Hi, let's talk about words again this week . One of the biggest problem areas is words that sound alike but have different meanings. An example is to, too and two. These are problems for a number of reasons. First, if you don't understand their different meanings.
To - Is always a preposition before a verb - e.g. - He went to the store.
Two - Is an adjective describing quantity - e.g. - There were two eggs in the basket.
Too - Is an adverb and means "as well as" - e.g. - He went too.
This seems simple but when your mind is tired at 3 in the morning, it is tempting just to want to get the assignment done. This can lead to mistakes. Unfortunately, your spell checker will not fix these errors and you will be stuck with them. A simple solution is to re-read your work in the morning or to let someone else help you re-read your work. They will often see the careless error your mind passed over three times.
Let's consider three other commonly misused words: there, they're and their.
The first word there can have a number of functions inside a sentence. Here are a few examples:
There is the book. (Explicative) He found the book lying there. (Adverb)
There is the telephone. (Popular use - Explicative)
There is no evidence to support this theory so we must question its validity. (There + to be, formal use)
The second word they're is always a contraction of the words "they are."
Example: They're going to the theatre tonight.
The third word is always a possessive pronoun.
Example: They bought their house last year.
Let's consider one more common problem, loose and lose. Loose is adjective that describes an object that is not fastened properly. Lose is a verb that means "to misplace" or "not to win". (See Hacker, Diane. The Canadian Writer's Reference. p. 96)
Example - The loose button fell off her jacket.
Example - Jack used a hammer to repair the floorboard because it was loose.
Example: The home team will lose the game.
Example: Lose the attitude. (Colloquial, non standard English, use in dialogue not academic papers)
Example: Did you lose your last dollar?
If you understand the meaning of these words, you will make fewer errors. However, anyone who is overtired, overworked and/or anxious can make grammar mistakes. The best way to eradicate mistakes is not simply to understand how to use the right word in the right place, but to give yourself the time to edit your work properly. Unedited, poorly spelled assignments with bad grammar often create the impression that you don't care, even when you do. Give yourself a break. Finish an assignment and find the time the next day to check for grammar mistakes by re-reading your own work or finding a friend to help you re-read your work, after ensuring your friend's grammar is up to the job.
KB
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Time to Think: The route to excellence
Hi! This week I'd like to talk about thinking, the thinking that happens before you begin written work such as your assignments, your dissertation or any other writing project. I'm sure, at some other time, you've read about about using outlines as a tool to plan your work or brainstorming as another tool to examine any possible ideas before you even start your research. Yet, how often do we simply consider the time it takes to think and put together ideas inside your mind. How often do we give ourselves permission to take time to think?
In doing research for an assignment or for a dissertation students expect to go from reading journal articles and papers about their chosen topic to actually choosing the topic without further delay. No time is expected to be given to the process of thinking at all. Yet, thinking is the most important step in discovering what we know about a given topic. This is where many students have difficulty in class where the case method of teaching is used. Why?
When we read three different business cases on, for example, organizations in relation to radical technological change, the end purpose is not the memorization of details about these cases. Even though those details can support a viewpoint we develop from each case, what is crucial here is what we actually think about those cases. The importance of a case study is simply this - what is the case really about? Students frequently focus on the details -- and I say this as someone who really enjoys detail -- yet ignore the wider implications of the work that they are reading. The teaching opportunity of the case study is thus lost and the student gets mired down in a morass of details, instead of focusing on the major issues.
The same thing is true of an assignment or when reading for a dissertation. Reading widely on a topic of interest doesn't immediately give us a good understanding of the subject. We need to think about the topic, understand its underlying theories and ideas and then we can find out how the material we have read relates to those underlying ideas and theories. In fact, it will take many journal articles to understand a given idea or theory from the literature. Taking time to think reveals underlying theories and their importance. Let me give you an example from my field.
A friend of mine used to get annoyed with his English teacher, insisting that the teacher's discussion of "The Great Gatsby" was useless. How was it, he'd ask me, that Daisy - the love interest of the main character Jay Gatsby, could really be symbolized by the green light that Gatsby would use to identify the location of the dock at her house. Of what value was this observation? Of course, his teacher failed to explain why this symbolism was important to the novel. He failed to consider the content of the novel in relation to this symbol.
In the novel, Daisy, whom Gatsby loves, lets him down in the end, sells him out for stolid domestic life with her idle, rich husband because Jay is a bootlegger and not a member of the respectable upper-class society to which she belongs. The romantic vision of Daisy, as a beautiful green light, is not what Daisy is about at all. The elusive and beautiful Daisy is hardly worth Gatsby's time. In the end, she is complicit in his death, a death that happens because of a murder she herself committed. Daisy, ultimately, is anti-romantic and cruelly self-interested.
So, the symbolism of the green light is has very little to do with Daisy. In fact, it is simply a tool that the the writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses to show the society of 1920's as a place of social decadence and a growing anti-romanticism. This is something that my friend's English teacher clearly failed to convey. Great works of literature clearly require more thought than the simple realization of "Ah yes, here we have a symbol - a green light." A symbol is unimportant without considering the meaning of the novel, and the novel's attitudes toward more important issues such as social change, love or social class.
The same thing is true of business articles. They too, are reflections of their underlying theories on business practices as part of the greater society. In reading articles, we begin to see, for example, the theories that guide them on organizational behaviour, organizational change, leadership or decision-making. Yet, we must think past the details into the theory to understand what the writers are trying to say. This takes time. We need to allow ourselves to take this time before we expect to either chose a topic or write about a topic. Time to think and reflect.
If we take the time to think, it does not make us weak students. After all, if we already knew the subject material, why would we need to reflect and study and what would we gain from it? Nothing. Only a student who thinks can be an active learner and excellent student.
In doing research for an assignment or for a dissertation students expect to go from reading journal articles and papers about their chosen topic to actually choosing the topic without further delay. No time is expected to be given to the process of thinking at all. Yet, thinking is the most important step in discovering what we know about a given topic. This is where many students have difficulty in class where the case method of teaching is used. Why?
When we read three different business cases on, for example, organizations in relation to radical technological change, the end purpose is not the memorization of details about these cases. Even though those details can support a viewpoint we develop from each case, what is crucial here is what we actually think about those cases. The importance of a case study is simply this - what is the case really about? Students frequently focus on the details -- and I say this as someone who really enjoys detail -- yet ignore the wider implications of the work that they are reading. The teaching opportunity of the case study is thus lost and the student gets mired down in a morass of details, instead of focusing on the major issues.
The same thing is true of an assignment or when reading for a dissertation. Reading widely on a topic of interest doesn't immediately give us a good understanding of the subject. We need to think about the topic, understand its underlying theories and ideas and then we can find out how the material we have read relates to those underlying ideas and theories. In fact, it will take many journal articles to understand a given idea or theory from the literature. Taking time to think reveals underlying theories and their importance. Let me give you an example from my field.
A friend of mine used to get annoyed with his English teacher, insisting that the teacher's discussion of "The Great Gatsby" was useless. How was it, he'd ask me, that Daisy - the love interest of the main character Jay Gatsby, could really be symbolized by the green light that Gatsby would use to identify the location of the dock at her house. Of what value was this observation? Of course, his teacher failed to explain why this symbolism was important to the novel. He failed to consider the content of the novel in relation to this symbol.
In the novel, Daisy, whom Gatsby loves, lets him down in the end, sells him out for stolid domestic life with her idle, rich husband because Jay is a bootlegger and not a member of the respectable upper-class society to which she belongs. The romantic vision of Daisy, as a beautiful green light, is not what Daisy is about at all. The elusive and beautiful Daisy is hardly worth Gatsby's time. In the end, she is complicit in his death, a death that happens because of a murder she herself committed. Daisy, ultimately, is anti-romantic and cruelly self-interested.
So, the symbolism of the green light is has very little to do with Daisy. In fact, it is simply a tool that the the writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses to show the society of 1920's as a place of social decadence and a growing anti-romanticism. This is something that my friend's English teacher clearly failed to convey. Great works of literature clearly require more thought than the simple realization of "Ah yes, here we have a symbol - a green light." A symbol is unimportant without considering the meaning of the novel, and the novel's attitudes toward more important issues such as social change, love or social class.
The same thing is true of business articles. They too, are reflections of their underlying theories on business practices as part of the greater society. In reading articles, we begin to see, for example, the theories that guide them on organizational behaviour, organizational change, leadership or decision-making. Yet, we must think past the details into the theory to understand what the writers are trying to say. This takes time. We need to allow ourselves to take this time before we expect to either chose a topic or write about a topic. Time to think and reflect.
If we take the time to think, it does not make us weak students. After all, if we already knew the subject material, why would we need to reflect and study and what would we gain from it? Nothing. Only a student who thinks can be an active learner and excellent student.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
What is a sentence? Nouns & Pronouns/Verbs
In the blog before the last one, we talked about the structure of paragraphs in "academic writing." We discussed how you use each paragraph to develop your idea in the four or five sentence paragraph. In this blog, we're going to look at basics - the sentences you use in your paragraphs. It makes sense that if you can't write a good sentence, you're going to have trouble writing paragraphs.
Sentence Structure
In academic writing, a sentence must have a subject and a main verb. This subject can be a noun or pronoun. Moreover, each sentence begins with a capital and ends with a full stop(period), question or exclamation mark. A noun or pronoun (the subject) is a word that names a thing such as: tree, house, boy, apple or road or a concept such as happiness, luck, or love. A pronoun, he, she, I, you, we, or they can be used to substitute the subject in the place of nouns. For example:
Sentence 1 - John went to the store with Joe.
Sentence 2 - He went to the store with him.
In sentence 2, he replaces John and him replaces Joe.
Different forms of pronouns replace nouns, depending on whether they are at the beginning of the sentence (subjective case) before the verb or whether they are after the verb at the end of the sentence (objective case). The table below demonstrates the correct use of the pronoun in the subjective and objective forms.
Person Subjective Objective
First person singular I/me
Examples: I went to the store. He gave the pencil to me.
Second person singular you/you
Examples: You went to the store. He gave the pencil to you.
Third person singular he/she; him/her
Examples: He/she went to the store. He gave the pencil to him/her.
First person plural we/us
Examples: We went to the store He gave the pencils to us.
Second person plural you/you
Examples: You went to the store. He gave the pencils to you.
Third person plural they/them
They went to the store. He gave the pencils to them.
I will briefly touch on verbs here. I will discuss of verbs active and passive verbs in our next post as well as active sentences. However, for the purposes this discussion, a verb is a word that denotes an action. Every sentence must have a verb.
Example - Jane carried (note: the verb is to carry) the cake home from the store.
For a more involved discussion on verb agreement and tenses, please go to Purdue University's OWL resource at:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
Some students may wish to spend some time here perusing special problems related to verbs. Conversely, you may also email me for special resources that I will be happy to suggest.
Sentence Structures
Simple Sentences
Simple sentences such as:
Example 1 - John kicked the ball between the goal posts. Example 2 - Without wine, life would be unbearable.
are composed of one independent clause. A clause is a part of the sentence that has a subject (a main noun) and a predicate (a main verb). In the above sentence, the whole sentence is one independent clause, in other words it "stands alone" (Hacker, 376). This is true of any independent clause.
Compound Sentences
These sentences are composed of two or more independent clauses with no subordinate clauses. These clauses are usually joined by a word such as: and, or, but, nor, for so, yet or maybe joined by a semi colon.
Example 1 - You can redo your assignment but you still need to understand the underlying problems to fix it.
Example 2 - All assignments are improved with a grammar text in one hand and an Oxford Dictionary in the other.
Example 3 - Spock could not save the survivors from Vulcan and save his mother at the same time.
Example 4 - Master grammar first; this will help you complete your assignments for the MBA programme.
The bolded words in the three sentences, but and and, allow the writer to join two separate independent clauses to make one sentence. This allows the writer to juxtapose two ideas of equal value. The sentence in the fourth example above has done just this with two complete sentences, each with their own subject and verb. Instead of placing a full stop between them, the semi colon signals that these ideas are closely related but are in two complete sentences. This is a substitute for using the word and between these sentences. It creates variety in your sentences and maintains reader interest, especially if you have a tendency to overuse the word and.
Note: The clause in the second half of each example is independent because these sentences could each stand alone as separate sentences. They do not require the joining word to indicate a relationship between the two ideas to make them complete.
Complex sentences/Sometimes called Compound/Complex Sentences
A complex sentence has at least one main clause and at least one subordinate clause.
A subordinate clause contains a predicate (a verb) and a subject (a noun), but it "functions in the sentence as an adjective, adverb, or a noun; it cannot stand alone (Hacker, 376)." So, the clause cannot be a separate sentence as in the examples above.
Example 1 - Your assignments show steady signs of improvement, an optimistic development.
Example 2 - Although I used to work for Apple I have worked for Microsoft as a programmer since 2007.
Example 3 - When Jim Kirk became the Captain of the Enterprise, he learned the names of every crewman.
The subordinate clauses above in bold cannot stand on their own as independent sentences, they are tied to the idea in the main clause. For example, in the third sentence, the clause "When Jim Kirk became the Captain of the Enterprise" is clearly tied to his actions in the main body of the sentence, he learned the names of every crewman. It is subordinate in fact to the main idea that he learned the names of every crewman.
I have also inverted the word order in some of these sentences. This, like the sentence with semi colon under the compound sentences, creates variety for the reader. When you use a variety of simple, compound and complex sentences in your assignments, they improve. Readers, whether they are reading exams or assignments, wake up when they encounter an exam or an assignment that has a variety of sentences. In writing sentences, take the advice of Fowler (see The King's English) and make your sentences clear and concise. Use precise words. First, however make sure each sentence is complete with a main verb and main subject.
Let's be clear here, clauses - whether they are independent or subordinate - are only important so we can make sure that our writing is clear. Grammar without writing is an empty pursuit. An example of this is, that when I was in grade school, I'd spend hours parsing sentences for no apparent reason. I still had to learn grammar later. I want to spare you this problem.
Steven King, the writer, taught grammar at a college before he wrote horror novels. A large part of his success lies in his understanding of the gerund. He has actually said this in his book on creative writing. Read Harry Potter and you will see that Rowling knows her grammar. There are writers, and I've read some of their work, whose grammar is shaky but I imagine their editors go on red alert when they turn their manuscripts in. You don't have a staff of editors to fix your work, and increasingly in the real world, people have less time for people who can't present an idea clearly in as few words as possible.
However, assignments and exams arrive on tutors' desks every day without a main subject/noun or a main verb. Many students believe this is a sentence: Flying down to Rio. Flying is a participle, not a verb. Down is not a verb either, it is a preposition. We will discuss this later, just believe me for now. The rest of you who have been reading this post will quickly realize that there is no main subject in this sentence either. Rules can be broken in creative writing but I believe you need to understand them to know why you are breaking them, even in dialogue. Language is not subjective and arbitrary. Words have meaning; language has structure. So, even if you can't remember which clause is called independent and which is called subordinate, if you have a main idea and main verb, you have a complete sentence. For problems such as subject/verb agreement, I refer you to the many excellent resources I have cited in this post and future discussions of these problems.
For a comprehensive discussion of sentences and how to improve them, I recommend How to Write Better English by Robert Allen (Penguin Books, 2005) which has helped me immeasurably in writing this post. I also recommend Diana Hacker's A Canadian Writer's Reference (Nelson, 2001). For those of you who are interested in my reference to the gerund above, Steven King's book is called "On Writing". It is about creative writing. OWL also discusses the gerund in detail, for those who are interested. (See website above)
Sentence Structure
In academic writing, a sentence must have a subject and a main verb. This subject can be a noun or pronoun. Moreover, each sentence begins with a capital and ends with a full stop(period), question or exclamation mark. A noun or pronoun (the subject) is a word that names a thing such as: tree, house, boy, apple or road or a concept such as happiness, luck, or love. A pronoun, he, she, I, you, we, or they can be used to substitute the subject in the place of nouns. For example:
Sentence 1 - John went to the store with Joe.
Sentence 2 - He went to the store with him.
In sentence 2, he replaces John and him replaces Joe.
Different forms of pronouns replace nouns, depending on whether they are at the beginning of the sentence (subjective case) before the verb or whether they are after the verb at the end of the sentence (objective case). The table below demonstrates the correct use of the pronoun in the subjective and objective forms.
Person Subjective Objective
First person singular I/me
Examples: I went to the store. He gave the pencil to me.
Second person singular you/you
Examples: You went to the store. He gave the pencil to you.
Third person singular he/she; him/her
Examples: He/she went to the store. He gave the pencil to him/her.
First person plural we/us
Examples: We went to the store He gave the pencils to us.
Second person plural you/you
Examples: You went to the store. He gave the pencils to you.
Third person plural they/them
They went to the store. He gave the pencils to them.
I will briefly touch on verbs here. I will discuss of verbs active and passive verbs in our next post as well as active sentences. However, for the purposes this discussion, a verb is a word that denotes an action. Every sentence must have a verb.
Example - Jane carried (note: the verb is to carry) the cake home from the store.
For a more involved discussion on verb agreement and tenses, please go to Purdue University's OWL resource at:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/Some students may wish to spend some time here perusing special problems related to verbs. Conversely, you may also email me for special resources that I will be happy to suggest.
Sentence Structures
Simple Sentences
Simple sentences such as:
Example 1 - John kicked the ball between the goal posts. Example 2 - Without wine, life would be unbearable.
are composed of one independent clause. A clause is a part of the sentence that has a subject (a main noun) and a predicate (a main verb). In the above sentence, the whole sentence is one independent clause, in other words it "stands alone" (Hacker, 376). This is true of any independent clause.
Compound Sentences
These sentences are composed of two or more independent clauses with no subordinate clauses. These clauses are usually joined by a word such as: and, or, but, nor, for so, yet or maybe joined by a semi colon.
Example 1 - You can redo your assignment but you still need to understand the underlying problems to fix it.
Example 2 - All assignments are improved with a grammar text in one hand and an Oxford Dictionary in the other.
Example 3 - Spock could not save the survivors from Vulcan and save his mother at the same time.
Example 4 - Master grammar first; this will help you complete your assignments for the MBA programme.
The bolded words in the three sentences, but and and, allow the writer to join two separate independent clauses to make one sentence. This allows the writer to juxtapose two ideas of equal value. The sentence in the fourth example above has done just this with two complete sentences, each with their own subject and verb. Instead of placing a full stop between them, the semi colon signals that these ideas are closely related but are in two complete sentences. This is a substitute for using the word and between these sentences. It creates variety in your sentences and maintains reader interest, especially if you have a tendency to overuse the word and.
Note: The clause in the second half of each example is independent because these sentences could each stand alone as separate sentences. They do not require the joining word to indicate a relationship between the two ideas to make them complete.
Complex sentences/Sometimes called Compound/Complex Sentences
A complex sentence has at least one main clause and at least one subordinate clause.
A subordinate clause contains a predicate (a verb) and a subject (a noun), but it "functions in the sentence as an adjective, adverb, or a noun; it cannot stand alone (Hacker, 376)." So, the clause cannot be a separate sentence as in the examples above.
Example 1 - Your assignments show steady signs of improvement, an optimistic development.
Example 2 - Although I used to work for Apple I have worked for Microsoft as a programmer since 2007.
Example 3 - When Jim Kirk became the Captain of the Enterprise, he learned the names of every crewman.
The subordinate clauses above in bold cannot stand on their own as independent sentences, they are tied to the idea in the main clause. For example, in the third sentence, the clause "When Jim Kirk became the Captain of the Enterprise" is clearly tied to his actions in the main body of the sentence, he learned the names of every crewman. It is subordinate in fact to the main idea that he learned the names of every crewman.
I have also inverted the word order in some of these sentences. This, like the sentence with semi colon under the compound sentences, creates variety for the reader. When you use a variety of simple, compound and complex sentences in your assignments, they improve. Readers, whether they are reading exams or assignments, wake up when they encounter an exam or an assignment that has a variety of sentences. In writing sentences, take the advice of Fowler (see The King's English) and make your sentences clear and concise. Use precise words. First, however make sure each sentence is complete with a main verb and main subject.
Let's be clear here, clauses - whether they are independent or subordinate - are only important so we can make sure that our writing is clear. Grammar without writing is an empty pursuit. An example of this is, that when I was in grade school, I'd spend hours parsing sentences for no apparent reason. I still had to learn grammar later. I want to spare you this problem.
Steven King, the writer, taught grammar at a college before he wrote horror novels. A large part of his success lies in his understanding of the gerund. He has actually said this in his book on creative writing. Read Harry Potter and you will see that Rowling knows her grammar. There are writers, and I've read some of their work, whose grammar is shaky but I imagine their editors go on red alert when they turn their manuscripts in. You don't have a staff of editors to fix your work, and increasingly in the real world, people have less time for people who can't present an idea clearly in as few words as possible.
However, assignments and exams arrive on tutors' desks every day without a main subject/noun or a main verb. Many students believe this is a sentence: Flying down to Rio. Flying is a participle, not a verb. Down is not a verb either, it is a preposition. We will discuss this later, just believe me for now. The rest of you who have been reading this post will quickly realize that there is no main subject in this sentence either. Rules can be broken in creative writing but I believe you need to understand them to know why you are breaking them, even in dialogue. Language is not subjective and arbitrary. Words have meaning; language has structure. So, even if you can't remember which clause is called independent and which is called subordinate, if you have a main idea and main verb, you have a complete sentence. For problems such as subject/verb agreement, I refer you to the many excellent resources I have cited in this post and future discussions of these problems.
For a comprehensive discussion of sentences and how to improve them, I recommend How to Write Better English by Robert Allen (Penguin Books, 2005) which has helped me immeasurably in writing this post. I also recommend Diana Hacker's A Canadian Writer's Reference (Nelson, 2001). For those of you who are interested in my reference to the gerund above, Steven King's book is called "On Writing". It is about creative writing. OWL also discusses the gerund in detail, for those who are interested. (See website above)
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Good Research Practices - Using a Research Log
Hi, it's KB again with a discussion of good research practices. I've spoken in previous blogs about using peer-reviewed journals and the subject rooms provided at U of Leicester library, but today I'd like to talk about what a research log is and why you should use one.
A good research log affects your scholarship and what you write. This is important when you are doing assignments, but it becomes doubly important when you are writing your dissertation. Why is this the case? When we are working on assignments or longer projects such as dissertations, we do a lot of reading and thinking. Frequently, we come across ideas as we read and assimilate them into our understanding of the subject. Sometimes, these are concepts and ideas that form our understanding of what we believe or know about the subject on which we are writing. Still more frequently, they are ideas that are common to scholarship on this subject and are obviously not our own. When we don't have a research log, we forget or lose track of the origin of these ideas. It is even possible to remember whole swatches of information from other sources and put them into our work and believe that these are our own ideas.
When we keep an accurate record, that is the name of the books or journals that we have read in relation to the assignments that we are doing, then we have a trail of where we have gone and what we have read there. As I have encountered this problem more frequently, I have become convinced that this log should be detailed as possible. You should write down a few words about what you have read in these source journals or books, when you read them, and a complete bibliographic record of the journal.
For example, let's say I was writing a blog on passive verbs. Here is my research log.
Research Log - Passive Verbs
May 24, 2009 15:02 (GMT)
Hewings, Martin. Advanced Grammar in Use. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge U Press, 2006.
I read pages 48-51 on the use of the passive verb in writing. An exercise was included for students.
May 25, 2009 1:02 (GMT)
Hacker, Diana. A Canadian Writer's Reference. 2nd. ed. Toronto: Nelson Press, 2001.
I read page 103 on how to simply sentence structures by not using passive verbs.
Later, when I decide to write my blog, I will find the sources in my research log. This log can exist on your computer, in a notebook or another database programme. Personally, I prefer to use a steno notepad which I label with a big sticky label with the assignment or project name. I include quotations from the appropriate sources. If you use a computer, you should always duplicate this log in a few places.
Some of you know how to do this and have heard this speech before. However, I am constantly made aware that students fail in this very crucial practice and pay the price of failure and, sadly, lost time and work. It is almost impossible to reconstruct an assignment or dissertation that has gone off the rails due to poor research practices and finding lost sources can prove more of a challenge than beginning afresh. There are free resources, such as Refworks, to help you keep track of your work on the server at U of Leicester. I am, as usual, always here to assist you with your research (as are the librarians). Good research practices spell success in the MBA programme.
A good research log affects your scholarship and what you write. This is important when you are doing assignments, but it becomes doubly important when you are writing your dissertation. Why is this the case? When we are working on assignments or longer projects such as dissertations, we do a lot of reading and thinking. Frequently, we come across ideas as we read and assimilate them into our understanding of the subject. Sometimes, these are concepts and ideas that form our understanding of what we believe or know about the subject on which we are writing. Still more frequently, they are ideas that are common to scholarship on this subject and are obviously not our own. When we don't have a research log, we forget or lose track of the origin of these ideas. It is even possible to remember whole swatches of information from other sources and put them into our work and believe that these are our own ideas.
When we keep an accurate record, that is the name of the books or journals that we have read in relation to the assignments that we are doing, then we have a trail of where we have gone and what we have read there. As I have encountered this problem more frequently, I have become convinced that this log should be detailed as possible. You should write down a few words about what you have read in these source journals or books, when you read them, and a complete bibliographic record of the journal.
For example, let's say I was writing a blog on passive verbs. Here is my research log.
Research Log - Passive Verbs
May 24, 2009 15:02 (GMT)
Hewings, Martin. Advanced Grammar in Use. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge U Press, 2006.
I read pages 48-51 on the use of the passive verb in writing. An exercise was included for students.
May 25, 2009 1:02 (GMT)
Hacker, Diana. A Canadian Writer's Reference. 2nd. ed. Toronto: Nelson Press, 2001.
I read page 103 on how to simply sentence structures by not using passive verbs.
Later, when I decide to write my blog, I will find the sources in my research log. This log can exist on your computer, in a notebook or another database programme. Personally, I prefer to use a steno notepad which I label with a big sticky label with the assignment or project name. I include quotations from the appropriate sources. If you use a computer, you should always duplicate this log in a few places.
Some of you know how to do this and have heard this speech before. However, I am constantly made aware that students fail in this very crucial practice and pay the price of failure and, sadly, lost time and work. It is almost impossible to reconstruct an assignment or dissertation that has gone off the rails due to poor research practices and finding lost sources can prove more of a challenge than beginning afresh. There are free resources, such as Refworks, to help you keep track of your work on the server at U of Leicester. I am, as usual, always here to assist you with your research (as are the librarians). Good research practices spell success in the MBA programme.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Structure your paragraphs - Do yourself a favour on assignments and exams
Hi, here I am again. In this blog, I'd like to talk about academic writing style. In exams and assignments, this is a problem for a number of students. Sometimes, this can be a problem for distance learners for a variety of reasons. The biggest problem is that informal writing dominates our world in newspapers, office memos and our lives. We forget that (a) arguments take time to develop and (b) the one sentence paragraph does not develop arguments.
Read a newspaper column; how many of those sentences begin with and, but and or? Look again, how many one sentence paragraphs do you find? Now, think back, way back to the elementary/junior school years. Do you remember a teacher explaining to you that "one sentence paragraphs are for a special effect." The same thing applied to the use of "and, but and or" at the beginning of sentences. Moreover, the teacher was usually talking about 'creative compositions', that is compositions in which we wrote stories and descriptions. Think again, how effective is the strategy of the one sentence paragraph if that is all you do?
Another unfortunate problem, the opposite of the one sentence paragraph, is the terrifying one paragraph paper. This assignment is not divided into logical units or paragraphs. Everything is stuck together in a disorganized mess. The tutor (or the marker who should concern you all) must search through this disorganized material trying desperately to find points that relate to the assignment. Assignments should never be a challenge for the markers/tutors. Markers/tutors want to find relevant points on the topic quickly. This is particularly true of exams by the way. Structure your argument into paragraphs and make reading your assignments easier.
An academic argument is formal and should be presented in structured paragraphs within a format that defends the points of your argument. Academic paragraphs are structured like this:
1. The topic sentence. This sentence presents your main argument. It relates to the main argument of your assignment/essay question.
2. Supporting documentation. Next, you present evidence from the academic articles/journal articles that you have read to support the point that you are trying to make. It is not enough to write: 'so and so [fill in the appropriate name] believes my argument above to be true'. This is unsubstantiated reasoning: I say it and John says it, therefore it must be true. The point is, why it is true? Make sure your data backs up the arguments you make. For example, if you say that the head of Apple has a charismatic leadership style, you must show from the journal articles you've researched what this actually means in terms of charismatic leadership and how it applies to the head of Apple.
3. Discuss the data. This part of the academic paragraph is crucial. Explain or analyse how the data you have just presented supports your argument in the first paragraph. You can also relate it to the main argument. This may take one or two sentences. However, if you do not analyse your argument you have not demonstrated that you can think critically. You can also link ideas together to come up with original concepts (synthesize ideas) or review your data and discuss their relevance to the subject (evaluation). Doing this demonstrates that you are thinking critically.
4. Link the argument to the next concept. Create order inside your assignment. Anticipate the next point and link it to the points you are making. The reader should be able to follow your argument. When you read all your topic sentences in your assignment or essay in order, they should form a coherent argument.
Returning to my first point, when you create order from the chaos of the material you present in assignment, you do yourself a favour. You do your tutors and markers a favour. This makes it easier for tutors and markers to give you better grades because they understand the logic behind your arguments. They can locate them in a structure because they are presented clearly so that your major points can be seen. When you do this, you will also see this order and develop your own 'evaluative' abilities. You will walk out of exams or hand in assignments knowing that you have achieved your goals.
Read a newspaper column; how many of those sentences begin with and, but and or? Look again, how many one sentence paragraphs do you find? Now, think back, way back to the elementary/junior school years. Do you remember a teacher explaining to you that "one sentence paragraphs are for a special effect." The same thing applied to the use of "and, but and or" at the beginning of sentences. Moreover, the teacher was usually talking about 'creative compositions', that is compositions in which we wrote stories and descriptions. Think again, how effective is the strategy of the one sentence paragraph if that is all you do?
Another unfortunate problem, the opposite of the one sentence paragraph, is the terrifying one paragraph paper. This assignment is not divided into logical units or paragraphs. Everything is stuck together in a disorganized mess. The tutor (or the marker who should concern you all) must search through this disorganized material trying desperately to find points that relate to the assignment. Assignments should never be a challenge for the markers/tutors. Markers/tutors want to find relevant points on the topic quickly. This is particularly true of exams by the way. Structure your argument into paragraphs and make reading your assignments easier.
An academic argument is formal and should be presented in structured paragraphs within a format that defends the points of your argument. Academic paragraphs are structured like this:
1. The topic sentence. This sentence presents your main argument. It relates to the main argument of your assignment/essay question.
2. Supporting documentation. Next, you present evidence from the academic articles/journal articles that you have read to support the point that you are trying to make. It is not enough to write: 'so and so [fill in the appropriate name] believes my argument above to be true'. This is unsubstantiated reasoning: I say it and John says it, therefore it must be true. The point is, why it is true? Make sure your data backs up the arguments you make. For example, if you say that the head of Apple has a charismatic leadership style, you must show from the journal articles you've researched what this actually means in terms of charismatic leadership and how it applies to the head of Apple.
3. Discuss the data. This part of the academic paragraph is crucial. Explain or analyse how the data you have just presented supports your argument in the first paragraph. You can also relate it to the main argument. This may take one or two sentences. However, if you do not analyse your argument you have not demonstrated that you can think critically. You can also link ideas together to come up with original concepts (synthesize ideas) or review your data and discuss their relevance to the subject (evaluation). Doing this demonstrates that you are thinking critically.
4. Link the argument to the next concept. Create order inside your assignment. Anticipate the next point and link it to the points you are making. The reader should be able to follow your argument. When you read all your topic sentences in your assignment or essay in order, they should form a coherent argument.
Returning to my first point, when you create order from the chaos of the material you present in assignment, you do yourself a favour. You do your tutors and markers a favour. This makes it easier for tutors and markers to give you better grades because they understand the logic behind your arguments. They can locate them in a structure because they are presented clearly so that your major points can be seen. When you do this, you will also see this order and develop your own 'evaluative' abilities. You will walk out of exams or hand in assignments knowing that you have achieved your goals.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Word of the Week - Non-standard plurals
Non standard plurals, that is, plurals that do not follow the pattern of adding either 'es' (tomatoes, potatoes) or simply 's' (boys, girls), often follow a similar pattern. Words such as woman (plural - women) or man (men) come originally from Anglo-Saxon words.
Although English culture combines a rich social/cultural tradition from Celtic/Roman/Anglo-Saxon/Norman-French/ and Viking-Norse, it is an interesting fact almost the only words in English, that originate from the Celtic languages of pre-Roman Britain are river names such as The Thames or The Avon. It is believed that, in the 7th century when the Anglo-Saxon invaders pushed into Britain after the departure of the occupying Roman armies, the remaining Celtics were pushed into Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Northern Britain. Their disparate languages, therefore, did not make a considerable impact on the English language. In fact, Latin words probably came to England during the medieval period when Latin was the universal language of the church, rather than the earlier Roman occupation. Thus, English as a whole, is a mish-mash of languages beginning with the Anglo Saxon invasions and ending with the influence of the church.
So, where do non standard English plurals come from? Like our first example (man/woman), non standard plurals are linguistic survivors from Latin, French and Anglo-Saxon and even on occasion Norse.
The non standard English plurals below tend to cause difficulties because of their obscure linguistic origins. These origins mean that these words do not follow the standard s and es pattern and makes them tricky to use.
Some of these Words and their Plurals
chateau chateaux (French)
The chateau was famous for its wine.
The chateaux were famous for their wines.
phenomenon phenomena
A phenomenon called a quantum singularity was formed.
The phenomena were called black holes.
medium media
The medium is the message.
The media reported that they were shocked by the discoveries in Somalia.
criterion criteria
The only criterion was that the candidate had to be a woman.
The criteria stated that the candidate had to be a female and single.
datum data (Latin)
A datum, recorded by Gildas, recorded that a battle was won Badon Hill in 665 AD.
The historical data in the Doomesday Book were gathered over more than a hundred years.
Give these non standard plurals some thought. You will find they are frequently found in postgraduate assignments, essays and dissertations. A comprehensive Oxford Dictionary is the only way to ensure that you have used the correct plurals in your assignments.
Although English culture combines a rich social/cultural tradition from Celtic/Roman/Anglo-Saxon/Norman-French/ and Viking-Norse, it is an interesting fact almost the only words in English, that originate from the Celtic languages of pre-Roman Britain are river names such as The Thames or The Avon. It is believed that, in the 7th century when the Anglo-Saxon invaders pushed into Britain after the departure of the occupying Roman armies, the remaining Celtics were pushed into Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Northern Britain. Their disparate languages, therefore, did not make a considerable impact on the English language. In fact, Latin words probably came to England during the medieval period when Latin was the universal language of the church, rather than the earlier Roman occupation. Thus, English as a whole, is a mish-mash of languages beginning with the Anglo Saxon invasions and ending with the influence of the church.
So, where do non standard English plurals come from? Like our first example (man/woman), non standard plurals are linguistic survivors from Latin, French and Anglo-Saxon and even on occasion Norse.
The non standard English plurals below tend to cause difficulties because of their obscure linguistic origins. These origins mean that these words do not follow the standard s and es pattern and makes them tricky to use.
Some of these Words and their Plurals
chateau chateaux (French)
The chateau was famous for its wine.
The chateaux were famous for their wines.
phenomenon phenomena
A phenomenon called a quantum singularity was formed.
The phenomena were called black holes.
medium media
The medium is the message.
The media reported that they were shocked by the discoveries in Somalia.
criterion criteria
The only criterion was that the candidate had to be a woman.
The criteria stated that the candidate had to be a female and single.
datum data (Latin)
A datum, recorded by Gildas, recorded that a battle was won Badon Hill in 665 AD.
The historical data in the Doomesday Book were gathered over more than a hundred years.
Give these non standard plurals some thought. You will find they are frequently found in postgraduate assignments, essays and dissertations. A comprehensive Oxford Dictionary is the only way to ensure that you have used the correct plurals in your assignments.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Reducing stress in exam preparation and assignments
Stress and the MBA and MSc Programs - Reducing stress while preparing for Exams and Assignments
Stress is a serious problem in many of our lives. We know many of the contributors to this stress - family problems, money problems, health problems and school problems. In this blog, we are talking about problems encountered in completing assignments and work in the MBA and MSc Programs at U of Leicester's School of Management. At the end of this blog, I have posted a source for students facing other serious life problems. Go to the end of the blog to find the resources I have suggested to assist you with these issues.
In talking about stress and relaxation, I emphasize that stress reduction strategies assist students in grade achievement, but are not a substitute for the techniques of critical thinking that were discussed in an earlier blog. However, the relaxation techniques I suggest are employed in fields such as sports training where the emphasis is on winning. If they use these techniques, you too can use them with success.
Technique 1 - Morale and Self Messaging
The first technique is morale and positive self messaging. This is an important consideration for many students who are worried about performance and who feel that they cannot succeed. When you're drawing up your work schedule (which we will discuss in more detail below), you should provide yourself a checklist so you can see the positive results of your achievements on each occasion you work on your MBA/MSc program. Reward yourself when you do your studying and work. Give yourself time to feel positive about what you've done. Tell yourself that you've done a good job. Remember, in a DL program, although you are working alone, you also have Blackboard. When you are lost and confused about information in your module booklets/texts, you should refer these matters to your classmates and module tutors who are also working with the information. They can become a mini support group for you.
Although you may think it is hard to believe in yourself, you should think about all the other students who have come through the program successfully. They too may have encountered set-backs yet they completed their degree programs.
When setbacks occur, you need to remember back to the times when you got through your modules successfully and achieved your goals. Keeping a positive attitude will help you get through all the work that you need to do. Keep your mind focused on the program now, and don't worry about the future. You will eventually get to the end of the program and you will do so with a positive record of what you have achieved behind you.
Technique 2 - Good Time Management Practices
Next, I believe that good time management practices minimize stress. Students working to deadline, whether on an exam or an assignment, will find that the project is easier when they plan ahead. A number of steps are involved:
1. Before drawing up the time management plan, make no assumptions about what will be included on your exam. Do not you cut corners in planning out research and reflection time before tackling assignments. When you plan time properly, you'll be comfortable knowing that you have covered your subject thoroughly before an exam and won't have nasty surprises. Be
thorough in detailing all of your time needs before beginning an assignment or exam preparation.
2. A time management plan should incorporate the use of a calendar with sufficient space to describe all the activities you are planning to do that day. Small time planners do not allow you enough space to draw up a detailed daily work agenda. I suggest a large planner to assist you. Print your own, if you can't find one to suit you.
3. The time manager should also include a daily checklist for you to tick off the things that you've done. In the case of an exam or assignment, it allows you to monitor your progress and adjust your plans if you feels you should review material again or if you need to do more research and planning.
4. Finally, you should put time and thought into planning out your activities. Students usually underestimate the need to think through their topic or their study requirements. This leads to uncovered material from module texts showing up on exams and problems in assignments. Remember that thinking things through is also part of your work, not simply the execution. This is clear with exams, but often in assignments we fail to see that the same strategy applies.
5. In the case of exams, please remember the acronym SQ3R (Survey, question, read, recite, review) . These are requisite study steps. Look at the handout provided by the University of Minnesota to see how these steps work in more detail:
http://www.uccs.umn.edu/oldsite/lasc/handouts/sq3r.html
Technique 3 - Meditation and Relaxation
Like positive messaging, meditation and relaxation techniques are also used by sports professionals. In other words, the benefits of relaxation do help students to greater achievement in exams and assignments. Use these techniques when you are faced with stress at an exam. This will minimize time loss through freezing up and blocking information because you're worried about the results of the exam.
Below I've included the address for a guided meditation exercise that some students may find useful:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8845129782533837583
Finally, students facing career planning decisions or mental health issues can find assistance at Student Support and Development Service at the U of Leicester. Go to:
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds
for a description of their services in the areas of mental health, career planning and career guidance. Although I am always open to discuss their needs with students, I will always suggest this approach because I am not a qualified practitioner in this area. I always urge students to choose the best options to help them with their needs.
Stress is a serious problem in many of our lives. We know many of the contributors to this stress - family problems, money problems, health problems and school problems. In this blog, we are talking about problems encountered in completing assignments and work in the MBA and MSc Programs at U of Leicester's School of Management. At the end of this blog, I have posted a source for students facing other serious life problems. Go to the end of the blog to find the resources I have suggested to assist you with these issues.
In talking about stress and relaxation, I emphasize that stress reduction strategies assist students in grade achievement, but are not a substitute for the techniques of critical thinking that were discussed in an earlier blog. However, the relaxation techniques I suggest are employed in fields such as sports training where the emphasis is on winning. If they use these techniques, you too can use them with success.
Technique 1 - Morale and Self Messaging
The first technique is morale and positive self messaging. This is an important consideration for many students who are worried about performance and who feel that they cannot succeed. When you're drawing up your work schedule (which we will discuss in more detail below), you should provide yourself a checklist so you can see the positive results of your achievements on each occasion you work on your MBA/MSc program. Reward yourself when you do your studying and work. Give yourself time to feel positive about what you've done. Tell yourself that you've done a good job. Remember, in a DL program, although you are working alone, you also have Blackboard. When you are lost and confused about information in your module booklets/texts, you should refer these matters to your classmates and module tutors who are also working with the information. They can become a mini support group for you.
Although you may think it is hard to believe in yourself, you should think about all the other students who have come through the program successfully. They too may have encountered set-backs yet they completed their degree programs.
When setbacks occur, you need to remember back to the times when you got through your modules successfully and achieved your goals. Keeping a positive attitude will help you get through all the work that you need to do. Keep your mind focused on the program now, and don't worry about the future. You will eventually get to the end of the program and you will do so with a positive record of what you have achieved behind you.
Technique 2 - Good Time Management Practices
Next, I believe that good time management practices minimize stress. Students working to deadline, whether on an exam or an assignment, will find that the project is easier when they plan ahead. A number of steps are involved:
1. Before drawing up the time management plan, make no assumptions about what will be included on your exam. Do not you cut corners in planning out research and reflection time before tackling assignments. When you plan time properly, you'll be comfortable knowing that you have covered your subject thoroughly before an exam and won't have nasty surprises. Be
thorough in detailing all of your time needs before beginning an assignment or exam preparation.
2. A time management plan should incorporate the use of a calendar with sufficient space to describe all the activities you are planning to do that day. Small time planners do not allow you enough space to draw up a detailed daily work agenda. I suggest a large planner to assist you. Print your own, if you can't find one to suit you.
3. The time manager should also include a daily checklist for you to tick off the things that you've done. In the case of an exam or assignment, it allows you to monitor your progress and adjust your plans if you feels you should review material again or if you need to do more research and planning.
4. Finally, you should put time and thought into planning out your activities. Students usually underestimate the need to think through their topic or their study requirements. This leads to uncovered material from module texts showing up on exams and problems in assignments. Remember that thinking things through is also part of your work, not simply the execution. This is clear with exams, but often in assignments we fail to see that the same strategy applies.
5. In the case of exams, please remember the acronym SQ3R (Survey, question, read, recite, review) . These are requisite study steps. Look at the handout provided by the University of Minnesota to see how these steps work in more detail:
http://www.uccs.umn.edu/oldsite/lasc/handouts/sq3r.html
Technique 3 - Meditation and Relaxation
Like positive messaging, meditation and relaxation techniques are also used by sports professionals. In other words, the benefits of relaxation do help students to greater achievement in exams and assignments. Use these techniques when you are faced with stress at an exam. This will minimize time loss through freezing up and blocking information because you're worried about the results of the exam.
Below I've included the address for a guided meditation exercise that some students may find useful:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8845129782533837583
Finally, students facing career planning decisions or mental health issues can find assistance at Student Support and Development Service at the U of Leicester. Go to:
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds
for a description of their services in the areas of mental health, career planning and career guidance. Although I am always open to discuss their needs with students, I will always suggest this approach because I am not a qualified practitioner in this area. I always urge students to choose the best options to help them with their needs.
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