Essay Writing – Salford Style

Another week, another post ! And this time it’s another big subject: Assignments ! Well, more specifically essay-type assignments. It’s kind of a good timing cause I am currently working on my People Management essay so i thought I’d document my progress ^^

Research:

First things first: getting the bulk information you need for the essay.

For this I can think of 4 invaluable sources: Library, Lecturer/Tutor, Internet, Journal Databases provided by the University.

Couple of years ago, the Students Union managed to convince the University to keep the library open 24/7, which is an absolute godsend for people that really want to get a 2:1 or a First. It’s not as much the library with books and PCs, but the library where there’s a quiet place that motivates you to study and be productive. I usually get my reading done either online or back home, but write the essay in the library, where I can manage my thoughts better. Because it takes around 20 minutes to get there (I live in Castle Irwell), I usually go there with a couple of mates, each doing their own research. The University has 3 library sites, Adelphi, Allerton and Clifford Whitworth. All three are different amazing experiences and worth having a blog post only for their sake, so more details regarding that will come  a bit later

One thing stuck with me at the very beginnings of this essay assignment. Our tutor wanted to do a “How to write a proper essay” seminar, and asked us to pick one of the essay questions so it was relevant to our work. I quickly raised my hand and asked her to do it based on the essay topic I chose. I was just baffled by the amount of information she presented relevant to my topic, in-between the basic essay layout and rules. That actually gave me the starting points of my research. Most of the times, essay topics hide other questions which, as a first year undergraduate, are hard to pick up on. So remember this: Try talking to your lecturer/tutor about your essay before starting work on it. Also, make sure you check a draft with them before you submit it.

Internet. Need I say more ? Everyone knows it contains nearly endless amounts of information, some of top notch quality, some not so much, and some simply useless. The trick is to find quality sources. To help you with that, there are InfoLit sessions held by the library staff to help you make a difference between genuine sources of information and others that do not add any value to your essay.

Journal Databases are my personal favourite and certainly the greatest shock when transitioning from college/high school. A journal is a peer-reviewed periodical related to a certain subject, in which new research is presented, or existing research is critiqued. Most often than not, it contains the bleeding-edge of research, which, when referenced in your essays, add an immense value. Journal costs, and some quite a lot, but the University pays for everything and you get them without even a penny. Here’s an example of the sheer amount of information: The University subscribed to 28 Databases in the Business&Management category. I randomly pick one of them: Emerald Insight Journal and Book database. If you search for “social networks” you get 21771 results. Economics gives you 38224. The best part is that it has awesome advanced searching features that help you pinpoint the exact information you need. Now, that was only 1 of the databases. There are other databases that contain news-paper articles and are updated hourly. Take a second and think about how much quality information is at your fingertips.

Writing:

So now you have all that information but you have to filter it and lay it out in a formal, academic way. There are plenty of essay-writing guides, both in paperback and online, but one that helped me the most, as it was tailored for University of Salford needs, was one written by my lecturer, which for your pleasure I have uploaded here. As you can see, there is a strong focus on referencing in that guide. Referencing is the tool that fights against piracy here at Salford and most other universities across the globe. Referencing can be a tedious task, but a smart student like you can find ways around that.

I have found 2 ways to ease my referencing and give myself more time for the actual laying of ideas:

• EasyBib is one of them. You just input your book or journal and you automagically have the reference done for you !
• Microsoft Office (2007 and above) has this neat “References” section in the ribbon that has everything you’ll ever need to do your references and bibliography. For a guide on how to do that, check Productive Geek’s blog post.

Handing it in:

This year, the University started using electronic submission for first year undergraduates and postgraduates so you’ll most certainly have to deal with that when you come at Salford. The system they use is called TurnItIn and it’s there to help you make sure you are safe against referencing troubles (you can submit drafts and see if they are properly referenced) but also to help the examining committee not have to deal with so much physical material (actual printed papers).

That pretty much outlines the steps you need to make to write your good essay, if you have any thoughts on this, please comment

If you want to find out more about what it's like at Salford, why not watch some of our student videos on YouTube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/InternationalSalford.