Presentational issues:
It is very important that you present your work in the correct way at university, otherwise you are likely to gain poor marks or even fail. The following includes some tips and advice for creating appropriate coursework submissions:
For all assignments unless it says otherwise, you must include the following:
- Your Name
- Course: eg B.A. (Hons) Criminology
- Module title: eg Applying Criminology
- Module Code: eg CRI2068M
- Seminar Tutor
- Assessment question you are attempting
- Word count
- Page numbering
Also, you should:
- Double line space your work
- Print on one side of the paper only
- Use 12 pt font size in a clear typeface such as Ariel or Times
- Include a bibliography that matches the references in the body of your work.
- Spell check, but proof read as well, as the spell checker will not spot words that are wrong for the sentence, but are spelt correctly.
- Keep an electronic copy of your work.
- Always save your work every 10 minutes or so in a number of different places as you are doing it. Send it to yourself on your university email or Hotmail, or use a ‘Cloud’ or something like Google docs. This is so that if your computer stops working, you can still access your work from any computer.
Proof reading:
Proof reading your work to remove silly mistakes is a fundamental part of your essay preparation before handing in. Aim to create at least two or three drafts before producing the final piece of work. Assignments that are full of grammatical and spelling errors will be penalised significantly, so take pride in your work. The following Youtube clip is a comical look at this issue.
“The The Impotence of Proofreading,” by TAYLOR MALI
General skills for university:
This resource from Learn Higher has some useful advice about developing skills for university. It has presentations on all manner of things including critical thinking, listening, note making, researching and working in groups.
If you are interested in looking at another open educational resource (OER) that looks at generic skills and employability for life after university see the following link.