3. Content overview of How to Use Your Reading in Your Essays
How to Use Your Reading in Your Essays (HURE) responds to rationale outlined in Sections 1 and 2 firstly by giving the student an introductory overview of how sources can be used in an essay; most students will not have looked at a piece of academic writing in this way before. HURE introduces the generic, standard approaches and formats for essays and other common assignment formats as a first step which the student can use to develop their disciplinary reading and writing.
Part A of How to Use Your Reading in Your Essays then takes the student through the stages (and crucially, the reasons for each stage) needed in order to successfully select information, read critically, and make meaningful and useful notes. The last two sections in Part A help the reader understand how to use what they have read to critically analyse the relationships between different sources and perspectives and to synthesise them to reach their own unique understanding and insights. The final section of Part A gives examples and practice in various forms of writing that the student can do to help them actualise and consolidate their thoughts and ideas.
Part B takes the reader through the ways in which sources are used explicitly in writing (quotation, paraphrase and summary) and the intellectual and mechanical processes for doing this effectively. How to Use Your Reading in Your Essays emphasizes throughout that deep critical thinking is required at each stage, and that paraphrasing and summarizing should be used as a tool in reaching a critical and independent reinterpretation of information within their own argument, rather than merely being about finding synonyms to replace words from the source text.
Once students have raised their awareness of these processes and have practised them using source material in these ways, they are then asked to look at how use of source is integrated into a written assignment. The key point here is showing students how they can use sources to support their own point and so forefront their own written voice, making clear distinctions between ideas and information that have come from source material and their own comments and insights. Section B4 (and full essay in Appendix 1) then shows students how everything they have practised so far is part of the process of creating and producing an original piece of work, and the final section in Part B gives the student examples and practice for seeing the completion of the process in a finished essay. It also briefly discusses the way sources are used in reflective writing and reports.
Importantly, even when students have grasped the real point of reformulation and reinterpretation of source material to reach their own insights, students are sometimes still held back from communicating their ideas fully and clearly in writing because they lack an adequate formal vocabulary, and one unique aspect of How to Use Your Reading in Your Essays is that it goes on to help the student reader develop their word knowledge.
Each academic discipline has its own specialised vocabulary and form of expression and style which the student acquires as they increase their subject knowledge, but they may not even have an adequate or good command of the words, phrases and style common across all disciplines, sometimes referred to as sub-technical, or common academic vocabulary. Students might have an adequate passive vocabulary (they more or less know what a word means when they read it) but they lack a large enough active formal vocabulary and so often use words that are almost but not quite right. The student then, needs to be able to use appropriate vocabulary with precision. The main aim of Part C of How to Use Your Reading in Your Essays is to give students a ‘way in’ to understanding formal vocabulary, particularly in the context of using source material. Part C gives the reader examples of how key words and phrases are used (connected grammatical points are explained briefly when necessary), synonymous alternatives and practice in using and correcting common mistakes in word usage.
Finally, in order to polish and take pride in their finished written piece, students need to be able to edit and proofread their work, and so Part D of the book comprises sections that revise key points of grammar and language, and that give the student practice in spotting and correcting common ‘last stage’ surface errors in language use.
How to Use Your Reading in Your Essays then, enables and empowers students to use their sources to greatest advantage in their own writing. It shows the student the deeper intellectual reasons for referencing as well as the surface technical requirements and gives them practice in using formal vocabulary. A by-product of having the knowledge, skills and confidence needed to use their sources effectively will hopefully be that the student will not fall into the trap of accidental plagiarism and/or will also feel less inclined to purposely cut corners in source acknowledgement.
To sum up, How to Use Your Reading in Your Essays aims to demystify1 the writing process for the student reader in a way that is relevant, accessible, practical and ‘text-light’ rather than being ‘just another book to read’ for students who may already feel overwhelmed by the amount of reading they have to do.
Notes
1. This term was first used in the context of academic writing by Theresa Lillis in: Lilis, T. (1999) Whose ‘Common Sense’? Essayist literacy and the institutional practice of mystery. In C. Jones, J. Turner and B. Street 9eds) Student Writing in the University: cultural and epistemological issues . Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
