At university you become part of an academic community. When you write essays at university there are certain rules that you have to follow to make sure that everyone is writing in the same style. This is known as academic style. The rules that you follow are called academic conventions. The main rules for writing academic essays are don't be personal ( so don't use words like I or my) don't use informal language, don't use shortened forms of words ( like won't) and make sure you reference your work properly.

Plagiarism is a very serious offence. It means that you use the work of other people without saying it is other people's work.  When you don't state that you are talking about someone else's ideas or opinions it is like you are pretending that you have written those words or had those thoughts yourself. You will get in to a lot of trouble if your tutor thinks you have plagiarised. In order to avoid plagiarism you must use references and citations for all the texts you have mentioned that have been written by other people. For more information on plagiarism see the article on it on the academic hub.

When you are asked to use citations in your essay it means that you show that you are talking about someone else's work that you have read. While you are at the University, you will need to follow the Harvard referencing system in order to cite properly. Citations provide the last name and the date of publication of the text you are talking about. Citations appear IN TEXT. This means you write the author's surname and the date of publication within the text as you are writing your essay.

When you are writing an academic essay you will have to discuss the things you have read. When you are talking about the work of someone else you have to make sure that you have shown in your essay that you are talking about the ideas or opinions of someone else. In order to do this every essay needs a referencing system. At University of Greenwich the Harvard referencing system is used. In Harvard referencing you use citations  and provide a reference list at the end of your essay. Your department will provide you with a guide to how to reference and you can find more information by looking at the academic hub by following the link below.

www.gre.ac.uk/academicskills

When we talk about structure within an essay it means the way in which you have ordered your ideas. A common structure for an essay is a three part one : introduction, the main body and conclusion. You should make sure that your ideas link together in a clear and logical way. The purpose of the introduction is to show your reader what you are going to do in your essay, the main body discusses the points you are making in depth and finally the conclusion sums up the key aspects of your essay. A conclusion often re states your opinion if you have been required to provide one and sometimes ends with a final thought for your reader to think about. 

A topic sentence is the name we give to a sentence that explains what the main topic of the paragraph is going to be about. Often the topic sentence is found at the start of the paragraph. In order to write a good paragraph your topic sentence has to be clear. This means that you should stick to ONE main topic that you are going to discuss within your paragraph. You need to introduce this topic in the topic sentence. If you try to talk about too many things in one paragraph it will confuse your reader.

Some of the essays you write might require you to give an opinion or to express a particular point of view. A thesis statement is the part of your essay where you say what viewpoint the essay is going to argue. Remember that you should not use the word I. It is more common in academic writing to say" This essay will prove that" or "This essay will argue that......".  Your thesis statement will help your reader to understand the arguments you are making and to decide if they agree with you or not.

When you are given an essay to write you will also be told how many words you can use. This is known as the word count. Part of what you are being assessed on when you write an essay is if you can write about the topic thoroughly while not going over the word count. Sometimes you will be allowed to write 10 % more or less than the actual word count but you must always check this first. It is also important to check with your tutors to see if in-text citations are included in your word count, you may find this information in your programme handbook. The reference list is not included in the word count. 

When we talk about the key words in an essay question these are the words that show you what you have to do in the essay. It is really important that you identify the key words so you know that you are writing about the right thing and have not missed anything out. Key words will often show you how you should approach the essay. For example if you are asked to describe as a key word you will be explaining something whereas if you are asked to analyse you will be discussing the subject in depth.

You often state your limitations in your introduction. What this means is that you show that you recognise that you are not going to talk about every aspect of your subject but about certain things in particular. For example it would be impossible to write an essay on fruit because there are so many different fruits  from across the world. If you were to write an essay about fruit you would have to set some limitations. You would have to think about what type of fruit you were going to discuss and where the fruit was from and how you are going to discuss it. Limitations make it easier for the reader to see what we are talking about.

Often in an introduction to an essay we provide an outline. This means that we state what we are going to do in the essay. For example we could briefly discuss the stages of the essay  saying the different things the essay is going to focus on. Outlines are also used when giving presentations. They are a way of showing the reader or audience the direction our essay or presentation is going to take.

Paragraphs are groups of sentences linked by a main topic. There are no set rules for the amount of sentences that should appear in a paragraph but you should not write paragraphs that are too long or too short. If you write a paragraph that is too short then your reader may think you do not know much about the topic you are talking about. If you write a paragraph that is too long then this may become boring or confusing for your reader.

A well constructed paragraph will focus on a clear subject. This subject will be introduced in the first sentence of the paragraph. In the main part of the paragraph you should make points, use citations and explain why the information you have used is important. You can also finish off your paragraph by making a closing statement that links back to the question you are answering or your argument.

Proof reading means that you check your work over for any mistakes. It is really important that you leave enough time before your essay deadline to do this. There is no point in having a well argued and researched essay if your work is full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.