Amongst the various essay writing styles you might be asked to adopt, one of the most subtle is writing to advise. Whether you studying this writing style as part of your GCSE English revision or writing to advise ks3, or for more general purposes, there are several simple tips that will help your essay writing style. Read below to strengthen your techniques and approach as we provide you with our best essay advice for writing to advise.
Essays can be divided into different types and each type requires a particular skill in approach. Some styles of descriptive essay writing (such as narrative) are less useful in an academic environment since they do not encourage the student to display critical thinking. However, you might use pieces of all these essay styles within the confines of one essay or a dissertation, for example, the overall essay may be a discussion, but you may need a section of definition to explain terms. Here’s a brief overview of the sorts of essay you might come across during your studies.
Many colleges will provide you with an MA or Masters dissertation handbook which will cover all the basic tools and facilities you need to be aware of in order to complete your MA. What sort of information should you expect to receive?
The basics – There should be full information about who to contact within your subject department. This will range from email addresses and webpages to check through to “old school” methods of contact – for example, if the department has post trays for each postgraduate student.
Virtual learning environments or course management systems have become popular with many higher education colleges. A software package can be used by thousands of educational bodies worldwide (e.g. Blackboard is used by over 3700 colleges and other educational bodies). These systems provide software which tutors can use to upload course information and the more sophisticated platforms allow tutors to set up a forum for each course, so that classmates can discuss the course or essay writing remotely.
Whilst writing good essays will always be an essential skill area for every student, it is important to remember that there are many different forms of essay writing. Some essays might explore or explain a topic, others will give different points of view, but there will be some essays where you are really writing to argue. Whether it is a strong argument on an academic topic or a speech for a debate, argumentative essay writing is an important skill to learn. So read on for key hints on writing to argue in the strongest and clearest way possible.
While you are writing essays it is useful to have some reference books to hand. Although there is a great deal of material online to help with general reference queries, websites are not always reliable. It pays to have some decent reference books. Some of these will be available to borrow from the local library or university library, so that you can try them out and see which titles you prefer. However, in time you will probably want to buy several of these. Below we deal with some of the general language texts that can help you with your writing and essay proofreading.
You need to strike a balance between academic writing and pompous writing. You want to sound erudite, but not arrogant. The best way to learn how to achieve this balance is to read as many academic articles or chapters as you can by established and respected academics.
Equally, you don’t want to use long or complex words simply to show off or try to sound intelligent. The best plan is to stick to John H. Patterson’s advice: “Use small words, big ideas, and short sentences”.
How often does the supervisor expect to see you? How much time do you want to spend with them? You may feel quite happy dissertation writing by yourself, or perhaps you know that you won’t get anything done without a regular check-in session. Discuss the contact time with the supervisor to arrange a schedule that will suit both of you.
