WRITING ESSAY:A GUIDE TO REPORT AND ESSAY WRITING

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12-19, 2010

THE ROBERT GORDON UNIVERSITY
Aberdeen Business School

A GUIDE TO REPORT AND ESSAY WRITING:
Gathering your material and keeping notes

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The Robert Gordon University
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Aberdeen Business School
Website http://www.rgu.ac.uk/abs

Introduction

The purpose of this guide is to provide you with information on how to prepare effective coursework assignments at the Aberdeen Business School, and ultimately, effective research reports throughout your career.

The guide focuses on the approach that you should adopt to gathering, analysing and developing your material.

It is recommended that you refer to this guide each time you begin work on a new coursework assignment. The effort that you make at this stage will be reflected in the quality of the work that you eventually submit, and in the grade that you will be awarded.

Gathering your material: sources of information

In order to understand all the various aspects of a coursework assignment, you will be expected to read several sources on the subject of the coursework, selecting relevant quotations and ideas, and then writing your assignment in your own words based on:
• what you have read;
• what you think about what you have read (i.e. whether you agree with it or not, if it ties up with your experience).

As you prepare the substance of your report or essay, you need to make sure that all your arguments are substantiated. Therefore, your opinions need to be supported by reasoning based on evidence or accepted theories, or both. You need to make good notes from the sources that you have examined, and you need to be able to find them easily once you start writing.

For most assignments, using the lecturer’s course notes is not appropriate. For some assignments, you may need to use relevant course material supplied by the lecturer, and this will normally be specified in the instructions for the assignment.

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All your coursework should be firmly based on the accepted theories and concepts in the appropriate subject area. These are usually described in the standard textbooks on the topic. You are expected to refer to these at appropriate points in your report or essay, giving adequate acknowledgement to the original author through referencing.

You are also expected to support your argument by referring to examples appropriate to the particular context of your essay or report, whether you are discussing a country, its institutions, or its commercial and industrial practices. These examples should be based on information selected from relevant secondary sources, such as journals, newspapers, government statistics, trade surveys, or web sites, and you are expected to acknowledge the source of this information.

Once you have clarified the objectives of your assignment, you should then write down key words that describe all the factors that you think might be relevant. You should use these key words to search for relevant material in the Library catalogue, in the general and subject encyclopaedias that you will find in the Library’s Reference section, and in the databases that index journals and newspapers. These databases are available on CD-ROM in the Library or online through the Library’s web pages. The Library staff will show you how to search the databases if you are not familiar with them. The full text of many of the journal articles or newspaper reports is also available online, and is linked directly to the indexing database, so that you can access them quickly to assess their relevance to your report or essay.

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other Web search engines will simply throw up a lot of information that may take you a long time to sort and, unless it is from an ‘official’ web site, the accuracy of much of the information available on the World Wide Web cannot be verified. You should, therefore, search the Web only as a last resort. The exception is ‘Google Scholar’, which reports only papers published in recognised journals.

Sources of evidence may also include primary research such as the findings from interviews with key organisational personnel, surveys or information from records. This will only be necessary if it is specified in the instructions for the assignment, or if it is identified as the appropriate methodology for gathering evidence for your dissertation.#p#分頁標題#e#

Systematic record-keeping: a working bibliography

It is vital that you keep a record of the material gathered through your preliminary research. Do not wait until the writing-up stage or you may spend additional hours searching for these sources of information so that you can ensure that you have cited them accurately.

The record that you keep should include a full citation for the source. The correct approach to citations for different kinds of sources of information is provided in the University Library’s guide.

It is useful to have a working bibliography kept on computer file or in a card index so that it can be added to or re-arranged easily. The Library staff will show you how to use ‘Refworks’, an online tool in which you can keep your own personal lists of sources.

Record the following information:
• your own reference code;
• library reference number (if it is a book);
• publication details.

As a guide, the publication details should include:

Author’s name together with the initials
e.g. Jones, T. and Christie, M.

Date
e.g. 1996

Title of work
The title of a book is italicised when the entry is made in the references or bibliography in your coursework. If the work is in a journal article, the title of the article is in normal text, and the title of the journal is italicised, e.g. Computers and Security.

If there is an edition number, it follows the title, e.g. The business student’s handbook. 3rd.

Place of publication
e.g. London

Name of publishers
e.g. W. Green / Sweet and Maxwell

When keeping records of Websites used in your research, in addition to the above information, also record the full URL (Web address) of the specific part of the site visited e.g.

http://www.rgu.ac.uk/library/howto/page.cfm?pge=25531

and the date of access; these will be required for the entries your references or bibliography.

Following this procedure will save you a great deal of time later on as the file or the cards will contain all the information you need for referencing and for compiling your final list of references and bibliography.

Making Notes

Your report or essay must not simply comprise sentences or paragraphs from other people’s work. You need to demonstrate that you actually understand the topic of the coursework. To be able to do this effectively, you need to read a range of different sources, understand them, make notes on the important parts, and then incorporate the findings from your research into your essay or report.

Do not copy large sections direct from textbooks, or web pages. Your work should not solely consist of other people’s work, whether quoted or paraphrased.

Using short extracts from other people’s work is permissible, but only if the extract is in “quotation marks”, and a full reference is given to the source.#p#分頁標題#e#

In developing your review of the literature, it will not be sufficient merely to re-state what an author has said. You do not turn someone else's ideas into your own by changing a few words. You should use your notes to support your own argument by explaining or commenting on other people’s ideas or evidence in your own words. Do not be afraid to present contradictory evidence or statements of opinion. You must be prepared to analyse an author’s work, interpret it, evaluate it in the light of a variety of other studies, and criticise it if appropriate.

Read the first and last part of any source material carefully before spending time on the rest of it, unless it is clear that it is so central to your topic that it needs to be studied in detail. When you then read through each source, look for information that is relevant to your topic, such as:
• statistical information;
• empirical evidence from research studies;
• ideas and opinions by recognised experts and others;
• short quotations that summarise ideas or evidence effectively.

Each individual takes and uses notes differently, but accurate systematic notes are essential to research for any course assignment.
• Putting the author’s name, the date, and the page numbers next to key ideas in your notes is essential. You may want to refer to these ideas later, and it is easy to forget exactly where you read that useful point that has now become essential to your work.
• Write complete thoughts, not just key words.
• If you are recording material word for word, then use “quotation marks” as well as noting the details of the source.
• Do note whether the author’s statements are simply opinion based on experience or judgement, or the results of empirical research.
• Keep notes of your own thoughts relating to what you have read alongside your notes on the original passages.

Conclusion

This guide has focused on the approach that you should adopt to gathering, analysing and developing your material. It is essential to understand the different sources of information available for your coursework, how you make use of these sources and the requirement to acknowledge them in your work.