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Academic and Digital Support

Here you will find useful directions to the variety of study support services available to you.

Assignments & Submissions

Note taking and planning

This page provides useful guides and links to websites aimed at helping you to improve your essays and other written assignments.

The Stages of Essay Writing

Like all large tasks, you should break essay writing down into its more manageable component parts:

  • Analyse the question
  • Gather material
  • Make a plan
  • Write up
  • Check the line of the Argument and read it aloud to see if it flows
  • Proof read the final draft

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

The Golden Rules of Essay Writing

This guide gives you some basic rules to follow when writing essays

  1. Keep subjectivity to a minimum
  2. Beware of blanket statements
  3. Font size
  4. Essays should be in continuous prose
  5. Structure
  6. Paragraphs
  7. Supporting evidence from varied sources
  8. Quotations
  9. Speech abbreviations
  10. Academic style

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

Essay Instruction Words

This guide gives definitions to help you understand the instruction words that commonly appear in essay/assignment questions:

  • Analyse
  • Compare
  • Contrast
  • Define
  • Discuss
  • Distinguish/differentiate
  • Evaluate
  • Illustrate/interpret
  • Justify
  • Outline
  • Relate
  • State
  • Summarise
  • Trace

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

Essay Structure Visual Guide

This is a simple visual guide to structuring essays. It follows the standard structure of introduction, main body and conclusion with what each section should include:

  • Introduction
  • Paragraphs
    • Topic sentence (point)
    • Supporting statements (evidence)
    • Concluding sentence (evaluation)
  • Conclusion

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

Introductions and Conclusions

Learn to effectively introduce and conclude your essays and other assignments:

  • Introductions
    • Effectively introduce your essay by signposting your main points
    • Indicate your overall conclusion
  • Conclusions
    • Summarise your main points
    • Anwer the question
    • Use your conclusion to check your answer to the question

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

Paragraphs (Main Body)

This guide will help you to form and link your main body points/paragraphs using PEE structure:

  • Point: Introduce the topic
  • Evidence: Use evidence to support your point
  • Evaluate: state the value of your point to answering the question or criteria

Link your points to create a flowing main body structure

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

BBC Skillswise - Paragraphs

More help and interactive guidance on paragraphs - this time from the BBC:

  • Factsheet
  • Worksheet
  • Game

The BBC Skillswise - Paragraphs web site

Plain English Campaign - Report writing guide

A useful (PDF format) guide to report writing provided by the Plain English Campaign, containing information on:

  • Using plain English
  • How to write for your audience (those who the report is aimed at)
  • Brevity
  • Planning and organising reports

Go to the Plain English Campaign Guides page to find the link to the guide and other resources.

Proofreading

Improve your marks by improving your proofreading skills:

  • Check your work before handing in
  • Rest before checking
  • Check from a printed draft
  • Look for common errors
  • How easy is your work to read? Read out loud
  • Do not lose marks through silly errors

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

BBC Skillswise - Proofreading

Develop and test your proofreading on the BBC's Sklillswise site::

  • Factsheet
  • Worksheet
  • Game

The BBC Skillswise - Proofreading web site

Dissertations and final year projects

This page has useful fact sheets and guides for students undertaking large projects or dissertations.

Dissertation glossary

Students starting a dissertation or large project, often meet a barrier early on because of the terminology involved in producing one. This fact sheet provides a guide to the meanings of the most important terminology, along with extra guidance on the procedure. It covers what is meant by such terms as:

  • A dissertation
  • The supervisor
  • A proposal
  • The literature review
  • Methodology
  • Secondary and primary data
  • Quantitative and qualitative data

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

Writing a literature review

This guide gives you an introduction to the literature review and covers:

  1. Why we write them
  2. Being critical
  3. Getting started and narrowing the topic
  4. Where to look for literature
  5. Reading skills, taking notes and keeping records
  6. Writing up your review
  7. Producing a final draft

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

Literature review checklist

This checklist will help you keep your literature review on track. A literature review must:

  • Show a clear understanding and of the topic and the major research to date
  • Show a gap in the existing knowledge
  • Develop paragraph by paragraph to a clear research problem
  • Be structured around themes (rather than source by source)
  • State clear conclusions about previous research which discuss the pros and cons in relation to the developing research question
  • Mention (and discuss some of) all the key studies
  • Show the variety of approaches that have been made to the topic area
  • Reach well researched and argued recommendations for further research  

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

Ethical considerations for research projects and dissertations

All those carrying out research involving living subjects should carefully think about any ethical issues that might arise. This fact sheet will introduce you to some common ethical considerations which you should then discuss with your supervisor/tutor:

  • The informed consent of participants
  • Debriefing
  • The right for participants to withdraw
  • Confidentiality and anonymity
  • The researcher's safety and protection
  • Respect for subjects

Download more detailed information at the bottom of this page

STOPSIGN

You must check with your school as to which referencing style you are required to use.

The main styles used in the University of Greenwich are Harvard, Harvard APA and British Standard (Numeric - also known as footnoting).

Below are some useful resources to help you reference correctly.

Harvard Guide

This is a brief guide to the Harvard system of referencing used in many parts of the university. It covers how to reference:

  • How to do in-text references and reference lists
  • How to paraphrase and quote
  • How to reference books...
  • Chapters from edited books
  • Journal articles
  • Electronic journal articles
  • Web sites
  • Newspaper articles
  • Government publications and more

Harvard APA and OSCALA online interactive referencing guides

These interactive referencing tools are provided by the the University of Portsmouth. Please ensure that you know exactly which referencing system you are required to use in your assignments!

  • Harvard APA. This is a version of Harvard devised by the American Psychologist Association and may be used by students doing psychology courses (check first!). This is not the same as the Harvard system in general use.
  • OSCALA ;- this is a legal referencing system

Referencing checklist

When using sources to make notes of material be included in an assignment, it is important to record the information for an in-text citation and the reference list entry. This will save a lot of work later on, when you may find yourself trying to find the information you need. You can carry this checklist with you as a reminder. It covers the six most common sources and can be used in conjuction with all the the main referencing styles:

  • Books
  • Chapters from books
  • Journal articles
  • Electronic journal articles
  • Websites
  • Newspaper articles

Recommended reading

An excellent and comprehensive guide to Harvard referencing can be found in:

Pears R. and Shields G. (2016) Cite them right. Macmillan Education; Palgrave.

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