Academic Writing Development
Dr Martin Sedgley SFHEA
Head of Effective Learning Service
Why do postgraduates struggle
with academic writing ?
• Intimidated by this: still an unfathomable writing genre, even
after a minimum of 3 years study;
• Confused on how and when to use their own ideas;
• Find it difficult to manage, via accurate citation and referencing,
the integration of sources into an essay;
• Cannot easily organise and structure ideas coherently;
• Believe that a complex style of writing is ‘what is expected’
– overlong sentences
– awkward or incomplete sentences
– predominant use of passive form
(Neville 2006)
Overlong sentences
Lloyd (2002) is critical of the established literature on how
the training and development skills problem has not been
actively dealt with in the UK, there have been several
minor level schemes that were adapted but nothing chiefly
effective has resulted, there has been a major emphasis on
it’s failure due to the lack of knowledge companies
possess, specifically senior managers who are unaware of
the opportunities available for fellow employees.
Very long sentence !
How could we make this
more readable ?
Overlong sentences
Lloyd (2002) is critical of the established literature’s
reasons for on how the training and development (T&D)
skills problem has not being addressed been actively dealt
with in the UK. There have been several minor level
schemes that were adapted but nothing chiefly effective
has resulted. What does that mean ?
The T&D failure has been mainly attributed to there has
been a major emphasis on it’s failure due to the lack of
knowledge companies’ lack of knowledge possess,
specifically senior managers who are unaware of the
opportunities available for fellow employees.
Awkward or incomplete sentences
Every English sentence (clause) requires a
Subject Verb Object structure.
You need to follow that consistently otherwise
the meaning really gets lost for the reader.
How could you correct the
following sentences to adhere
to that sentence structure ?
Correct the following sentences
to adhere to SVO sentence structure …
Clear strategic definition, resources
rationalisation and close operational
coordination to obtain enough flexibility to
adapt to the global environments' requirements.
However, the most important aspect to build its
competitive advantage and Lego had
underestimated was the supply chain.
Correct the following sentences
to adhere to SVO sentence structure …
Company X requires a clear strategic definition,
resources rationalisation and close operational
coordination (for them) to obtain enough
flexibility to adapt to the global environment’s
requirements.
However, the most important aspect is for the
company to build its competitive advantage.
and Lego had underestimated was the supply
chain by not … ?.
Explicit language
• The building blocks of the
writing are short, clear
sentences of two, or at most
three, connected ideas.
• The voice of the writer
emerges through authentic,
fluent paraphrasing.
Building your argument
Use sentences and paragraphs as the ‘bricks’
that build the reader’s foundation of
understanding. Each must be simple and
strongly defined in itself, but also firmly
connected to others around it. Aim to
consistently construct a clear argument
that is plain to see.
Academic writing - paragraph structure
(what might tutors mean by ‘depth’ ?)
• Topic sentence – the key idea
• Explanation / development of that idea
– your interpretation
• Evidence to support the idea
– others’ research
• Examples to apply the idea
– the real world
(Sedgley 2014)
Students’ examples of paragraphs
How would you grade these following extracts
from Masters students’ past assignments
as good practice academic writing (TEEE) ?
A, B, C, D or E (A is highest)
This project will discuss and present the role of Innovation Culture in
driving the growth of United Arab shipping company.
Successful innovation gives nations, industries and
organizations an edge in the highly competitive world
today. A racially diverse workforce guided by an
innovation-focused business strategy pro-vides firms
with competitive advantage. The key component for a
country’s economic growth is productivity. The same is
true for any company. Globalization and technological
progress are the driving forces for increase in
productivity by process of creating new demands by
introducing new products or improving the efficiency of
the existing production process.
… how about this one?
BPR has become one of the most sought subjects on
business management and information systems (Vakola et
al 2000). The basic concept of BPR is to do changes to the
existing business with the intent to improve business
performance dramatically in short time (Bertolini et al
2011). BPR is focused to introduce creative and innovative
ideas to model the work (Choi and Chan 1997), but multiple
studies showed that on an average only 30% BPR
implementation turned out to be success (Revenaugh
1994). For example recently Infosys Technologies failed in
its human resource process re-engineering efforts “IRACE” and lost thousands of its valuable employees
(IRACE 2010). However King’s College Hospital’s BPR
efforts not only improved the hospitals performance but
also turned to be a profit of £1 million (Patwardhan and
Patwardhan 2007). These case studies poses question is
BPR for everyone? Is it correct in every situation?
How is a critical review significantly
different from an essay assignment ?
Review
• In-depth examination of
one article
• Thorough reading of the
whole article
• Critique of the article’s
main argument
• Reading around research
methods
Essay
• Synthesis of several
authors’ views on topics
• Selected reading of key
points related to question
• Building your argument
around others’ ideas
• Wide reading around
question focus.
Some questions to consider in developing
your critical review writing
• Is it necessary to read other journal articles
from the literature to critique the literature
review of your article ?
• Is it necessary to read and cite research design
texts to critique the methodology used by
your article authors ?
• If so, which types of texts ?
5. In criticising the “management deficit” (2007: 57)
perspective, Behrends does not offer many examples of
studies taking such a position. Behrends does cite
Holliday (1995) along with Curran and Blackburn (2001)
but it is unclear whether he considers these authors to
hold such a perspective or to share his criticisms of it.
Certainly from reading Holliday’s (1995) study of workinglife in smaller firms, and Curran’s (2006) recent discussion
of smaller firms’ distinctiveness (also see Torres and
Julien, 2005), it seems unlikely that the “management
deficit” perspective is reflected in their work.
The 342 usable responses, a response rate of around
19%, represent an impressive achievement for a survey
approach involving SMEs (compare with Duberley and
Walley, 1995; Dennis, 2003). However a number of
concerns with Behrends’ research approach should be
addressed.
Bacon et al (1996) demonstrate through their multimethod study of HRM in SMEs that survey responses
are not necessarily matched by the practices in use.
This means that if Behrends is serious about wishing to
investigate recruitment practices in SMEs, his research
approach may be inappropriate.
1. Introduction
In this paper it will be argued that Behrends’ (2007)
study of recruitment practices in small and medium
sized professional service firms is an interesting but
problematic piece of research. The argument will be
developed through a critical review of Behrends’
paper, discussing in turn its conceptual bases,
research methods, main findings, and practical
implications.
Article research focus,
Review position,
Review aim / structure
2. Synopsis
Behrends’ paper reports a study of 342 companies’
recruitment practices. In particular the research is
concerned with small and medium-sized knowledgeintensive professional service firms (SMKIPSFs) in
Germany. Behrends justifies the paper’s focus of how
SMKIPSFs manage recruitment on the grounds that
professional service firms are highly dependent on
their employees for the quality of services sold by
the company.
Methodology summary
Claim for importance of research focus
20. Conclusion
In conclusion, Behrends has attempted to explore
recruitment activities in a sub-set of German SMEs.
The importance of employees, and recruitment in
particular, to these firms along with the general
absence of knowledge-intensive firms from
discussion of HRM in SMEs (Scase, 1995) suggest
that this was a worthy endeavour. Unfortunately
fundamental difficulties with Behrends’
conceptualisation and execution of his research
mean that the reported results must be treated with
extreme caution.
Research importance and gap
Review position
MSC HRM Assignment 1: How can ELS help ?
• See ELS website / Blackboard for a sample review
... plus tutor feedback
• As a sounding board for group discussions
• Providing feedback on draft reviews
• Referencing booklet
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