Stylistic points to consider when writing your academic assignments
MAKE SURE YOU UPLOAD THE FEEDBACK SHEET WITH YOUR ASSIGNMENT – you can find it on Moodle: you can upload it individually, or copy and paste it at the top of your assignment
Always remember this: WRITE TO EXPRESS, NOT TO IMPRESS
1. Spell out all words: NO can’t, won’t, isn’t, doesn’t etc. YES: cannot, will not, is not, does not etc
2. Presentation matters: use consistent fonts, don’t leave odd spaces between paragraphs or sentences. Present a tidy piece of work.
3. Avoid random capital letters, eg avoid Random capital Letters.
4. Avoid very long sentences.
5. Make sure you use punctuation co
ectly.
6. Avoid the use of ‘you’, it it rather colloquial and informal. Eg: you may find it easy to buy drugs, INSTEAD: one may find it easy to buy drugs.
7. Divide your work into paragraphs and either ident them or separate them with a blank line.
8. Avoid using the word ‘thing’ – it is too vague and colloquial, be specific.
9. Referencing matters and it should be done in the co
ect way. Check the Department’s referencing guidelines https:
www1.essex.ac.uk/sociology/documents/style-guide.pdf. Add page numbers when you use direct quotes.
10. Refrain from using overly-complicated sentences: write simply, make sure you fully understand the concepts you are using. If you don’t fully understand what you are writing, I will not understand it either!
11. Please use 1.5 spacing between lines, it makes it easy to read.
12. Add the wordcount at the end (wordcount excluding references)