University of Chester – School of Education



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Faculty of Education and Children’s Services

Faculty Assignment Style Guide

2015/16 version

Contents

Style guide 2

Abbreviations 2

Acronyms 2

Children/Pupils/Students/Trainees 2

Date and Time 2

Ethical Guidance 2

Initials 2

Inclusive Language 2

Key Stages 2

Lists 3

Numbers 3

Quotations and Quotation Marks 3

School Subjects 3

Spelling 3

Titles 3

Years 3

Quick reference spelling and capitalisation list 4

Words which are commonly mis-spelt 5

Appendix I - Writing Guide 6

Style guide

Abbreviations

• Use ‘for example’ rather than e.g.

• Avoid the use of etcetera (etc.).

• Avoid the use of contractions (for example, can’t, doesn’t) instead use the full term (cannot, does not).

• Avoid using & or +. Use ‘and’ instead.

Acronyms

• Spell out the first occurrence in full and give the acronym in brackets. Thereafter, use the acronym only. For example, ‘The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) has indicated ….’

Children/Pupils/Students/Trainees

• Please use:

o ‘child/ children’ for EYFS;

o ‘child(ren) or pupil(s)’ for Primary

o ‘pupil(s)’ for lower school Secondary (year 7-9);

o ‘student(s)’ for upper school Secondary (year 10-13);

o ‘student(s)’ for those in university or FE;

o ‘Associate Teachers’ for those following ITE courses.

Date and Time

• The style for dates is - 21 December 2012.

• The style for spans of years is - 1970–72.

• Centuries should be spelled out in full – for example, the twentieth century.

• Decades should be referred to as, for example, the 1980s, the 1640s (no apostrophe).

Ethical Guidance

• Names of teachers, children, schools, nurseries or other information showing the identity or location of individuals must not be included in any assignment.

• Individuals should be ‘anonymised’ (for example, Child A, Teacher C) and locations should be generalised (for example, a Primary school in an urban area). This also applies to pupil profiles for trainees on school placements.

• You must gain permission from the school or workplace setting before taking photos or video. Full details of the School’s and University’s ethical guidelines can be found on Portal.

Initials

• Use full stops after initials in names and no spaces between the initials.

o A.H. Goldstein

Inclusive Language

• Try to avoid specifying gender when referring to children/students generally.

o Rephrase the sentence to make the sense plural. For example, rather than “A child will respond to his/her name” put ‘The children will respond to their names……”.

o Rephrase the sentence – for example rather than saying ‘A teacher needs to protect herself from...’ say ‘A teacher needs protection from...’

Key Stages

• Use capital initial letters and digits when referring to a particular key stage (including Foundation Stage and Early Years) but not when referring to key stages in general. Hence;

o Key Stage 2 is one of the two key stages in Primary schools.

• Avoid abbreviating to KS.

Lists

• The use of lists in an academic assignment is discouraged. However, there may be occasions when a list is appropriate (e.g. in lesson planning). Lists should be bullet-pointed, rather than numbered or lettered, unless it is sensible to do otherwise.

Numbers

• Spell out numbers up to and including ten, and use digits thereafter (e.g. nine times, 15 children).

• Spans of page numbers should be abbreviated to pages 70–82 and pages 135–46.

• Note: use ‘page/pages’ rather than ‘p’ or ‘pp’, except in bracketed references.

Quotations and Quotation Marks

• Quotations should be indicated by use of double quotation marks at the start and end.

• Quotations of 40 words or fewer should be embedded in the text. For example:

This is reinforced by Jones et al (2013) who state, “The secret of success lies in good preparation” (p. 23).

OR

This is reinforced by Jones et al (2013, p. 23) who state, “The secret of success lies in good preparation”.

• Longer quotations should be set as a separate, indented paragraph, single-spaced, without quote marks. For example:

It is essential that all sources should be properly referenced, following the APA style. This is to ensure that you cannot be accused of plagiarism and that you are acknowledging the origin of your information and ideas. It also shows the extent of your background reading (Smith, 2015, p. 25).

• The citation should follow in brackets showing the page number immediately after it (see APA referencing section).

School Subjects

• Use lower case initial letters (e.g. geography, history) except for languages (e.g. French) and acronyms (e.g. ICT).

Spelling

• Always spell-check your work before submission. Take extra care with practise (verb) and practice (noun) as a homophones such as these are rarely detected by spell-checking mechanisms.

Titles

• Italicise the titles of books, magazines, television/radio programmes, plays, poems, films, paintings, software programs, nursery rhymes and musical works when mentioned in your text. Capitalise all key words, and use single quotation marks.

o So:       ‘War and Peace’, ‘Excel’, ‘Handel’s Messiah’, ‘The Teaching of Reading’, ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’.

Note: Article or chapter titles should have an initial capital letter on first word only.

o So:       In ‘Thematic fantasy, play and story comprehension’, Christie says that …

Years

• Use an initial capital and a digit when referring to a year group – for example, Year 4. Also use an initial capital for Reception and Nursery.

Quick reference spelling and capitalisation list

|adviser (not advisor) |long term (noun) / long-term (adjective) |

|BECTa (British Educational Communications and Technology |medium term (noun) / medium-term (adjective) |

|Agency) |multicultural |

|CD-ROM |multilingual |

|circle time |National Curriculum |

|Code of Practice |NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) |

|continuing professional development (CPD) |Nursery |

|co-operate |OFSTED |

|co-ordinator |per cent (not % unless in sum or table) |

|core subjects |Primary/Primary school |

|EAL |programme of study (PoS) |

|Early Learning Goals |PSHE (personal, social and health education) |

|Early Years |QCDA (Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority) |

|Earth |QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) |

|English as an Additional Language (EAL) |Reception |

|e-mail |self-assessment |

|Early Years Foundation Stage |schemes of work (SoW) |

|foundation subjects |Secondary/Secondary school |

|Gifted and Talented (G&T) |SEN (special educational needs) |

|grant-maintained school (GM) |SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) |

|head teacher |short term (noun) / short-term (adjective) |

|ICT (information and communication technology) |teaching assistant |

|Individual Educational Plan (IEP) |textbook |

|internet |TDA (Training and Development Agency for schools) |

|level 1 |website |

|local authority (LA) |White Paper |

| |Year 1, Year 2, etc. |

Words which are commonly misspelt

A accessible

accidental

accommodate

achieve, achievement , achievable

acknowledge

acquainted

acquire

activity

address

a lot

analysis, analysed, analyses

appropriate

B behaviour

benefited

C calculator

changeable

cite

commitment, committed committee

competent

competitive

complement, compliment

complete, completely

computer

conceit

conceive

confidential

conscientious

consistent

contemporary

continuous

could have (NOT could of)

criteria, criterion

criticism

D debatable

definite, definitely

desperate

detached

develop, developed, development

dictionary

dilemma

disappoint

disastrous

discrepancy discreet (unobtrusive) discrete (distinct/separate) draft (e.g. first draft), draught

E ecstasy

embarrass

emphasize

environment

equipped

exaggerated

excellent

exercise

existence

experience

F feasible

February

forward, foreword

frightening

fulfil, fulfilled

fundamental

G grammar

H harass

hurriedly

hypothesis

I ideological

imagination

implement

independence

independent

indispensable

install, instalment

irrelevant

irresistible

its (e.g. in its place)

it’s (i.e. abbrev. of it is)

L led, lead

liaison

lightening, lightning

lose (e.g. to lose your way), loose (e.g. it is loose), losing

M maintenance

marriage

might have (NOT might of)

miniature

movable

N naïve

necessary

noticeable

O occasion

occur, occurred, occurrence

omission, omitted

P permanent

playwright

possess

practice (noun),

practise (verb)

precede

preliminary

preventative

principal (i.e. most significant), principle (i.e. theory or principal of College)

privilege

proceed, procedure

professional

program (i.e. computer program), programme (i.e. TV programme)

pronunciation

Q questionnaire

quiet (i.e. less noisy)

quite (e.g. quite large)

R receive

recommend

refer, referred, reference

relevant

responsibility

rhythm

S seize

sentence

separate

several

siege

signature

sincerely

skilful, skilfully

soliloquy

sort, (e.g. to sort items) sought (e.g. the answer was sought)

successful

supersede

surprise

T tendency

threshold

transcendent

transferred

transience, transient

twelfth

U unnecessary

until

W Wednesday

weird

wholly

withhold

writing, written

Appendix I - Writing Guide

Introduction- a warning for readers

As you read this guide you’ll notice that I have a very happy time breaking nearly all the rules I’m teaching you. There’s a good reason for this: I’m not trying to write conventional academic prose. In fact I’m doing the opposite- masking the crashing dullness of the subject matter in an informal style in the hope that it’s reasonably engaging.

It is very important to realise that there is no such thing as ‘good writing.’ There is only writing which conveys the writer’s intentions in the best possible way for the purpose. The purpose of this guide is to show you how to write effective, appropriate, formal English for the purpose of assignments. Don’t get the idea that you are a bad writer because you didn’t know the stuff in this guide, you’re not. You are simply someone who hasn’t had to do this sort of thing before and needs some help to do it well- good luck.

Anaphora

We use pronouns to avoid repeating the subject of the sentence because repeating the subject of the sentence is time-consuming and repeating the subject of the sentence also gets on the reader’s nerves- like this! So we substitute the subject noun with a pronoun. The rule is that the pronoun can only refer back to the previous noun or forward to the next one. You can’t leapfrog over a noun. (Anaphora is the technical word for referring back, Cataphora means referring forward). Have a look at this little cherry plucked from a recent harvest of essays:

Teachers should not recommend books to children that they do not like.

I know the student didn’t mean that teachers don’t like some children but that’s what she wrote. We have to mark what you write not what we guess you probably meant so a slip like this will certainly lose you marks. The sentence would have been better as Teachers should not recommend books that they do not like to children but this is still clumsy. It would be far better to get rid of the negatives: Teachers should recommend only children’s books that they like.

Apostrophes

Everyone finds these difficult for a good reason. The English language adds an ‘s’ to the end of words to signal three different things:

• Making a plural dog- dogs

• Changing the verb form I walk- she walks

• Showing possession tail of the dog – dog’s tail

Whatever primeval scribe thought it was a good idea to use the same letter for different functions was, patently, quite bonkers. The system is a mess. However, it is a learnable mess. You need to remember three simple things:

• To make a plural, you never add an apostrophe

• To change the verb form, you never add an apostrophe

• To show possession, you always add an apostrophe

Singular possessives are simple – you add an apostrophe and then an ‘s’ to the singular word.

The boy – the boy’s dog (singular word + apostrophe + s)

The same applies even when the singular word already ends in an ‘s’.

James – James’s dog (singular word + apostrophe + s)

Some plural possessives are also easy – you do exactly the same as for singular possessives.

The children – the children’s dog (plural word + apostrophe + s)

Plural words that already end in ‘s’ are different – they do need an apostrophe, but they sound ridiculous with an extra ‘s’, so we drop that.

More than one sister (sisters) – the sisters’ dog

Apostrophe for contraction

We also use apostrophes to show when a letter has been left out in a contraction of two words into one. Do not- don’t. The rule for this is easy: you don’t use contractions in academic writing because they are part of informal writing genres. You will need to understand them as a teacher.

There is one really nasty little anomaly which catches people.

• Its means ‘belongs to it.’ (possessive pronoun)

• It’s is the contracted form of ‘it is.’

None of the possessive pronouns have apostrophes- its, his, hers, theirs. Remember it this way: no-one would dream of writing I saw hi’s lesson. So if you can substitute the word ‘his’ you aren’t going to need an apostrophe.

Bullet points are never appropriate if your title has asked you to discuss or analyse. They are a useful tool in instructional, procedural or descriptive writing. If you haven’t been told explicitly to do one of these things, don’t use bullet points.

Cohesion

Your work will gain much better marks if it all knits together nicely. There are various ways of doing this within and between sentences. Parts of sentences can be joined with conjunctions (and, so, but, or, when, while, because etc.)

Ideas can be linked across sentences with words or phrases which indicate how your argument is moving forward.

• Because- now I’m explaining what I’ve just written

• Therefore- now I’m explaining it pompously

• Thus it can be seen that- now I’m being really condescending

• Additionally- now I’m piling on the evidence and I want you to notice the breadth of my reading

• However- I want a 2.1 so I’ve made the effort to find contrasting research

However, you should not overuse cohesive words because they get very irritating if you do, thus antagonising your marker. Therefore save them for key moments when you want to emphasise a point. Additionally, one per paragraph is ample. See what I mean? Very annoying to read. You can get the same effect far more subtly as follows:

However, Gambles (2010) considered that . . . .

Gambles (2010) interpreted the issue differently, suggesting that . . . .

Colon

Colons introduce things:

1. They introduce an explanation or continuation of an idea expressed before the colon.

There is only one thing you need to remember: turn right at the lights.

In such circumstances, the colon tends to mean ‘and here it is’ / ‘here they are’.

2. Colons sometimes introduce lists (but only when the clause coming before the colon is independent – could stand alone as a sentence).

I have many things to pack: clothes, sun-cream, sun-glasses and flip-flops.

3. Colons sometimes introduce quoted material (but again only when the clause coming before the colon is independent – could stand alone as a sentence).

The teacher often used her favourite quotation: 'I wasn't expecting the

Spanish Inquisition.'

Comma Splice

A comma-splice is one of the most common punctuation errors - something you must try to avoid. It is the incorrect use of a comma instead of a full stop!

I love chocolate, it’s sweet and melts in your mouth. Incorrect – comma-splice

Commas cannot be used to separate two independent clauses (two clauses that could have stood alone in two separate sentences). To avoid comma-splicing, you must do one of the following:

1. Use a full stop (followed by capital letter)

I love chocolate. It’s sweet and melts in your mouth.

2. Use a conjunction such as and, but, because etc.

I love chocolate because it’s sweet and melts in your mouth.

3. Use a semi-colon (see Semi-colons, below).

I love chocolate; it’s sweet and melts in your mouth.

The use of the word ‘however’ often results in comma-splicing (see ‘However’, below).

Complex Sentences

It’s really rather like the prison system: many students seem to think that long sentences are more effective because they signal a complexity of thought which is certain to impress markers who believe that such writing, without exception, is indicative of congruence with academic conventions, and therefore characterises the qualities embedded in the work of the highest stands, thus meriting a high mark.

The paragraph above was almost impossible to follow. All I was saying was that some students think that good academic writing uses tortuous sentences so, if they write like that, we’ll award high marks. No we won’t: your job as an academic writer is to clarify complex ideas for your reader, not to dress up simple ideas in grandiose waffling.

A full stop tells your reader ‘Now’s a good time to pause and think about what you’ve just read.’ The further apart the full stops, the harder it is for the reader to understand you. A good sentence communicates the idea in the simplest possible way.

When sentence subjects are closely related, you may want to put them together in a single sentence so your reader processes them together. Have a look at this:

Stuart’s original work was undertaken in East London; her later longitudinal study in Clackmannanshire yielded similar data.

In this example, I’ve chosen to put two sentences together and have linked them with a semi-colon. It is a bit bumpy so I might prefer to embed one of the ideas in a subordinate clause

Stuart’s longitudinal study, which was undertaken in Clackmannanshire, yielded similar data to the original East London research.

By putting in the subordinate clause, I’ve made it easier for the reader to focus on the main point.

Contractions (see apostrophes)

Dash

This is used instead of other punctuation in informal writing - much too modern for us and not appropriate in academic writing.

NB. The ‘dash’ is not to be confused with a ‘hyphen’ which is used between words such as ‘tight-lipped’ which is more than acceptable.

Description is the easiest stuff in the world to write (and to read). However, it won’t gain you any marks at undergraduate or M level so you must make any descriptive passages as short as possible. Only use description to give an example which you then analyse.

On my last placement the teacher used to juggle live ferrets which held grapheme flashcards in their little paws.

If you don’t offer an explanation for the inclusion of this fascinating insight, your marker has no choice but to think, ‘so what?’

This is better:

... in their little paws. This exemplified the need for engaging, discrete teaching of phonics as advocated by Jones (2013).

Your marker isn’t allowed to infer the significance of your description: you must show exactly why it was worth mentioning. Don’t leave us to work out the importance: we won’t.

Discussion

Nearly every piece of academic writing will expect you to consider issues from differing perspectives. You need to do this in a balanced, objective way. In the conclusion, you can express an informed opinion. Before that, your role is to consider all the available evidence fairly. Your assignment shows a journey in your thinking; you don’t set out to prove a point.

• Don’t try to persuade the reader through the use of biased language.

Brien’s superficial and invalid presentation . . .

Even in the conclusion it is better to show why you have been persuaded than to try to persuade your reader.

• Don’t think of an assignment as a recipe for good classroom practice.

You should juggle ferrets every day because it is fun.

• Don’t ignore data which doesn’t fit in with your beliefs. When you believe something strongly you must show that your thinking has been informed by a rational rejection of alternative perspectives. You must never ignore other ways of thinking. That way lies bigotry; something which has no place in educational writing or thinking.

Discussion is about recognising that issues in education are always complex and usually untidy. Don’t try to make things simpler than they are. You’ll lose marks and, more importantly, you won’t develop the sorts of thinking which will make you a good teacher.

Dialect

Regional dialect forms sometimes creep into essays. We require standard written English in all assignments. The most common problem is non-standard verb forms, for example ‘the children was sat.’ The standard English form would be ‘the children were sitting.’ You’ll need to go through the painful process of self-examination which every teacher has undergone. List the things you know are influenced by the informal language you use at home or with friends. Take comfort: you can’t be worse than me. I wrote ‘the kids brung in seven kinds of leaves off of the field’ in one of my first lesson evaluations. I still haven’t quite got over the resultant ear bashing. Learn from my mistakes.

Ellipses

Three little dots mean you’ve left out something from the middle of a sentence. Four little dots mean you’ve left off the end of a sentence. The extra dot is the full stop. Be cautious; we get very suspicious of ellipses in quotations as we suspect that students have removed material which doesn’t quite make the point.

Embedding Quotations

This is tricky. You need to embed them well enough to ensure that your discussion flows well, while ensuring that you can’t be accused of plagiarism. Short quotations (up to 40 words) are put in the sentence.

The importance of cross-curricular reinforcement was emphasised by Jones (2013, p.16) who advocated a ‘broad and rich’ language curriculum.

Long quotations need to be indented and single-spaced BUT they are nearly always a waste of space and of your word allowance. We’d much rather know that you can offer a reasonable synopsis of the idea in your own words. All a quotation tells your reader is that you have found some relevant information and copied it out nicely. Paraphrase shows that you have thought about it.

Please, never end your essay with a quotation. It is always wasted as it isn’t analysed and it does look horribly like you are threatening the reader with being beaten up by your big brother.

First person

There’s a fairly prevalent myth that you mustn’t ever use the word ‘I’ in an assignment. As with everything else in language, you should choose the words which convey your meaning clearly and appropriately. Introductions and conclusions in particular can be enhanced with a bit of first person writing. In such cases, there is no need to refer to yourself using alternative words such as ‘the writer’, ‘the Associate teacher’, ‘the student’ etc.

‘I noted that …’ is much better than ‘It was noted by the writer that …’

‘I observed …’ is preferable to ‘The Associate Teacher observed…’

However, as with every other myth there is a nugget of truth. First person writing gets out of hand very easily. A little may help; too much will certainly ruin your work. Make sensible authorial decisions about its use. Consider selective use of the passive voice as a ‘first person avoidance’ technique – see Passive Voice, below.

Generalisations

Make sure that your analysis of data doesn’t stretch their applications to other contexts. (Yes, ‘data’ is plural. The singular is ‘datum.’) This is a typical, bad example:

‘the children enjoyed this, so it is a valuable approach’

No, those children enjoyed it on that occasion. This doesn’t mean it had any educational value. I taught a child who enjoyed ‘pooing’ in tins of powder paint- I wouldn’t base my art curriculum around this observation!

Generalisations always weaken the discussion because they expose a superficiality of analysis and that indicates a superficiality of thinking. Creating an essay probably involves 70% thinking and 30% writing.

However

The word ‘however’ is very mobile – it can change its position within an independent clause/simple sentence:

• However, I am not rich.

• I am, however, not rich.

• I am not rich, however.

• I am not, however, rich. All fine.

However, the word ‘however’ is often used incorrectly as a result of the assumption that it can be used in the same way as we might use conjunctions such as ‘and’ or ‘because’. The word ‘however’ is not a conjunction and cannot, therefore, be used as such to join two independent clauses/simple sentences.

I like fish, however I do not like chips – incorrect

The two underlined clauses above are independent – they make sense on their own – they are two single-clause (simple) sentences.

I like fish. However I do not like chips – Fine

I like fish, but I do not like chips – Fine (‘but’ is a conjunction)

It has become acceptable for the comma above to be omitted between such short clauses, but that’s another story.

Non-sentences

Every sentence needs a verb. To check, try rewriting your sentence in a different tense; the verb is the bit which changes. For example, every sentence needed a verb. Every sentence will need a verb.

When students try to write very complex sentences, verbs seem to take fright and disappear, as in:

In the formal classroom, unlike the foundation stage setting, attractive displaying of work by the teacher.

No verb = no sense. ‘Displaying’ is a present participle not a proper verb; try changing the tense and you’ll see the difference. ‘Word’ is extremely good at putting green zigzags under non-sentences, so take its advice. The other way to check is to read your work aloud. This always works: non-sentences will always sound wrong.

Numbers in the text

The convention is that numbers up to and including ten are written as words.

Noun- Pronoun Agreement

Entirely reasonably, writers want to avoid repeating the subject of a sentence so, when referring back, we use pronouns instead. BUT this is where the English language kicks you in the teeth. We have the biggest vocabulary in the world, but we don’t have a gender neutral singular pronoun except ‘it’ which doesn’t work with male or female nouns. Look at this:

‘The student needs to write well so their meaning is conveyed clearly.’

In informal writing ‘their’ is fine but in academic writing it isn’t. Making everything male by using his (the archaic solution) is repulsive. She/he is fiddly and a bit self-conscious. My suggestion is that whenever sensible, you write in the plural.

‘Students need to write well so their meaning is conveyed clearly.’

Passive Voice

There is nothing inaccurate about using the passive voice, but it is a bit wordy and can sound old-fashioned. Use it when you have a good reason but avoid it if you haven’t.

If you need to avoid the use of ‘I’ (see First Person, above), one solution is to use the passive voice.

I grouped the children / I explained the learning objective (active constructions)

The children were grouped / the learning objective was explained (passive).

Please note, however, that the use of the passive voice when constructing arguments is often inappropriate. For example, writing ‘it is claimed that …’ (passive), would be inappropriate as you should name the claimer(s) using an active construction such as ‘Brien (2012) claimed that …’

Paragraphs

It is strange the way in which errors mutate. A couple of years ago, paragraphs were absurdly long. Now students seem to hit the return key every couple of sentences. This makes reading an essay very like being savaged by a miniature poodle: lots of fuss but little impact. A good paragraph is the complete development of a single idea. Very long ones indicate a complex idea which needs subdividing. Very short paragraphs indicate a lack of research or analysis.

A good paragraph usually does this (each bullet point is a separate sentence):

• Introduces the subject

• Presents the best evidence

• Explains, interprets, analyses, amplifies or contextualises it.

• Presents contrasting evidence

• Explains, interprets, analyses, amplifies or contextualises it.

• Draws the evidence together.

If you can’t follow this structure, you probably haven’t researched enough. BUT what I’ve given here is just a beginners’ template. You need to develop a style of presenting the material which works well for you. You will outgrow this model.

Paraphrase (see also: embedding quotations)

Paraphrasing is the first step on the yellow brick road that leads from A levels to a degree ceremony. Putting something into your own words always shows that you have thought about it. You must ensure that you portray the author’s thoughts entirely in your own words. Changing the occasional word isn’t paraphrasing; it is plagiarism. Many first year students rely far too heavily on direct quotations. One longish quotation and a couple of quoted phrases per thousand words is ample.

It is helpful to paraphrase at the time of researching. Read a paragraph, turn the text over (or turn away from the computer screen) and make a note of the main point in your own words. This is much better than fishing for quotations. It will also ensure that you understand the material you are reading.

Rhetorical Questions

Am I alone in finding them really irritating? Do you agree that they always denote a failure to make work cohesive? Do they always seem very immature? Have they increased in the last couple of years? Is there a sixth form teacher in Manchester who advocates their use? Do you happen to know her address? May I borrow that axe?

Get my point? The above paragraph consists of a series of rhetorical questions – avoid!

Second person

Using second person (addressing the reader directly) is an unforgivable sin, not because there’s anything wrong with it linguistically, but because it means that you have got totally the wrong end of the stick about the tone and register of academic writing. Never address your reader as ‘you’ in your work.

You could help the children to remember their phonemes by . . .

There are two reasons why this is inappropriate: firstly, it is never the purpose of an undergraduate assignment to give handy hints. Secondly, the second person form greatly restricts the range of readers. It is worth pondering this unpalatable truth: we write as we read. If you are tempted to write like this, you are probably focusing your research on low quality publications. You are never going to learn much if you do so.

Semi-colons

A semi-colon is not a comma on steroids. It is an entirely different thing. If you look at the symbol, you’ll see it is a hybrid comma and full-stop. It signals both functions. A full stop ends a sentence and commas add clarity to a sentence. You use a semi-colon to make it clear that the sentence could have ended but you decided against it.

I’m enjoying writing this; it is even more fun than root canal work.

The semi-colon shows the reader that the ideas are closely linked. A full stop would have been possible after the first clause, but a semi-colon was chosen to indicate the close relationship between the first and second clause. A comma here would have been incorrect (see Comma Splice, above).

Semi-colons can also be used to separate items in a complicated list as follows:

I bought a red, fur-lined coat; a soft, shiny, blue skirt; a pair of leather gloves and a hat.

Split infinitives

Just occasionally you’ll need to use the verb in its infinitive form: ‘to use,’ ‘to write’, ‘to teach.’ I can show off a bit by sticking them all into a sentence.

I want to teach you to use language in ways which will help you to write well.

Splitting the infinitive is the insertion of a word (usually an adverb) between the ‘to’ and the rest of the verb as follows:

I want to carefully teach you to accurately use language in ways which will help you to really write well.

This is spectacularly wrong! An adverb must never muscle its way in between the two bits of an infinitive. The sentence should read as follows:

I want to teach you carefully to use language accurately in ways which will help you to write really well.

It is still an abominable sentence. Virginia Woolf said that she only became a good writer when she stopped using any adverbs. She had a point - careful verb choice is often much better. (Mind you, she was a superlatively strange woman.)

Tenses

Nearly all assignments should be written in a past tense. This is straightforward enough, but you may move to a present tense to show that you are citing a recent source.

Garner (2010) suggests that . . . .

Sometimes wily students stroll into a present tense to make their sources look more recent

Piaget says that . . . . (Please only do this if you are claiming psychic powers - though I’d love to see how you’d manage such sources with the APA system.) So only use a present tense when:

• you are citing something published in the last five years;

• and you aren’t going to cite something even more recent by the same author;

• or you are describing something on-going. Schools are using more thematic approaches . . . .

Parts of your introduction and conclusion may be better written in a present tense or may even wander into the future as you apply your findings to your practice:

This will certainly influence my planning by . . . .

Finally

Everyone who teaches you believes that learners thrive when their attempts are celebrated. This is just as true for you as it is for children. This is at the heart of what we do when we read and assess your work; we are looking for all the big things which are good – ideas, research, depth of thinking and bravery. We search for the good things, comment on them and award you marks for them.

We will also note the things you should improve to make your work even better and, if you want it, we will help you to sort out the things you find difficult. After all, you are at Chester to learn. We, your tutors, are at Chester to help you to learn. Never be afraid to come to us to ask for our help: we’ll all be delighted to give it.

Updated May 2015

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