Welcome to this webinar on the 8 steps of the writing process.
From the LEO homepage, click on the link ‘Visit the Academic Skills Unit’ to get to the
Academic Skills Unit LEO main page.
Now click on ‘Academic writing’ and you will see this introduction page with the topics
listed.
Click on ‘The writing process’ and you will see this page with an interactive infographic
on it.
The message at the top is important.
It says that academic writing is not something you can do in one day.
You should actually view it as a process requiring several weeks to complete.
If you have a deadline coming up in Week 4 you need to start now.
You don't have to wait until you absolutely know the content of your classes to be able
to start, and the worst thing to do is to wait until the last minute.
University assessments are quite complex.
They require extensive research, thinking, analysis and structuring of ideas.
Breaking down the entire assessment into these 8 steps will help you be more guided, focussed
and efficient with your time.
The steps are: 1.
analyse the assessment tasks; 2.
brainstorm; 3.
create a preliminary response; 4.
make a general plan or outline; 5. research, read and make notes; 6.
revise your plan or outline; 7.
writing a draft; 8.
edit and proofreading.
Only in step 7 do you actually do any writing.
If you think that doing an assessment is just to start writing, you are not approaching
it properly.
Step 1 Let’s look at step 1.
Why is analysing the assessment task important?
You can click on this ‘plus’ button here to see the information.
Finding the keywords in your assessment task and looking through your marking criteria
closely will help you understand what you actually need to write about and how to write
it.
There are clues within the assessment task and the marking criteria.
A major mistake that students make is writing about all kinds of things that are not asked
for in the assessment.
You can see additional resources by click on any of these links to get more information,
for example, a checklist or definitions of frequently used assessment task words.
So, how do you analyse an assessment task?
In your assessment instruction or question, there will be content words that tell you
what the main topic and subtopics are.
Then there are task words and they are usually verbs or action words that tell you how you
will write about the topic.
Then there are limiting words that specify the boundaries of your research.
You don't have to research everything about a topic, so what exactly do you need to research
about and write about?
These are defined by the limiting words.
Here's an example of an assessment question.
By the way, you should download all of your unit outlines, preview them so that you can
keep in mind your assessment topic during all your lectures and your readings.
This will help you focus on the information that you might need to get back to later when
you're starting to do your research for the assessment.
Back to this assessment question: Is exam anxiety detrimental to student academic performance?
Support your position with evidence from peer review publications (1500 words).
The key topic here is highlighted in pink --exam anxiety.
That's the content words and the main topic.
And what do you do with this main topic?
Well, you need to support your position.
Well, what is the position?
Is examine anxiety detrimental to student academic performance?
So, you're not talking about students' mental health.
You're focusing on academic performance.
That's the boundary of your research.
Also, you must use peer review publications.
This means quality evidence and current research.
Lastly, your word count is 1500 words.
Hopefully this gives you a sense of how to break down an assessment question.
If you need further help on this you can book an appointment with an Academic Skills Advisor
who can look at the assessment question with you and help you talk through it.
Step 2 Next, the second step is Brainstorm the topic.
Why is this important?
Well, you need to have a starting point to think about the assessment question.
An example of how you can brainstorm is to create a visual representation.
Some kind of mind map like this might really help; or, you can just jot down ideas or draw
in a notebook, but get your ideas down.
So, if the topic is exam anxiety, you can go into many different directions with your
ideas.
Don't limit yourself.
Think about the things that are related to this topic, focussing whether exam anxiety
is detrimental to student performance.
One idea might be 'Does exam anxiety cause the mind to go blank?'
Another might be 'Does exam anxiety make students put off studying until the last minute?'
These are possible research directions you can go into.
So, a good activity is to brainstorm before you do any kind of research.
Step 3 After you brainstorm you can start creating
a preliminary response.
For this assessment question ‘Is exam anxiety detrimental to student performance’ you
might be able to answer in three ways: Exam anxiety is mostly detrimental, could be detrimental
or unlikely to be detrimental.
Note that the words mostly, could be and unlikely are used.
This is because you cannot say exam anxiety is always detrimental or is detrimental because
this cannot be proven; you would not be able to find evidence for every case so you need
to qualify your response.
So you see the response is not strictly yes or no -- it could be maybe or partially true.
This actually demonstrates critical thinking on your part.
Step 4 Once you form a tentative response then you
can create a general outline or plan for the content of your writing.
Many students who attend Academic Skills consultations say they do not use an outline for writing.
Not having an outline means you can easily go off track when you are writing and lose
the thread of your thinking.
Having an outline keeps you focused.
In this example outline you can see the individual key points from the brainstorm map.
Under each key point, put in a note to find evidence to support that point.
You might also want to think of some exceptions to your point, in other words, opposing viewpoints.
Why consider these?
Well, you need to show that you’re looking all sides and then came to a conclusion based
on where the weight or the most evidence is.
Your position or argument is confirmed after doing the research, so the key points in your
outline can change.
Therefore, your preliminary response can also change.
Step 5 Now you’ve got some ideas to start your
research.
How much time should you spend on researching for your assessment?
If you're spending less than a day, you should really spend much more time in order to do
a good job finding a range of evidence relevant to your assessment question.
Research is not about going online to websites, reading Wikipedia or reading just one book.
Research is finding a range of quality evidence, such as peer-reviewed journal articles, to
support the points you are making in answering the assessment question.
A tip for doing research is to consult an ACU librarian on how to search databases.
There are strategies for using search words and filters to narrow down the number of articles
to the ones that are the most relevant.
For example, if you just type into the search bar on the ACU library home page the words
‘exam anxiety’ you would probably end up with over 10,000 or more sources, and this
would be overwhelming.
To sum up, you need to spend time sorting through the sources that may be available
to decide which ones you would actually read.
Then you have to read them, take notes, organise your notes and then insert the most useful
evidence into your general outline.
When taking notes, please be careful to write down the bibliographical information such
as author, year of publication and page number so you can later add in-text citation and
reference list entries.
Many students make the mistake of copying text from a source and putting the words into
their writing without any idea where the information came from.
This then results in losing marks for plagiarism or incorrect referencing.
To emphasise again, doing research is a major task so please make sure you build in sufficient
time to do this.
As you can see, time management is crucial when doing an assessment.
There are 8 steps involved so when should you start your assessment?
Try to start as early as possible by first analysing your assessment question using the
instructions provided in your unit outline.
You can also brainstorm ideas early on and when you get more of the content from your
lectures you can add on to your research.
If you do something each day or every other day toward your assessment you will avoid
panicking at the last minute.
Many students make the mistake of trying to finish an entire essay and then start on the
next assessment.
What’s wrong with this?
Well, the first assessment in your units all tend to be due around the same time, in Week
4 or 5.
If you wait until you finish one assessment before you start another one you will run
out of time to do all your assessments.
If you organize yourself and your time you can actually analyse the assessment question
for every assessment you have, then do Step 2 for all of them, then Step 3 and so on.
This means you can work on all of your assessments at the same time.
Step 6 Step 6 is to revise your plan or outline after
reading, researching and organising your notes.
So, you might have written in some key points in your general outline in step 4 but now
you should revise these key points to make them more analytical and in-depth, and also
add in the evidence to support the points.
You might move the key points around to arrange them in a more logical order.
Maybe while doing research you were able to find plenty of evidence for key point 1 but
couldn’t find any evidence for key point 2.
You should now cross out key point 2 and replace it with a different point.
So, you can organise and reorganise the points in your outline and this helps you develop
the logic of your writing.
Once you have a clear and well-developed outline then it’s easier to start writing.
All you have to do then is to write sentences from the bullet points in your outline, connect
the sentences and put the key point in the first sentence, or topic sentence.
This then makes a paragraph.
Some people like to write from beginning to end, for example in the order of introduction,
body and conclusion for an essay.
However, the easiest place to start writing is where you have gathered the most information
and evidence.
So, if you found a lot of information about point 3 then build a paragraph there first.
In other words, you can start writing from anywhere within your assessment.
Once you have built your body paragraphs you can move them around if you need to.
When you are happy with the structure you have created then write the introduction because
then you would know how you're developing your ideas in order.
Step 7 To recap, after you have revised your outline
start writing your first draft based on your outline.
Hopefully, this is at least two weeks before the assessment due date.
Please do not submit your first draft because there’s a very good chance you will not
get high marks for it.
Good writers and professional writers revise their writing over and over again before they
would consider submitting it.
Plan on writing at least 2 or 3 drafts.
In your first draft focus on just the content and the meaning you wish to communicate and
get your ideas down on paper.
Don’t try to use fancy words and complex sentence structure.
Some people spend too much time trying to make each sentence perfect during the drafting
stage.
This is not efficient writing.
The important thing is to just make sure you have a clear point in each sentence and that
point is directly related to the assessment question and the marking criteria.
When you have a new point to make then start a new paragraph.
Step 8 Once you have a first draft, be sure to do
some editing and proofreading.
What’s the difference between the two?
Editing means that you're checking that each piece of information in your sentence is related
to the assessment question, and that the key points are organized logically.
You should focus on adding transition words to connect the sentences to ensure a smooth
flow of your ideas.
You can also refine your sentence structure and word choices.
Proofreading is checking for mechanical issues such as spelling or grammar mistakes, formatting,
punctuation, referencing and things like that.
Once you have edited your writing carefully, meaning you have written a second or third
draft, and are happy with the content, make sure you take a break from this assessment
for a day or two.
Then come back with fresh eyes to do your proofreading.
This will help you catch mistakes that you might not have noticed before.
Grammar and referencing are only worth up to 10% of your marks but if you spend the
time to proofread carefully you won’t lose those marks and that may make the difference
between a pass or fail.
At the same time, do make sure you spend most of your time focusing on the content of your
assessment because that’s where most of the marks are going to be.
If you follow these 8 steps of the writing process, you will naturally put most of your
time and energy on the content, stay on track throughout your writing and avoid wasting
time.
And if you practice the 8 steps for each of your assessments, over time you will get better
and better at the writing process and be able to maximize your marks.
We have come to the end of this presentation.
For follow up, you can book a consultation with an Academic Skills Advisor to go over
any questions you have about the writing process.
Also, you can click on the 8 steps of the writing process infographic
to access it in the Academic Skills on LEO site.