Writing workshop

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As someone who hasn't written an essay for a number of years the writing workshop with Peter Thomas couldn't have come at a better time. I'm currently in the midst of writing my module 1 essay and Peter provided that bit of extra clarity I needed.

One of the most helpful things from the workshop was when writing your essay to;

Generate:  Don't worry about the reader.  List, free write, mind map (document your thoughts), dictate.

Organise:  Map relationships between ideas (more mind maps). Group ideas. Find themes.

Present:  How does it sound. Proof read. Think about the reader.

Write -------- Review -------- Rewrite 

I've been trying to take my mountain of notes along with a very brief outline of how I'd like my essay to look and type them straight into a perfectly formed piece of writing. It hasn't been working and the idea of freely writing my essay without thinking about the reader to begin with (although probably quite obvious really) was a bit of a light bulb moment for me!

We were told to think about the purpose of the writing we were doing.  For example in terms of an essay would be to pass information on, to inform, show understanding, explore a topic and bring together ideas perhaps with arguments for and against.

To think about the reader. Who is your target audience?  In a university essay its usually an informed reader - a university lecturer or another student. And then to think about the context of the text. 

Peter gave us some very helpful resources:

www.uefap.net 

This website has tips and guidance on academic writing e.g. citing exercises.

www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk 

This website is an academic phrasebook and has examples of expressions etc.  Good for getting ideas.

Middlesex University library search: blogs wikis podcasts. Find the book Blogs, Wiki's, podcasts & more by Andy Pulman, 2009. Click pocket study skills and you'll find lots of lite easy accessible books including one called 'writing for university'.

Also from our program page we can scroll down and click on Middlesex student resources, then click Help with your academic writing which will take us to the Learning enhancement team website on Unihub. This has resources, materials, guidance on different types of writing. Under academic writing and language support we can book tutorials and find self study resources.

A very helpful workshop and with all this new information I'm feeling a lot more confident in my approach to my essay. 



Comments

  1. Alys DaviesOctober 15, 2020 at 9:16 AM

    Hi Jen,
    I enjoyed reading this. I also have the problem of expecting to be able to magically transform my notes into a perfectly polished piece of writing, and so for me the free writing exercise was very eye-opening!
    Alys

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alys May-JamesOctober 15, 2020 at 10:37 AM

    Hi Jen,
    Thank you for this blog. I attended the evening skype and did a blog about it. I found it really interesting doing the free writing and seeing the common themes that came up with in it. Feel free to check out my blog post :) Alys x
    https://alysmay.blogspot.com/2020/10/academic-writing.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Emily SmithOctober 19, 2020 at 5:14 AM

    Hi Jen, I took took a lot from the lecture and I wish we had these more often as it was so insightful! I think I was so getting so stressed about the final product (essay) that I wasn't understanding or breaking down how I was going to be able to get there. Peters breakdown has made it seem much more achievable and by doing a step by step approach hopefully things will all fall into place!

    ReplyDelete

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