Academic Writing Videos
Academic Research and Writing Programme
The way to develop as a writer is to read and to write. Writing is a skill like any other and you learn it by practicing. The more you write the easier it will become. Some of you will already be confident writers—perhaps you are a poet, or have your own blog, or write for a local newspaper. Others perhaps enjoy writing, but are anxious that writing at university will be more challenging than writing at secondary school. Some of you find writing daunting under any circumstances. This programme of lectures, recorded in 2021, is for all of you. Its goal is to help you develop the research and writing skills that you will need for your university studies.
The programme will discuss critical reading, research and and note-taking, the mechanics of writing an essay, and how to craft an argument. We’ll consider good academic practice in terms of acknowledging which sources you’ve used, and why it is not ok to copy chunks of material off the internet without a footnote. (We’ll also talk about how to use footnotes.) We’ll consider some important rules of grammar and syntax. (What is syntax? It is ‘the set of rules and principles in a language according to which words, phrases, and clauses are arranged to create well-formed sentences’— that definition is from the Oxford English Dictionary.) We’ll talk about how to get the most out of the feedback you’ll receive on your work—that is, how to use feedback not simply to understand the strengths and weaknesses of that particular essay might have been better, but also how to improve future essays. We’ll look at writing for different audiences. Some of your assignments may include writing for public audiences or creating a podcast: should you use the same format and style in a website and an essay? We’ll end with a guest session on writing beautiful history with the historian Lizzie Collingham, author of a number of widely-admired histories aimed at a broad readership.
The research and writing skills you’ll develop over the next 3 or 4 years will help you succeed at university. They will also help you in the rest of your life. After all, the purpose of studying at university isn’t to become good at studying at university. It’s about learning and growing as a thinker, and expanding the toolkit of ideas, techniques, and approaches that you will use in the rest of your life. Research and writing skills are among the most important tools in that toolkit, and you’ll use them for the rest of your life.
1. Building Confidence and Developing a Critical Voice
Writing well is one of the most important skills you will develop at university.
Rebecca Earle explores some simple ways to develop your own voice, and to ensure that your writing is clear and easy to read.
2. Critical Reading and Using Sources
Before you begin to tackle an assignment, you need to do some research. This will involve reading, and tackling different types of source. Rebecca Earle explains how to read critically and explore some techniques for taking notes. She also considers the value of both primary and secondary sources, and suggest some ways of thinking about sources that go beyond a focus on 'bias' or 'reliability'.
3. Writing an Essay
Writing an elegant essay is a skill and an art.
Charles Walton discusses the history and craft of essay writing.
4. Academic Writing: Making an Argument
Rebecca Earle delves further into the mechanics of constructing a robust argument, from the planning stage to the concluding sentence.
5. Academic Writing: Style and Grammar
Rebecca Earle demystifies 'academic writing', with a discussion of how to write elegant prose, and why you should avoid 'dangling modifiers' such as the following: 'being in a dilapidated condition I was able to buy the house very cheap'.
6. Making the Most of Feedback
Rebecca Earle explains how to interpret feedback on your assessed work, and what your tutor means when they say you need to improve your essay structure.
7. Writing for Different Audiences
The essay is not the only way to communicate ideas about history. Some of your assignments may involve creating websites, producing podcasts, or delivering presentations.
Historians also use twitter, write blogs, and publish books aimed at the public at large. They work with museums to design exhibitions, and advise companies producing films and television programmes. Historians write policy documents for governments, and opinion pieces in newspapers.
Dan Branch discusses writing a column in The Nation, Kenya's main newspaper.