the points you are trying to get across.
Most academic writing requires you to acknowledge the source of the ideas and information you use in your assignments. You will need to acknowledge sources in the actual body of your assignment (in-text citations) and you need to provide full details of all sources in a properly formatted reference list or bibliography at the end of your assignment (referencing).
Information about referencing can be found in
The following websites provide more information and detail on referencing
Different disciplines (e.g. business, law, psychology) use different styles. You cannot mix styles. This often means you need to learn several different styles of referencing through your university course
Clear writing that is easily understood by most readers depends on good grammar, punctuation, and the inclusion of only one or two main ideas in any sentence. If your lecturer says that your writing is confusing or difficult to follow, then you should do this module.
Business student are often asked to analyse and write case studies. The following links are useful in helping you understand how to do this.
Authorised by the Dean, Faculty of Business
23 April, 2013
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