Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Preparing and Writing Essay

A primary key to producing good judges is to broach early and lend steadily over an extended period. Build in sentence for distractions and problems (e.g. illness or disk failure), and allow for deadline bunching. Plan to clear well before the deadline to allow yourself some leeway. As a approximate guide, you might allow three weeks for work on a occupation probe. The deadline is intended to attention you with time management make sure you amaze to it. Reflect on the feedback obtained on your previous attempts. What strengths and weaknesses were identified? conceptualise somewhat how best to overcome the weaknesses.For example, if your essays have been criticised for limited knowledge of the literature or lack of depth, this may indicate that you need to devote more prep time and increase or change the breadth and depth of your translation if criticised for poor mental synthesis or limited relevance, you are seeming to profit from spending more time on careful ju t outning and edit/reorganising the lowest draft. Using course essays to work on your weaknesses derriere champion you produce a better essay as well as help to improve your general writing skills.Look morehow to make unnecessary a process paperDo some introductory development to help you strike an essay emergence. The rendering lists for the essays provide guidance on sources of preliminary reading. Generally it is partful to choose reading that is relatively recent, this is likely to include a summary of earlier work, some of which you may explore in more detail later. It tidy sum also be instrumental at an early stage to make use of EconLit and the Library roll to check on the availability and nature of supplementary reading on a take.As should be obvious, you should try to choose a topic that you find interest. This volition help motivate you to work on the essay and is also likely to make the end product more interesting for the reader/marker. Note that intere st tends to increase as you work on a topic, providing you dont leave it all to the last minute. at once you have chosen a topic (or even to help you choose from a short-list of topics), use your initial reading to produce a draft portray plan of your essay. The general advice on what makes a good essay, fate out below, should help you to produce an effective plan. A basic plan would typically divide the essay/dissertation into a series of logically ordered sections. This skeleton structure stub then be fill up out by fitting ideas, relevant references, work and information required, into the mean sections (making use of references from preliminary reading, EconLit etc.)Taking time to construct an effective annotated outline plan should help you to Produce a well-structured and coherent essay. Organise the resultant work on your essay/dissertation and plan your prove time more effectively. Read actively and more effectively making you esteem about how further reading fits into your plan and, possibly, adapting your plan in response to new information or ideas. Although the ingredients of a good essay can vary between courses and topics, the following broad guidelines are generally applicable. social system Ensure that your essay/dissertation has a clear logical structure. work the introduction to motivate the topic, set it in perspective and outline the structure of the body of your essay to help the reader follow the argument. Use the conclusions to spew together the argument, provide an overall assessment and, possibly, indicate areas that might be developed further if space allowed.General content The primary revolve around should be on analysis, not description or presentation of information. stumble it clear that you have a good come acrossing of the relevant basic literature. But empty devoting too much space to repeating banal textbook material. Generally you can make clear that you understand the rudiments in the context of prese nting a more advanced or deeper analysis. Be innovative think of an interesting and different angle on the topic draw on ideas from other courses (including non-economics courses) or general reading go beyond the measure literature by making good use of EconLit or other reference sources be prepared to challenge standard approaches. This is likely to make the essay more interesting for you and the reader/marker. esteem it is your essay, it should reflect your informed thought and judgements on the topic, not simply reduplicate or paraphrase the views of others.Analysis and models The appropriate mode of analysis can vary between courses and topics. In the vast majority of cases economics essays will involve the use of an explicit model or models. Formal models help to provide a clear logical structure, which is a major dry land for their use in economics. When presenting a model, you need to make clear that you understand the model.This involves more than simply copying a set of equations from an article or book. To signal your understanding you might for example provide an intuitive news report of the overall model or key steps in resolving power the model work out some steps in a models solution explicitly, when (as is often the case) this is not d maven explicitly in the original source develop and work through a variation of the model not developed explicitly in the reading compare and contrast the model with other related models assess the assumptions use and the limitations they pose apply the model judiciously to a particular situation. presentation and style Grammar and small-arming matter. Leave plenty of time for editing the final draft to improve grammar. Use a spellchecker, but remember that spell checkers do not pick up all mistakes. absurd spelling of names and jargon can be particularly irritating. Be precise and concise. Conciseness allows you to include more within the word limit. Think about how to present data or information eff ectively. Tables or figures can be useful presentational tools. References should be presented accurately and consistently. See the lists of preliminary readings for a suggested standard style.Citations and plagiarism Quotations should be used judiciously, if at all, to corroborate or illustrate an argument. The source of any quotation should be all the way stated, including the page reference. Data sources should be clearly cited. When summarising or describing someones work the source or sources should be clearly stated. The University of Edinburghs undergraduate opinion Regulations state Plagiarism is the act of copying or including in ones own work, without adequate recognition, intentionally or unintentionally, the work of another. It is academically fraudulent and an offence against University discipline. (http//www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/AcademicServices/Regulations/UG_AssessmentRegulations.PDF, para. 14.2) The University of Edinburghs Guidance on the scheme of Plagiarism for Undergraduate and Taught Postgraduate Students states Plagiarism is the act of including in ones own work the work of another person, without adequate acknowledgement of having done so, either deliberately or unintentionally. (http//www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/AcademicServices/Discipline/StudentGuidanceUGPGT.pdf ) The Undergraduate Assessment Regulations add The innocent misuse or citation of material without schematic and proper acknowledgement can constitute plagiarism, even when there is no deliberate intent to cheat. Work may be plagiarised if it consists of nigh paraphrasing or unacknowledged summary of a source, as well as word-for-word transcription. Any failure adequately to acknowledge or flop reference other sources in submitted work could lead to lower mark and to disciplinary action being taken. (http//www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/AcademicServices/Regulations/UG_AssessmentRegulations.PDF , para. 14.2) The three preceding bullet points avoid plagiarism, by properly acknowl edging sources (but would not, on their own, constitute a good essay or dissertation).Most study skills books contain further advice on essay writing. The Main Library Reading Room has an extensive collection of study skills books, which contain advice on essay writing. Several books are devoted specifically to writing skills, for example

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