1. Writing Skills 03.10.06 Cara Geene cgreene@computing.dcu.ie

2. Peer review Peer review – What’s wrong with it?Peer review Peer review – some problemsPeer review Why?

3. Thinking before Writing Plan everything you want your piece to contain BEFORE you write it –Mind map / plan –All the information is there –Clear layout and structure –This will avoid (dreaded) REPETITION Good text on academic writing skillstext

4. Formal Language Academic writing is formal –No “easy on the eyes” –Use appropriate font size and colour –Justify your text ( button) –Don’t start a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’ –Don’t use ‘I, we, you’ unless it is an opinion piece –Get your facts right, and reference them

5. Things to do (1) Plan your article –Mind map – picture of a story Always use spell check After spell check – READ IT –It gets it wrong –Spelling and syntax errors Use formal language (see previous slide)

6. Things to do (2) Check punctuation –Make sure you have a space after a full-stop and also a comma –Good website for punctuation & grammarwebsite –Eat, Shoots and Leaves (Truss, 2003) Punctuation gamegame Be careful about sweeping statements, FACTS Be careful how you capitalise words

7. Things not to do (1) Use informal language Use bold or italics or entire text or when it is not needed Use exclamation marks Change font sizes/colours unless showing something like code Use an acronym without explaining it first

8. Things not to do (2) Use ‘docs’ for documents, ‘brits’ for British Do not use ‘won’t’, use ‘will not’ Use overly long sentences –Short and to the point, no ‘waffle’ Do not use ‘etc.’, fact only Do not copy text directly from another source

9. Mind map WEB SITE DESIGNDECISIONS PROBLEMSTIMESCALE

10. How to use references (1) Always reference sources that you have used in a text Do not quote directly if it you can avoid it In text: Eat, Shoots and Leaves (Truss, 2003) At the end of the article: Truss, L. (2003) Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Profile Books Ltd.: London.

11. How to use references, acronyms and capitalisation In text: According to Levy (1997), Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is a area….. Levy was referenced in the text. We specify where the ref came from at the end: At the end: Levy, M. (1997) Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England

12. References Truss, L. (2003) Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Profile Books Ltd.: London.