1. Content
Have you analysed the essay question, and included all the necessary parts, e.g. for and
against points, in your essay?
Have you defined words that you think your teacher will not understand?
Have you defined words that you think different people will have different opinions
about; e.g. is 'intelligent' the same as 'well-educated'?
Have you paraphrased author's points that you think need to be explained in more detail?
(See Unit 3 of the blue EAP book.)
2. Organisation, coherence and cohesion
a. Organisation
- Have you got an introduction and a conclusion?
- Have you put each main point in a separate paragraph?
- Have you got an empty line between each paragraph?
Book in CILL: Hefferman, J & Lincoln, J (1996) Writing: a concise handbook
New York, Norton pp12-20 (Writing Shelf, Intermediate Level)
b. Coherence
- Does each paragraph have a topic sentence containing the main idea of the paragraph and
your opinion about it?
- Does each paragraph explain why you believe the opinion that you have written in the
topic sentence?
Book in CILL: Reid, J. (1998) The Process of Composition New Jersey, Prentice
Hall, p.69-70 (Study Skills Shelf, Upper-intermediate Level)
c. Cohesion
- Do you use logical connecting words such as ‘and’, ‘but’,
‘however’, ‘so’, and ‘therefore’? (Don’t use
‘moreover’.)
Book in CILL: Potter, J. (1994) Common Business English Errors in Hong Kong Hong
Kong, Longman, Chapter 11 (Grammar Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Do you use ‘a’ to write about a countable subject for the first time, and
‘the’ to write about the same subject later?
Book in CILL: Potter, J. (1994) Common Business English Errors in Hong Kong Hong
Kong, Longman, page 38 (Grammar Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Do you use ‘It’, ‘They’, ‘This’ and ‘These’ to
refer back to a subject in the previous sentence or paragraph?
3. Register
- Is your writing formal?
e.g. write ‘did not’ instead of ‘didn’t’, and ‘a great
deal of’ instead of ‘a lot of’.
- Is your writing polite?
e.g. Don’t write, ‘It is foolish to believe that …’. Use, ‘It is
questionable whether …’.
4. Accuracy of Grammar and Vocabulary
- Does each sentence have a subject and a verb?
Book in CILL: Hefferman, J & Lincoln, J (1996) Writing: a concise handbook
New York, Norton pp59 - 73 (Writing Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Have you checked each noun to see if it is countable, uncountable, or abstract, and used
the correct article ( a / an / the / no article) ?
Book in CILL: Potter, J. (1994) Common Business English Errors in Hong Kong Hong
Kong, Longman, Chapters 3 & 4 (Grammar Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Have you checked the noun before each verb to see if it is third person (he, she, or it)
and changed the end of the verb to ‘+s’ for present tense regular verbs; e.g.
‘Hong Kong changes quickly.’ ?
- Do you use the present simple tense to describe things you think are true all the time;
e.g. ‘Hong Kong is an international city.’ ?
Book in CILL: Potter, J. (1994) Common Business English Errors in Hong Kong Hong
Kong, Longman, Chapter 5 (Grammar Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Do you use the present perfect tense to describe experience or the results of
experience; e.g. ‘I have been a university student for 2 months and I have become a
more independent learner.’ ?
.
- Do you use the simple past tense to describe things that finished in the past; e.g.
‘Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997.’ ?
5. Range of Grammar and Vocabulary
If there are things that you don’t know how to say in English, have you checked
how to say them in a dictionary, or with your EAP teacher or a CILL teacher?
6. Academic-style writing (see Unit 6 of the blue EAP book)
- Have you put in an in-text
reference for every quote, summary and paraphrase?
- Have you put a bibliography
at the end, containing a full reference to each text you referred to in the text?
Book in CILL: Lester, J.D. (1996) Writing Research Papers New York, Harper Collins
pp265-332 (Study Skills Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Is your conclusion based on evidence and facts?
- If you have described something as ‘good’ or ‘better than…’,
have you given reasons why?
- Have you avoided asking questions, then answering them?
- Have you used academic-style writing to show how sure you are of your information
(see pages 111-2 of the blue EAP book)?
- Have you replaced phrasal verbs such as ‘look at’ with more formal words such
as ‘examine’?
- Have you avoided using ‘you’ to refer to your reader; e.g. ‘You must
agree that …’?
- Have you avoided over-generalisations; e.g. ‘Everyone knows
that…’?
7. Number of Words
a. Is your writing 800 – 1000 words long?
b. Have you written the number of words at the end of your essay? Do not include the
title or the bibliography in the word count.
c. Is your text double-spaced (i.e. one empty line between each line of writing)?
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Yes/No |
