Writing

We usually need to write every day - shopping lists, phone messages, birthday cards or notes to teachers. Writing for study purposes is different. Our writing techniques will therefore vary according to our purpose.

Check out these resources - each has handy hints for your academic writing.

Grammar
Paragraphs
Essays
Reports
Referencing
Reports
Other Links

Grammar

ESL students will find these resources particularly helpful in developing their writing skills. They offer all students a good chance to brush up on spelling, punctuation, pronouns and sentence structure.

Topic	Comment
Interesting things for ESL students Manythings.org	A fun study site for students of English as a Second Language including word games, puzzles, quizzes, exercises, slang, proverbs and much more.
Self-Study Quizzes Activities for ESL Students Wordskills.com	There are over 1,000 fun and educational interactive quizzes and exercises to help you study - including grammar, vocabulary, homonyms. There are also many bi-lingual quizzes. Not only for ESL students.
Guide to Grammar and Writing Capital Community College	A very comprehensive guide to all aspects of English grammar and writing from writing sentences to Research Papers.
Punctuation	Explains the reasons for punctuation, the use of punctuation marks and capital letters.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs are used to separate main ideas in your writing. A new paragraph indicates a new idea. These sites will give you more information.

Topic	Comment
Guide to Grammar and Writing Capital Community College	A very comprehensive guide to all aspects of English grammar and writing including sentences and paragraphs.

Essays

Essay writing is a real challenge:

reading and understanding the essay question properly
organizing your information
writing an appropriate introduction
summing up your work in a conclusion

Topic	Comment
Essay writing James Cook University University of St.Thomas	A helpful introduction to the most important steps in essay writing, from reading the essay topic carefully to finally editing your work. The site is fun to navigate and includes sample essays.
Writing Persuasive Essays Study Guides & Strategies	Offers elements toward building a good persuasive essay.

Reports

We present our findings or research in reports. There are many different types of reports and they need to be written and presented in a particular format or style, depending on the type of report. These sites will help you plan and write reports according to required formats.

Topic	Comment
Writing Reports North Coast Institute	This gives clear and concise instructions for Report Writing.

Referencing

In your essays and reports, you will often use quotes and ideas from other sources. You must acknowledge these sources (think of it as saying ‘thank you’). You do this in two ways:

within the body of your essay/report AND
with a reference list/bibliography at the end of your essay/report

There are different referencing styles and you should always check with your teacher for any guidelines first. Many courses require students to use what is called the Harvard or in-text system. Each of the following links has some good advice for preparing your in-text references and reference lists/bibliographies using the Harvard system.

Topic	Comment
Harvard system: in-text references, reference lists and bibliographies Swinburne University of Technology	A complete guide to writing in-text references and Reference Lists for all resources, including internet and other electronic resources.
A Guide to the CSU Author-Date System of Referencing Charles Sturt University	Based on the Harvard referencing system, this site explains why referencing is important and gives clear examples of in-text references and reference lists/bibliographies.