why essays?
You may think that writing essays is irrelevant to a scientific career. Worse, your school teachers may have allowed you, or - worse still - even encouraged you to think so. It is not true. Communication is a vital skill for any scientist, and indeed for anyone interested in a graduate career. Why is this?- A great discovery only advances science if the scientific community knows about it. Tycho Brahe's superb naked-eye observations of the planets might have had no consequences whatsoever if his young protege Johannes Kepler had not had access to them. As it is, by giving Kepler the data needed to formulate his three laws of planetary motion, they provided one of the main inputs into Newton's laws of motion and the birth of modern science.
- A great invention only makes you money if someone builds it. Even commercial research, which will not be published outside the company, has to be communicated inside it: someone has to write the patent application, the instructions for the engineers who are going to build it, and the operating manual for the people who are going to buy and use it. Dyson doesn't make all his vacuum cleaners with his own hands!
- Bureaucracy rules. Scientists have to write grant proposals to fund their research (not to mention lecture notes and Guides to First Year Astronomy!). Companies need annual reports. Heads of departments need to report to the University Vice-Chancellor, or the company Board of Directors. Everybody needs to write at least one decent job application! In short, effective writing is an essential career skill for a university graduate, regardless of discipline.
steps to a good essay
What makes a good essay? Clearly the answer depends on the nature of the task. An article on the Milky Way Galaxy for a children's encyclopaedia would be very different from a technical review paper. The most important criterion is that the essay should convey its information effectively to its intended audience. The essential steps to writing a good essay are therefore:- Read the brief. This is akin to the "read the question" advice for examinations: you will not get a good mark if you do not deliver what you were asked for. If you are asked for 800-1000 words, don't write only 250; if you're asked for formal English, don't use colloquialisms; if you're told to assume that the audience has no access to the lab script, don't start your description of the analysis with "Using the data provided in the lab script...".
- Identify the audience. Who are you writing this essay for? In an assessed essay or report, the target audience should be specified in the instructions: your lab reports are to be written for a scientifically trained reader who is unfamiliar with the particular experiment you are reporting; the book review in PHY111 is aimed at a broadsheet newspaper, therefore a well educated adult who is interested in science but not necessarily a scientist.
- Decide what you need to say. Once you have identified the audience, decide what you need to include in your essay. What background knowledge can you expect your audience to have already? Which specialised terms need to be explained? How much technical detail should you include?
- Plan how you're going to say it.
Your essay needs to have a good flow, moving smoothly from one topic
to the next without repetition or sudden changes of subject. Arrange
your material so that it is in a logical order (in lab reports, note
that this may not be the order of the lab script - sometimes the order
that makes the best use of your time in the lab is not the most
logical order scientifically). Make sure that you have an introduction setting out the motivation
for what you are going to do, and a conclusion explaining the significance of the
results.
You will probably want to write down your plan and use it as a checklist when you write your essay. With experience, some people can plan essays in their heads, but this is not a good strategy for a beginner. - Write a first draft. Don't expect to come out with the perfect essay on the first attempt: assume that your first shot is going to be a draft, and leave time before the deadline to revise it. Ideally, get someone else to read your draft: your tutor will usually be happy to do this, if you give him sufficient time (handing your tutor a draft at 10 am and expecting him to give it back to you at lunchtime is not good for tutor/student relations). If your tutor is the person who will have to mark the final answer, he or she may ask you to give your draft to someone else, such as a lab demonstrator; don't be offended by this - it's done in the interests of fairness, so that your essay will be marked on the same basis as everyone else's.
plagiarism
Work which is assessed as part of your module grade must be your own original work. In the case of an essay or lab report, this means that you must not copy material, exactly or nearly exactly, from another source: the introduction of your lab report must not be copied from the lab script. You can use the information from another source, provided you reference it properly, but you must not use someone else's words - doing so is plagiarism, and is not only dishonest and unethical, but also illegal (violation of copyright).
The department has produced offical guidelines on plagiarism, based on the University's regulations on "the use of unfair means in examinations". Read these guidelines, and make sure you understand what they mean - if in doubt, consult your tutor.
assessment
Essays and reports are normally assessed according to three criteria:- Adherence to the brief. Does the essay deliver what was asked for? Is it at the right level for the specified audience?
- Content. Does the essay contain the necessary material? Does it not contain unwanted material, such as extraneous waffle or unnecessary tables of data? Is the balance between sections right?
- Language and style. Is the essay written in good English, with no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors? Is the English style appropriate? Does the essay read well, with a good structure and flow?
- Grammatical errors can often make the meaning of a passage unclear or ambiguous. Scientific writing is about conveying difficult concepts as clearly and accurately as possible, so anything that reduces clarity is undesirable.
- Poor writing style reflects badly on the writer. It makes you look uneducated, and/or careless and sloppy, neither of which inspires confidence in the reader. This may have consequences in later life: if a company personnel office receives 100 applications for a graduate post, and has to whittle these down to a shortlist of 10 for interview, a covering letter that is full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors makes a good excuse for consigning that application to the 'reject' pile.
If you have difficulties with English, whether caused by dyslexia, not being a native speaker, or simply poor teaching at school, do make use of the University's Writing Advisory Service, run by the English Language Teaching Centre. Take your draft essay, or the mangled remains of one that did not fare well at the hands of the marker, to your WAS appointment and a specialist writing tutor will go through it with you and help you to improve your skills.
laboratory reports
Much of the above applies equally to a formal laboratory report:
you should read the brief, identify your audience, decide what you're
going to write, and plan your report; you will be assessed on
adherence to the brief, content, language and style. Specific
instructions on writing a laboratory
report, together with an example, will
be handed out in the lab sessions, or can be downloaded as pdf files
by clicking on the links.
Last updated: 12/09/06