The Good Writing Guide for Education Students

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This accessible guide to writing academically is based on the author′s many years of experience helping students to improve their writing and get better marks in assignments. The advice works because it uses real examples of students′ work to explain what tutors look for, and shows you how to get there.

New to this Third Edition:

- increased coverage of plagiarism (and how to avoid it)

- how to show critical reflection and judgement

- turning useful notes from lectures and readings into powerful written arguments

- updated material on citations and references

- new examples of students′ work

- developing an academic ′voice′.

The book is packed with practical advice on how to read widely, search for reading materials, structure your writing and use language effectively. With plenty of dos and don′ts, this is a perfect guide for students studying at all levels.

Dominic Wyse is Professor of Early Years and Primary Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. 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 website for tips, quizzes and videos on study success!

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• About the Author (p. ix)
• Acknowledgements (p. x)
• How to Use this Book (p. xi)
• Part I Reading and Thinking (p. 1)
• 1 Reading Widely (p. 3)
• Where to start your reading (p. 5)
• Journals (p. 7)
• Books (p. 9)
• 2 Searching for Reading Materials (p. 12)
• The British Education Index (p. 17)
• Search for an author's name (p. 17)
• A keyword search (p. 20)
• Reading and note-taking (p. 23)
• Critical reading and systematic recording (p. 24)
• How not to read (p. 26)
• Speed-reading (p. 28)
• 3 Planning for Writing (p. 30)
• How planning changes as you become a more experienced writer (p. 31)
• Student example: planning an assignment to contrast two lessons (p. 34)
• A different way of planning the assignment (p. 37)
• 4 Small-Scale Research Projects (p. 40)
• What kind of research are you doing? (p. 41)
• The rationale for your research (p. 42)
• Ethics (p. 44)
• Student example: thinking about a research project (p. 46)
• David's first draft (p. 47)
• David's second draft (p. 49)
• 5 Referencing (p. 55)
• The author/date system (p. 57)
• An example of a reference list (p. 58)
• How to lay out citations and references (p. 59)
• Book (p. 59)
• Chapter in an edited book (p. 60)
• Journal article - in printed form (p. 60)
• Electronic formats (p. 60)
• Journal article - in electronic form (p. 61)
• Organisation as author - in electronic form (website) (p. 61)
• Organisation as author - school policy document (p. 61)
• Newspaper - in electronic form without DOI (website) (p. 61)
• Newspaper - in printed form (p. 62)
• Report (p. 62)
• Film/video (p. 62)
• Secondary source (p. 63)
• Conference presentation (p. 63)
• Lecture (p. 63)
• Laws (p. 64)
• Classic texts (p. 64)
• Quotes: long, short and quotation marks (p. 64)
• The notes/bibliography system (p. 65)
• An example of text using the notes/bibliography system (p. 66)
• Software to help with citations and references (p. 66)
• Plagiarism (p. 69)
• Part II Writing (p. 73)
• 6 Structuring Your Writing (p. 75)
• Student example: beginning your writing (p. 76)
• Student example: beginnings, structure, sections and paragraphs (p. 77)
• Subheadings and sections (p. 79)
• Writing a dissertation (p. 80)
• A suggested structure for a dissertation or research report (p. 82)
• 1 Literature review - a review of texts related to your research topic (p. 83)
• 2 Methodology - an account of the methods that you used and reflections on their effectiveness (p. 84)
• 3 Findings/results - a report of the most significant things that you found (p. 85)
• 4 Discussion - the implications of the research project (p. 87)
• Abstract - summary of complete text (p. 88)
• Student example: writing a dissertation (p. 88)
• 7 Grammar and Punctuation (p. 94)
• Grammar (p. 94)
• Student example: test your grammar (p. 96)
• Grammar check on the word processor (p. 97)
• More common grammar pitfalls (p. 99)
• Punctuation (p. 101)
• Understanding punctuation marks (p. 103)
• Comma , (p. 103)
• Semicolon ; (p. 103)
• Colon : (p. 104)
• Apostrophe ' (p. 104)
• Parenthesis (including brackets) (p. 104)
• Hyphen - (p. 105)
• Dash - (p. 105)
• Slash / (p. 105)
• Ellipsis ... (p. 105)
• Quotation marks " " or æÆ (p. 106)
• Student examples: problems with punctuation (p. 106)
• Full stop (p. 106)
• Comma (p. 107)
• Quotation marks (p. 108)
• Colon (and a few other things) (p. 108)
• Answers to puzzles (p. 109)
• 8 Spelling (p. 111)
• Examples of spelling problems (p. 114)
• The problems with homophones (p. 116)
• Effect and affect (p. 116)
• Practice and practise (p. 116)
• Principle and principal (p. 116)
• Inquiry and enquiry (p. 117)
• Let's and lets (p. 117)
• Who's and whose (p. 117)
• How to improve your spelling (p. 117)
• 9 Presentation and Proofreading (p. 119)
• Handwriting (p. 120)
• Presentations (p. 122)
• Proofreading (p. 123)
• Proofreading test (p. 125)
• Proofreading test answers (p. 125)
• 10 Assessment and Learning from Feedback (p. 127)
• Student example: rationale for a planned sequence of lessons (p. 130)
• Critical thinking (p. 133)
• Student example: critical thinking in an essay on the aims of education (p. 134)
• Assessment at master's degree level (p. 135)
• Student example: master's level criteria addressed in an essay showing reflections on a published research paper (p. 138)
• 1 Focus of the study (p. 138)
• 2 Knowledge and understanding (p. 139)
• 3 Development of an argument (p. 139)
• 4 Critical engagement and judgement (p. 139)
• 5 Structure and organisation (p. 140)
• 6 Presentation (p. 140)
• Feedback happens to us all (p. 140)
• Further Reading (p. 144)
• References (p. 145)
• Glossary (p. 147)
• Index (p. 150)