Mar 14, 2008

Down to formalities, Possums! Assignment writing at Uni

Figure 1 - Made up Possum example by Duff and Johnston (2007)

Week 3 is crunch time as far as first assignments go. As students grapple with new ways of referencing and different types of writing, there are some pretty important things to come to grips with.
This post is about the 'tone' of academic writing - but we're not going to give you all the answers.
One of the examples above gets the distinction and the other doesn't. Cast your vote on the poll and post some suggestions to the discussion (by clicking on 'comments' beneath the post). Also, we have posted some resources to the side navigation bar (just under the poll) to give you some clues and help you achieve your personal best in this early piece of writing.


3 comments:

PMac said...

Example B is superior academic writing to Example A for a number of reasons. Most importantly Example B is written without using the word “I”. Using “I” make a statement sound like a personal opinion rather than something supported by fact. Academic writing should include references to trustworthy sources to support the key ideas and concepts put forward by the author.

PMac said...
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Anonymous said...

Interesting pmac! What a well considered response!

Without giving away the answer - are there any circumstances where Example A might be appropriate???