Skills 2 - Effective Writing Skills cont’d

In developing effective academic writing skills, a student needs to adopt a ‘formal’ tone of expression. By this, I mean that there should be an objective manner of writing, and that opinions of the writer should not creep into the writing, unless of course, that opinion is asked for. One way of ensuring this is to write without using the ‘first person’ approach, that is, the writer must not use words such as ‘I’ or ‘We’. Neither should the ‘second person’ be used so no words such as ‘You’. Avoid using ‘one’ (as in ‘One must not…’) also.

In essay type answers especially, a good rule of thumb is to have a clear introduction in which the aims of the essay is set out, a brief outline on how you will do this and where you will evidence your answer from. this should be roughly one paragraph and about 10% of the total word count.

Next, the main body of the essay (roughly 80% of your word count) will have the arguments you are presenting, with examples and in-text references. Each paragraph here should cover one point. The beginning sentence should ideally summarise the point being made and the following sentences will expand the argument/point. The last sentence should link to the next paragraph and attempt to link back to the question being asked. It sounds complicated, and it is in the beginning, but time and experience will make it easier. This is one of the reasons why academic writing skills need to be learnt and developed.

The conclusion should introduce NO NEW material, but merely summarise what was argued/presented before, and explain how the question was answered. It should be roughly 10% of the total word count.

Some tips:

• There is a move toward plain, simple English and so Latin phrases are less used now. Some which are still regularly used (like mens rea, ratio decidendi, acteus reus, stare decisis) are written in italics to differentiate from regular text.
• Some words have a specific meaning in law that can’t easily be replaced, and may have a different meaning in everyday speech or writing. Care has to be taken to use in the proper context. A few examples are: bail, precedent, testimony, intention, damages, injunction. There are many more and the OU recommends making a list of such words with the specific legal meaning (sort of like your own legal dictionary) so you don’t have to keep looking them up.
• Write in complete sentences. Each sentence should convey one simple idea, and therefore should not be too long and convoluted.
• Avoid beginning sentences with conjunctions, such as ‘because’, ‘and’, ‘or’, or ‘but’.
• Be grammatically correct. ‘Must of’, ‘should of’, ‘could of’ are not grammatically correct. A common mistake I’ve seen gaining in notoriety is the use of the word ‘drug’ being used as the past tense of ‘drag’. If you need help, type “conjugate x” (where x is the verb you want to use) into Google.
• Pay attention to what you write. Look at this sentence: "Is there some kind of virus going around with symptoms of massive headache and teeth pain?”. My response was: “I didn't know viruses had heads and teeth. Take a photo, they will name it after you and your name will live on in perpetuity.”
• LEARN TO SPELL! This is very common area where a student can lose simple marks. Confusing their/there, principle/principal, practise/practice, advice/advise, tort/taught/thought etc. really isn’t acceptable.
• Punctuate properly. Use punctuation marks to make your writing flow smoother and easier to read. Poor punctuation can change the meaning of the words in a sentence. For example,  “A visit to the site at 2 pm showed that the area was deserted except for a security guard dressed in black and a pitbull.”. I’m still waiting to see what a security guard wearing a pitbull looks like.