Course: An Intermediate Guide to Writing in English for University Study

At various points in the course it has been mentioned that there seems to be more use of impersonal language in academic writing. This may involve avoiding the use of …

In the academic world knowledge is socially constructed, that is to say that for new ideas or knowledge to be widely accepted, substantial evidence has to be provided and where …

In this video Jonathan explains why it is essential to use correct verb tenses in your academic writing. To help you identify the correct verb tense, Jonathan recommends you ask …

Writing as a collaborative activity Writing is often regarded as a solitary activity, and to a certain extent this is true. Even on collaborative writing projects, most initial drafting of …

Congratulations on completing an Intermediate Guide to Writing in English for University Study. We hope you’ve enjoyed the course and it has helped you to improve your academic writing skills. …

In this video Jonathan returns to Patrick’s essay; this time to examine and dissect the conclusion. As you will see, typical features of an essay conclusion include: a re-statement of …

Now that you’ve completed the exercise in the previous Step, let’s look at how Erla structured the conclusion to her essay. 3 – In summary, Iceland has been growing significantly …

In this video Jonathan returns to the example of Patrick’s essay about food waste, to examine and dissect the introduction. As you will see, Patrick’s essay includes many of the …

Now that you have completed the exercise, take a look at how Erla structured the introduction to her essay. 4 – Over the last few decades there has been a …

The conclusion is one of the most challenging parts of the essay to write. You have included all your main points, put forward your viewpoint, hopefully supporting these with references …

Sometimes students think that writing a plan is a waste of time but in fact, it helps give clarity and structure to the way your final product will look. The …

Your introduction should give the reader an idea of the main focus of the essay, and include some of the following features: a move from the general theme to the …

This table shows some common prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs used in academic writing. Language function Prepositions/ prepositional phrases (come before noun phrases) Conjunctions (join two clauses in one sentence) Adverbs/Adverbial …

This Week you explored how to: reference credible sources in your academic writing correctly paraphrase information and process data to support your ideas, claims and generalisations, and to demonstrate your …

Plagiarism refers to presenting someone else’s work as your own, either for publication or for coursework on an academic programme, without making it clear that the ideas or words come …