1 Good practice in writing

This course is a general guide and will introduce you to the principles of good practice that can be applied to all writing. If you work on developing these, you will have strong basic (or ‘core’) skills to apply in any writing situation. For assistance with specific aspects of any course you are to study, always refer to any guidance notes or handbooks that have been provided.

This course won't solve all your difficulties immediately; developing your writing skills is an ongoing process, and one that involves frequent reflection on the way you tackle assignments. By the time you have come to the end of the course, however, we hope that you will be able to break down the task of essay or report writing into separate elements, identify which of these elements you want to work on, and develop an action plan to enable you to manage your own improvement.

How to use this course

You can use this course in a variety of ways. You can dip into it, choosing the sections that you feel are most relevant to your needs, or you can work through it from start to finish. However, we suggest that you don't use it in isolation but in conjunction with your current study, ideally while you are working on an assigment or report . It is essentially a workbook, and includes a number of activities, which we hope you will do as you study your chosen course. There is also an action plan. You can only really improve through practice. Like swimming, no-one learns assignment writing by reading a book, although it may give useful advice on technique.