Write Here, Write Now

The essay is completed! Or so the students would like to think. The final episode of Write Here, Write Now hones in on an academic writing aspect that is largely neglected by students: “Editing and Proof-reading”. Poor time-management frequently results in students speedily writing up an assignment and submitting the assignment just in time for a deadline. Usually, assignments that have not had the benefit of being edited or proof-read before submission lose a considerable number of marks for including material that is not relevant to the assignment question or for containing a considerable number of grammatical and spelling errors that affect the students’ intended meaning. The final episode’s student interview ascertains whether or not students consider editing and proof-reading an integral part of the essay-writing process and how students could be supported further in this area. Likewise, the lecturer that is interviewed during this final episode addresses the importance of this aspect of academic writing from a supervisor’s perspective and highlights how it is a key skill to acquire especially if students intended to pursue an MA or PhD degree. The principle issue with editing, however, is deciding what to cut and why. The helpful advice section of the final episode emphasises strategies that have worked for students that have had issues with this area in the past and point to any other resources that can be consulted to improve students’ academic writing skills in this respect.

The surest way of guaranteeing that a student’s essay is well-planned and adheres to a clear argument must be evident in the essay’s introduction and conclusion. The penultimate Write Here, Write Now episode tackles one of the most difficult aspects of written assignments, how to form a strong introduction and conclusion. This episode introduces the topic from the student’s perspective. The student interview enquires what specifically students find challenging about composing introductions and conclusions and invites the student to offer their own opinion on how tutors and lectures can continue to support students’ development in this respect. Adding to this debate, the Write Here, Write Now team interviews a faculty member to highlight what students ought to avoid including in their introductions and conclusions and to specify what ought to be mentioned within an essay’s introduction and conclusion instead. The focus of the episode’s storyline then shifts back to the student, with the Write Here, Write Now team delivering key techniques as well as resources to improve and strengthen students’ introductions and conclusions.

The Write Here, Write Now series is designed to be thematic, with each episode naturally leading into the next episode’s discussion topic. Episode Four, therefore, intentionally prepares the necessary foundations for the content of the fourth episode in the podcast series: “Planning your Essay”. The lack of coherence or clear essay structure in written assignments can significantly impact students’ grades. As the podcast series is concerned with student literacy, the episode engages with a UCC student directly on the topic of essay structure. The objective of the student interview is to provide students with a forum wherein students can vocalise their concerns about academic writing and suggest potential supports for academic writing that current students would like to see implemented to improve the overall student experience in UCC. Similarly, the staff interviews seek to improve communication channels between the students and the lecturers and teaching staff of UCC. For instance, the “Planning your Essay” episode’s one-to-one interview with a key member of UCC’s teaching staff is based on questions from the students’ perspective. By framing the staff interviews within a students’ perspective, the Write Here, Write Now series makes each episode’s interview more relatable to the student audience and the lecturer’s advice on each topic, in this instance planning your essay, more applicable. Offering practical advice that can be quickly applied to written assignments across all disciplines, is one of the main objectives of the Write Here, Write Now podcast series. For the “Planning your Essay” episode, the motive behind the practical advice segment is to actively encourage students to take responsibility of their development by offering strategies for structuring essays to maximise coherency and ensure that the essay presents the student’s argument as effectively as possible.

The third episode of Write Here, Write Now addresses the concept of argument by interviewing a student of UCC in order to determine precisely university students’ overall perception of an argument is. To enlighten and inform students on the importance of an argument in written assignments, the episode includes an interview with a lecturer from UCC where the Write Here, Write Now team asks the questions that the students may have not had the opportunity to ask. In contrast to the large and often intimidating lecture hall format, which frequently dissuades students from asking the questions that worry them the most, the podcast series’ interviews with key members of staff offers students a more intimate insight into the expectations of university lecturers. Episode 3 of the Write Here, Write Now series on “How to Build an Argument” offers students simple steps to follow which will ensure that they build and maintain an effective argument throughout the entirety of their essay.

The second episode of Write Here, Write Now continues the series’ exploration of academic writing issues by discussing academic writing styles with students and lecturers. The episode commences by clearly explaining the different reasons behind this critique which frequently indicates when a student has conveyed a point in a colloquial, vague or convoluted manner. Similar to the series’ introductory episode, this episode discusses the topic first from the student’s viewpoint and highlights how and why the student found it difficult to develop this aspect of their academic writing. In the interests of clarifying the term “expression”, Episode Two also features an interview with a member of UCC’s teaching staff. The focus of this interview is on explaining exactly what a lecturer means when they write “expression” in the margins of a student’s assignment and why is it important for the student’s essay. Once both the students’ and the lecturers’ concerns and insights have been established, the podcast episode briefly delineates the four different writing styles and contextualize the purpose and the advantages of each writing style for its student audience. The Write Here, Write Now team then offers students a number of alternatives to the informal expressions and generalized statements that are predominantly found in students’ assignments. Throughout this segment of the podcast episode, the Write Here, Write Now team emphasizes that these alternatives not only improve students’ written expression, but render students’ arguments more objective in its analysis of the material and therefore, more pertinent to the set assignment than an argument that was written in a subjective and biased style.

Beginning with the set assignment question itself, the first episode explains to students that one of the most common mistakes made in written assignments is not answering the assignment question properly. The podcast episode then offers a number of techniques for avoiding this mistake by demonstrating to the UCC student body how to break the question down into manageable parts by highlighting important key words and identifying the parameters and the overall topic of the question. To enhance the podcast and to make the first episode’s content more relatable to students, a student who has had issues in directly addressing set essay questions in the past is interviewed by a member of the Write Here, Write Now team. Through this specific case study, this interview highlights the difficulties students encounter when responding to set essay assignments and, more importantly, emphasizes how the student overcame these issues. To reinforce the issues raised from the student’s perspective, the podcast episode also considers the same topic from the supervisor and lecturer’s viewpoint. Here, the podcast episode focuses on the lecturer’s expectations, specifically in relation to the student’s capacity to relate the content covered in the lectures directly to the set assignment.