Formal essay writing?

[tomal]

DD is just finishing her first year at uni. She says that a lot of her essays are being returned to her saying that they need to be more formal. Does anyone know of a good website or book where she could find tips or information?

[Wilts]

I have got this book: the good study guide which is quite a good book.

Can your DD try and get some tips from her tutor, or she could contact learning support and they can help with that sort of thing.

[muddleduck]

If she were my student then I would advise her to think about who she is writing the essay for. It is always helpful to have a target audience in mind. For example she would write a letter to a friend in a very different style to that she would use if writing to a prospective employer. I suspect that she is just using a few phrases that come across as a bit 'chatty'. A lot of this is likely to be a generational thing and I'm sure that you could be very helpful here. Even without knowing about her subject you would be able to pick out the bits that seem 'teenagery'. The hard bit is for her to come across more formal without losing her own individual style. Personally I prefer the essays that are too informal to the ones who write in a really unnatural style because they are 'trying to sound clever'

[FairLadyRantALot]

tomal, is there some such thing such as "Centre for Academic Practice" at your daughters Uni....they do courses offer help, etc....

[FairLadyRantALot]

oh, and lots of references...backing up everything she says...although...that is maybe NOT what they mean...

[Piggywaspushed]

She possibly just needs to read more. If it's something like history, some of the books historians write are quite chatty, but reading scholarly articles should help.

DS just had his paragraph structure criticised by one tutor and praised by another, so it can be a bit confusing!

[Piggywaspushed]

Do NOT DO THIS.Terrible terrible advice.

[poetryandwine]

Hi, OP -

@prestonsilvas is encouraging academic malpractice which could have severe consequences for your DD.

If your DD has good rapport with her personal tutor, I agree with @Wilts . This is one of the things we are here for. At my uni we have drop-in office hours and your DD could do just that, bringing a couple of the old essays and asking for feedback. If the PT does not have drop in hours, I would try the suggestion below first.

We also have a Writing Centre, similar to what @FairLadyRantALot described and again I believe most unis do. Any student (or staff member) can make an appointment to discuss any piece of their writing, before submission or after feedback. think you can have multiple appointments for the same paper, not sure. The tutors are trained to help whilst observing academic integrity. These services are usually very good and if you work with the service before submission it helps prevent procrastination.

[MarchingFrogs]

DD and ds2 are at the University of Birmingham and UEA reespectively - both of these have services set up to provide such assistance, so I'd be surprised if other universities didn't (and they obviously do at the ones familiar to previous posters).

She certainly doesn't have to get involved with a paid-for service, especially not one pricing itself in a foreign currency.

[TeenDivided]

I'd like to point out this is a ZOMBIE thread from 2009 bumped by a spammer.

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[Piggywaspushed]

Whoops. I did report the spam...just failed to notice the date!

[MarchingFrogs]

@Piggywaspushed

Whoops. I did report the spam...just failed to notice the date!

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