Buchtipp November 2022
Succeeding with your University Essay:
A Step-By-Step Handbook (first edition)
Biggam, John
2020, Open University Press, 184 pages
ISBN-13: 978 0 335 24850 6
Mediothek Am Neuen Palais: Lokalkennzeichen: 1880
Just as you settle into the new semester at your university, you realize that the end of the lecture period is rapidly approaching, and the essay-writing assignments would be soon due in a few weeks. Though you know the content that you want to write about, you feel at a loss on how to structure your thoughts in the format of an essay that your professor would like.
If you experience such moments of self-doubt, then Succeeding with your University Essay: A Step-By-Step Handbook (2020) by John Biggam can come to your rescue. This book not only helps you embrace the process of writing but also ensures that you develop the ability to remove your fear around essay writing by looking at the research question in a new light – to treat it as a friend and not as a task
Delving more into this new perspective, the heart of the book describes how you can deconstruct your research question to create a roadmap to your arguments. This book takes the help of Bloom’s theory of cognitive learning to explain that knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation can be harnessed to construct your overall essay in a logical flow, which can clearly showcase your understanding of the discipline.
Moreover, this book gives you the best practices regarding referencing, academic language, and the use of verbs and action words, along with their implications. It also reckons the criterion of a good essay and encourages you to look at feedback as an opportunity through which you can enhance your overall learning on the topic.
One of the most unique features of this book is that all throughout, there are highlighted snippets of common mistakes that students make during essay writing, along with explanatory examples. With such an awareness, from the very onset of your assignment, you become empowered as an academic writer and begin developing good writing habits.
Overall, this book can become your most trusted companion whenever you experience scriptophobia while tackling your academic essay and can play a significant role in enhancing your essay-writing skills at the university level.
Reviewed by Rhituparna Chakraborty, November 2022
