ACADEMIC WRITING
Structuring your writing
Writing is a process that you have to work through and most writers draft and redraft before submitting a piece of written work. Start by writing the sections where you have most knowledge. Then continue to check the logic, content, relevance and how you are meeting the requirements of the assessment brief. It is important to structure your writing in a way that will bring the reader with you from the introduction, through the points and arguments you are making and on to the conclusion(s) and recommendation(s).
Writing the introduction
The introduction to your piece of academic writing is your opportunity to capture the interest of the reader and to encourage them to read on. Therefore, it is important that your introduction should clearly introduce the topic or subject of your written assessment work, in a manner that will engage your audience.
- Several years ago, …..
- Nowadays, ………
- In this contempoaray era, ………..
- In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in...
- Historically, (...) has been thought to have significant influence on...
- A key event in the development of...
- In the past (#) years, there have been major advances in the field of... (There are still many more there that you can find yourself)
Writing the main body
In writing the main body for your assessment, it is important to identify the key points that will form the basis of your argument or discussion. Remember to refer back to your assessment brief and notes from your brainstorm or mindmap.
Writing the conclusion
The conclusion is about tying up the ideas and points that have been argued/discussed in the main body of your written assessment work. Conclusions are generally short and usually serve both to summarise and bring together the main areas covered in the writing as well as to give a final comment, judgement or opinion on what has been discussed or argued.
Types of writing:
1. Narrative: Recounts personal experience in the form of a story and always include characters, settings, and plots
· For example: short stories, novel, narrative form and journal
2. Persuasive: give opinions using facts that attempts to convience a reader to agree with a writers’ belief
· For example: movie review, restaurant critique, letter to newspaper editor
3. Descriptive: uses vivid image to describe a person, place or event so that the topic can be clearly seen in the readers’ mind.
· For example: menu travel borchures, posters, graphs, etc
4. Expository: provides information that explain, clarify, and/or define
· For example: Essay, research/dissertation, report, manual
PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARISING
Paraphrasing and summarising are two critical skills of good writers. It is important to be able to paraphrase and summarise so that you can integrate your research findings and ideas into your writing without having to rely on directly quoting material. All sources cited must be referenced.
Paraphrasing is when you take an author’s information, idea or suggestion and put it into your own words. You are still using someone’s work so you must reference it. You do not need to use quotation marks when you paraphrase, but you must clearly show the reader the original source of your information. You must be very careful to indicate which part of your writing is a paraphrase of the original source so that the reader is clear on the source used.
There are six paraphrasing techniques:
1. Find synonyms for some of the words but not the keywords
· The tiger quickly disappeared into the trees
2. Change the verb to negative, Or change the negative
· The nervous student was awake all night
· The nervous students did not sleep all night (the whole night, from 8pm to 6am, …)
3. Change the voice from active to passive, or passive to active
4. Change the part of scpeech (noun to verb, verb to noun, adv to noun, …etc)
5. Combine sentences using connecting words
· Paraphrasing is a skill that students need to learn. It’s an important part of academic writing.
· Parapharsing, which a skill that students need to learn, is an important part of academic writing.
6. Move phrases: Move part of sentence to change the sentence structure
· Yesterday, I stayed in the library until midnight and finished my homework
· I finished my homework at midnight in the library yesterday
Summarising is providing a brief statement of the main points of a piece of work. This is also a way of referring to someone else’s information, idea or suggestion without using direct quotations. You must not change the original meaning and you still need to cite and reference the source.
Statement: Responsibility for safety and health management ultimately rests with the employer. This responsibility is normally delegated to executive directors, senior managers, line managers, supervisors and employees (Nifast, 2015). Each person’s authority and duties should be clearly defined, documented and communicated to them (Nifast, 2015). The organisational and reporting structure for implementing these duties should be illustrated in an in-house organisational chart which should be included in the company’s safety statement.
Summarized: While health and safety are primarily the responsibility of the employer, it is often delegated to personnel in roles of authority and responsibility (Nifast, 2015). They also say that it is essential that each person’s responsibility is clearly defined and included in the safety statement (Nifast, 2015).
PSALM: 118- 8 “It’s better believe in your God to man”.
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