Workshop Plan:

Academic writing for reports

1 hour 30 mins

Main points:

  • The best academic writing for reports is clear and precise not overly complicated or full of jargon
  • Be accurate – make sure you fully understand all the terms and ideas you are writing about
  • Proofread your work – a well presented, accurately written report makes a good impression

Timing / Section / Description / Notes
0 – 15 mins / Overview of workshop
Icebreaker:Thinking about your audience / Working in groups of three:
  • Give each group a topic (e.g. The Government is planning to raise fees for university students).
  • Each group to number their members 1, 2 and 3.
  • Ask 1s to write the story in the style of a tabloid newspaper headline, 2s in the style of the title for an academic report and 3s as a text message to a friend. (5 mins)
  • Get students to share within groups, and then with whole class. (10 mins)

15 – 20 mins / What is academic writing? / This part of the workshop helps to overcome students’ misconceptions about academic writing – that it has to sound academic, use long words and jargon, or have complex sentence construction.
Emphasise that writing academically for reports means writing clearly and precisely.
You can ask:
  • What makes writing clear and effective?
  • Have you come across any examples of bad writing in academic journals / published reports?

20– 40 mins / Writing objectively, concisely, accurately, and directly / This is best illustrated through examples displayed on screen. You can ask the group to comment on each example:
e.g.
  • Is this a good example of accurate writing?
  • How might you rewrite it to improve it?

40 mins – 1 hour / Interactive activity:Summarising information / Working in small groups:
  • Students are given an extract (one paragraph or a whole section) from a report or article, along with the title of the report or article to give the context.
  • Their task is to summarise it in one or two sentences. (10 mins)
  • If a whole article or report is split up for this exercise, groups can be asked to compile their sentences, and then consider whether these work as an abstract. (10 mins)

1 hour –
1 hour 5 mins / Using the first person / For a generic workshop: Give general guidance about whether the first person is appropriate (usually not in scientific reports, but it may be acceptable in reflective reports on professional practice / work placement). Then ask the group if they have any of their own examples when the first person is appropriate in their subject.
For a subject specific workshop: Follow the guidance from this subject about whether using the first person is acceptable.
1 hour 5 mins –
1 hour 20 mins / A few words about grammar and punctuation... / Keep this section relatively short – it’s not within the scope of the workshop to go into this topic in any depth, but it’s a good place to direct students on to other resources (workshops and/or online and paper guides).
For a generic workshop: Give a general overview of sentence construction and punctuation, but mainly point students to further resources which can help with grammar and punctuation.
For a subject specific workshop: Ask colleagues / members of the department what are the common grammar and punctuation errors they see in students’ reports, and focus on one or two of these.
1 hour 20 mins –
1 hour 25 mins / Proofreading / This can be done as a series of top tips or a checklist that students can refer back to.
If you have time, you can ask students for their top proofreading tips.
1 hour 25 mins –
1 hour 30 mins / Any questions?

Feedback:

We would be interested to receive your feedback on this workshop. Email Michelle Reid at or Kim Shahabudin at .