Learning and Skills Development for HE and Work

Common mistakes made when writing your paper

2009-11-24T03:17:00.000-08:00

Abstract

· Far too long

· Acting as an introduction

Introduction

· Lack of hypothesis!

· Lack of aims and objectives

· Often written in the first person

Literature review

· Lack of references

· Not written as a narrative

Research Methodology

· No mention of primary and secondary sources

· No mention of qualitative or quantitative data

· No explanation of reasons behind using a particular research instrument

· No explanation of the questions posed – open or closed.

· No references to evidence the reason you are using a particular research instrument

Main text

· Not referenced sufficiently

· Complete reference cited in the text

· Explaining the whole reference in the text i.e.: In 1999 Professor of Economics at Bath University Sheila Smith says…. This should read: Smith 1999 states:

· Copying chunks of the reference instead of paraphrasing

Evaluation

· Most students couldn’t evaluate as they did not provide an hypothesis

· The evaluation and the conclusion were written together

· Students did not compare their data with that of the literature review.

· There was no evaluation

Conclusion

· The conclusion included new information

· The conclusion was the evaluation

Reference page

· Lack of mixed references – mostly Internet

· Not written in alphabetical order by surname

· Just providing the URL for Internet sources

Bibliography

· No bibliography

· Mistaking the bibliography for the reference page

Appendix

· Items placed in the appendix not mentioned in the text – (Appendix A)

· Those people who undertook questionnaires should place their original questionnaire in the appendix

· A sample of the respondents questionnaires should be included

Miscellaneous

Not referencing images, or including whole URL beside the image

Miss-use of capital letters

Spelling mistakes

Class Cancelled 17th November 2009

2009-11-16T23:22:00.001-08:00

The class today is cancelled - I am afraid I have to attend to university business. You all have work to do for your presentations, so this is an ideal time to get on with this. Please see below for your timetables for the presentations which will take place over three weeks.

See you all next week!

Presentations on Week 13 (15-12-09)

2009-11-12T01:46:00.000-08:00

If you are not on the two lists below - you will be presenting in Week 13 - 15-12-09

Here are the names of those students who have not managed to form groups yet, or are presenting on their own. If your name is here and you are actually part of a group, please let me know as soon as possible and I will add you into the appropriate group.

Luke Abbot

Hassain Almansour

Teddy Atomey

Stephen Bewers

Andrew Bonnington

Ben Sarpong

Martin Cosstick-Wright

Madjosi Da Silva

Nathan Emberson

Ben Felton

Cathleen Fitzpatrick

Matthew Gingell

Samual Goodchild

Sarah Griffin

Jennifer Harding

Marc Holdich

Hannah Jenkins

Christopher Joseph

Kiritharan Kamalanathan

Joseph Kersey

Ben Lythgo

Christine McMulton

Jack Noble

Yama Noorzad

Nweri Ekenedilichukwu

George Oke

John Piagnos

Stuart Pullen

Scot Ashely

Alan Selfe

Daniel Smith

Tracey Stoker

Danny Stones

Mariusz Suchodolski

Martin White

Louis Willmott

Richard Withams

Groups for presentation on Week 12 (08-12-09)

2009-11-12T01:43:00.000-08:00

Presentations - Learning and Skills Development for HE and Work

WEEK 12 – 08-12-09

Group 13	Harry	Birkbeck	922424
	Phillip	Bankes	908608
	Najahf	Shah	803939
	Thomas	Batchford	814518
	Chris	Yarman
	Miles	Exall	922929

1 PM

Group 14	Kevin	Kempton	701449
	Stephen	Reeves	701858
	Stuart	Norton	711812
	James	Mearns	817169

1.15

Group 15	Ali	Alotaibi	820820
	Ibrahim	Alnajrani	821341
	Michael	Oduware	923267
	Nsuhouduot	Thompson	923273
	Henry	Amos	923250

1.30

Group 16	Becky	Jackson	912897
	Elin	Simon	903559
	Kat	Fitzpatrick	915300
	Victoria	Oso	909264
	Matthew	Alexander	912162
	David	Allison	803251

1.45

Group 17	Polly	Brand	908858
	Anthony	Lusher	917889
	Simon	Lenton	915425
	Martin	Dore	921341

2.00

Group 18	Jason	Campion	905462
	Esther	Robert	923272
	Christopher	Hawkins	908724

2.15

Group 19	Danny	Guy	803797
	Oliver	Dalton	901748
	Elliot	Dalton	803721
	Joannah	Mahusay	909325

2.30

Group 20	Lee	Garnham	903952
	Jack	Cassie	904984
	Charlie	Rix	906392
	Rachel	Doe	906915

2.45

Group 21	Mohammed	Zaharardeen	923265
	Simon	Goodchild	905134
	Brandon	Smith	907242

3.00

Group 22	Omair	Raisat	907892
	Philip	Pradish	907487
	Tom	Flack	922930
	Tim	Volonakis	907898
	Marie	Gunn	907442

3.15

Group 23	Chris	Cook	916660
	Chris	Savill	914856
	Kelvin	Lam	907552
	Ayed	Alyami	924172
	Gregor	Dabrouski	910972

3.30

Group 24	Danielle	Webb	817963
	Aatir	Mir	909730
	Louise	Copeland	913692
	Mahrah	Mahmood	907498
	Elijah	Garazimba

3.45

Groups for Presentation on Week 11 (02-12-09)

2009-11-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

Presentations - Learning and Skills Development for HE and Work

WEEK 11 – 01-12-09

Group 1	Chingwena	Gift	909578
	Umesh	Rai	911500
	Atomey	Teddy	706074
	Fuyana	Bekithemba	915923

1 PM

Group 2	Langham	Daniel	907803
	Videon Hart	Joseph	909865
	Anderson	James	907499
	Barrett	Michael	907221

1.15

Group 3	Adam	Gardiner	904940
	Troy	Rijhaard	908763
	Daniel	Foucher	912140
	Danielle	Smith	901877
	Melissa	Goddard	914612

1.30

Group 4	Steven	Davidson	913988
	Carl	Joseph	915779
	Jack	Eagle	909367
	Sui	Wong	907646
	Alex	Chapman	904889
	Asad	Khan	713594

1.45

Group 5	Chris	Gorman	901931
	Spencer	Cotton	901964
	Philip	Bass	914511
	Aman	Narsu	916429

2.00

Group 6	Peter	Cackett	902464
	Jamie	Rees	802898
	Emily	Hedgecock	905127

2.15

Group 7	Anna	Lapo	907395
	Helen	Son	914109
	Tristan	Wahl	904109
	Samera	Jayaratne	923262

2.30

Group 8	James	Bradley	906940
	Alex	Kennedy	912134
	Jamie	Rye	908007
	Stefan	Hubrich	922931
	George	Hopkins	910726

2.45

Group 9	Jack	Dickens	918959
	Ben	Knowles	920876
	Holly	Hampton	906500

3.00

Group 10	Charlotte	Hughes	910720
	Rachel	Danks	904997
	Nathan	Bright	910800
	William	Kibble	907523
	Michael	Cline	914116

3.15

Group 11	Jacqueline	Lay	814330
	Jenny	Ritchin	902414
	Laura	Nichols	905009
	Sarah	Poole	905257
	Stephen	Poulter	166963

3.30

Group 12	James	H-Jenner	814330
	Alex	Shearcroft	906963
	Stephen	Lucking	909024
	Justinas	Jonuska	920282
	Dimitar	Dimov	819379

3.45

Example of a Literature Review

2009-10-13T23:51:00.000-07:00

This is a fictitious literature review - I have written this as an example:

Read all the sources that you have gathered and write a paragraph, simply summarising (paraphrasing - in you own words) what is written: -

Smith 2009 argues that students are often late to lectures due to the excesses of alcohol, however Jones 2008 states that most students cannot wake up until midday due to a natural hormonal anomaly and this is why they are tardy. He also mentions that due to this, all lectures should take place in the afternoon and cites Haden 2003 and his interesting insight into student sleep patterns to evidence this. Morgan 2008 notes that some individuals are either "early birds or night owls", and many students follow this pattern. Those people who favour early rising are very often exhausted by mid afternoon, whereas late risers can produce their best work after midnight (Wright 2009).

As you can see I have inserted the surname and date of the different authors of each source within the literature review. You need to keep an account of the full reference of each author, which will eventually go in your reference page - like this....

References

Jones, R. 2008 "Hormonal studies in the student population" SA. Sawyers Books

Morgan. S. 2008 " Sleep patterns in humans" [Internet] http://www. sleeping is great.com [10-10-09]

Wright, J. 2009 "Why students are always tired" USA. Barker Publishing.

REMINDER - There will be no lecture on Tuesday 20th October

2009-10-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

Just to remind everyone that there will be no lecture on 20th October as I will be away. You are expected to write the literature review to your paper, and post this on your blog. I will endeavour to critique the literature review whilst I am away. I will be back for the lecture on Tuesday 27th October.

Remember that all PDP needs to be finished as well!!!

If you are having trouble with your blog - please e-mail me your work and I will critique it that way.

Complete your PDP!

2009-10-07T00:51:00.001-07:00

By now you should have posted your:

Learning line - reflection on your learning line

SWOT analysis

Reflection on your learning style.

You should also have completed a study skills checker which was handed out in class. If you have done this then you have already gained your 10% mark for your PDP.

If you were not present when the skills checker page was handed around you can access it from the dedicated WebCT site. You can access this from the Anglia Ruskin Website > ANET > Student > WebCT.

WebCT can also be accessed at http://webct.anglia.ac.uk/

You will need to log into this system using :-

Your Student Username: in the format i.e ABC123 (in CAPITALS) This is the same user name as when you visit the library and access the computers.

For the rest of the module we will be concentrating on your writing and presentation skills.

Your essay will take 50% of the final mark and the presentation 40%.

Linking to Your Friends Blog

2009-09-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

If you want to link up with your friends blog follow these steps:

At the top right hand side of your blog you will see 'Customise'.

Click on 'Customise', and this will take you to the editable layout of your blog.

Click on 'Add a gadget" and a box will appear with many different gadgets that Blogger offers.

Scroll down the list until you get to 'Blog list' - Click 'Add' and this will add the blog list to the side of your blog.

If you want to add your friends blog address, click on 'Customise" to take you to the editable layout. Go to 'My blog list' and click on 'Edit'.

A box will open. Click on 'Add to list' and a smaller box will open which will allow you to enter the blog address of the blog you wish to link to. Enter or cut and paste the blog URL into this box and click 'Add'.

The blog address will be added in to the main box. You will probably find that your friends blog title will come up - you can change this to their name by clicking 'rename'. Enter the name you wish to give the blog and click 'SAVE'.

Now you will have your friends blogs listed on the right hand side of your blog, and you will see a feed which will let you know if your friend has blogged lately and what the content is.

HAPPY BLOGGING!

Blog Accounts and Learning Lines

2009-09-24T22:44:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Thank you to all those students who have managed to set up their blog accounts so quickly. There are still many of you who have not set up your accounts, and there are also many students who have not posted their Learning Line yet. Please do so as soon as possible.

I have noticed that many of you are forgetting to use a capital I when posting. If you are talking about yourself you should always use a capital I not small i - you are important, so make sure that your post looks important and use a capital I - e.g:

I enjoyed my time at college - not i enjoyed my time at college.

Find out from your new colleagues what their blog addresses are and add them to your blog. Then you can see what they have posted and you can comment on those postings. This will enable you to peer review their work, which is a useful new skill to learn to do. You will read and interpret their work from a different perspective, and your comments can help your colleague to think about what they have written. Don't be afraid to be critical - this is all part of the university experience.

In the next post I will talk you through how to link a friend's blog to your own blog.

WELCOME TO LEARNING AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FOR HE AND WORK

2009-09-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

WELCOME TO THE BLOG!

I hope that you find the blog useful. I will provide valuable feedback on work that has been posted after every session. This will be generic feedback to the class as a whole, specific feedback will be written as a comment on personal blogs.