Academic writing resources

CAW academic writing tutors have prepared some resources on academic writing as well as a list of external links that contain reliable and useful academic writing knowledge, practical strategies, exercises and techniques.

Referencing and The Coventry University Guide to Referencing in Harvard Style

The ideas you read as you prepare to write an essay or other written assignment are the intellectual property of the person who wrote them and these must be referenced. Failure to do so is plagiarism, which is penalised by examiners. You must also reference all images, tables, and graphs taken from printed or internet sources. At Coventry University, the format used for referencing sources is presented in The Coventry University Guide to Referencing in Harvard Style. You can download this document from The Coventry University Guide to Referencing in Harvard Style page.

For more details on referencing, read the article 'Referencing in Academic Writing' (580k pdf) by Dr. Erik Borg, Senior Lecturer in Academic Writing at CAW.

Materials for students produced by CAW

• The Writing Process Steps 1 and 2: Inventing Ideas and Planning an Assignment [270k PDF]
• The Writing Process Step 3: Drafting an Assignment [231k PDF]
• The Writing Process Steps 4 and 5: Revising and Editing an Assignment [232k PDF]
• Structuring an Academic Essay [206k PDF]
• Style and Register [253k PDF]
• Integrating Sources Using Signal Phrases [214k PDF]
• Writing a Literature Review [215k PDF]
• Writing a Report [234k PDF]
• Writing a Proposal for an Undergraduate Dissertation [165k PDF]
• How to Analyse an Assignment Brief [230k PDF]
• Reflective Writing [356k PDF]
• Essay Writing in Exams [171k PDF] 
• Self/Peer Assessing an Essay [227k PDF]

External resources

Here are some reliable and useful resources on academic writing, including relevant tasks and exercises.

• Centre for Academic Writing/Online Writing Resources – Central European University (self-access resources) 
• The Writing Center – University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Learning and Writing Lab – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
• Writing@CSU – Colorado State University
• Study Skills at the Open University
• The Compleat Lexical Tutor (a website for analysing the vocabulary that you use in your writing)  
• Using English for Academic purposes
• Writing at University – Napier University
• Purdue University Writing Lab.