Doing Essays and Assignments: Essential Tips for Students

by Pete Greasley

Overview

Lecturers, request your electronic inspection copy here.

Have you ever been stunned by a low grade, when you were expecting an A or B?

Are you struggling to make the jump from a second to a first?

Doing Essays and Assignments gives you an insider’s view on what tutors and professors really want when they assign essays and projects, and reveals how you can raise your game and achieve the best grades.

Drawing on a survey of lecturers, and examples of real student work, this handy guide provides practical advice to help you not only understand what is expected of you, but also get ideas on how to deliver what your tutor is looking for. Providing a behind-the-scenes look at marking, find out how you can successfully craft the perfect written assignment, and discover tips and techniques on:

• Planning and deadlines, helping you manage your workload effectively
• Gaining higher marks through critically formed arguments
• Communicating clearly with the correct language, grammar, and expression
• Avoiding common marking pitfalls such as referencing and plagiarism.

This new edition also reveals how to successfully navigate group work, literature reviews, and presentations to improve your grades.

With valuable insight from tutors, and practical tips to apply to your work, you might just want to keep this book to yourself…!

SAGE Study Skills are essential study guides for students of all levels. From how to write great essays and succeeding at university, to writing your undergraduate dissertation and doing postgraduate research, SAGE Study Skills help you get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips, resources and videos on study success!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781473912069
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	11/01/2016
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.80(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Pete Greasley is a Teaching Fellow in the Division of Health Research at Lancaster University. He has been marking student assignments for more years than he would care to remember, and not particularly enjoying it. He has conducted research and published academic articles in psychology, sociology, health, and education, and has also written an introductory book on quantitative data anal­ysis.

Research and teaching interests include psychological and social issues relating to health, sceptical inquiry relating to pseudo-science and the para­normal, and how to help students avoid common mistakes when writing their assignments. He currently spends much of his time supervising trainee clinical psychologists doing their research projects at Lancaster University.

Table of Contents

An insight into the marking process
How to impress and how to distress markers
Before you start, some rules of the game
Getting started . . . and getting finished
Reading and researching the literature
Introductions, conclusions, and structure
What was the question again?
Critical analysis, perspective and argument
The greatest source of 'marker distress': language, grammar and expression
Referencing - an academic fetish for the anally retentive?
Plagiarism
How not to present graphs and charts
Presenting your assignment: first impressions count
Feedback and feed-forward
Writing research/project reports
Doing a Systematic Literature Review
Presentation: A fate worse than death?
Group project work (or 'hell is other people')

Editorial Reviews

This book is a no-nonsense, unique proposition for students who want to take an extra effort to improve their grades. It clearly demonstrates how to impress markers by demonstrating some crucial university-level skills, or what essay-writing has to do with eating an elephant. If you are a student or a parent of a student, this book is a small investment which can bring tangible results!'

Kamil Zwolski

This book offers students an accessible, witty but insightful look at key assessment skills. The new edition addresses how to succeed at various assessment types including the thorny issue of group work! A worthwhile addition for all new students embarking on higher education.

Louise Platt