Category: Uncategorized

Who to ask for help?

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment
Photo of a person reaching out above the water
Photo by nikko macaspac on on Unsplash

Generally speaking, your Open University tutor can help you with:

  1. Understanding the module content, explaining tricky concepts etc.
  2. The TMA questions, explaining what the question means, answering questions about the TMA (but not reading drafts), giving extensions
  3. Advice about study skills e.g. catching up if you fall behind with the reading (realistically, that’s WHEN you fall behind – practically everyone does, sooner or later), note taking, referencing, academic writing skills etc.

You can also talk to your tutor about how disability, chronic illness, or life circumstances are affecting your studies, and they’ll make reasonable adjustments and give you advice and understanding in how you can study on a more level playing field with other students who aren’t facing the same challenges you are.

The SST (student support team) can help you with everything else, such as:

  1. Technical problems. Tutors are not employed for their IT know-how, and anyway the way the online systems look to tutors are often different than how they look to students. So even questions like “How do I join the tutorial”? can be tricky because I know how I do it as a tutor, but that’s probably not the same as how you would do it.
  2. Qualifications and module selection. Tutors probably just don’t have that knowledge. Students are always saying to me things like “I’ve studied E197 and H1230. I’m thinking of taking KHT1087 next – what do you recommend?” and I simply haven’t heard of any of those and don’t have a clue what they are.
  3. Fees
  4. Transferring, withdrawing, deferring etc.
  5. Delivery of module materials, textbooks, booklets etc. – Tutors simply don’t have access to any of the systems that control all those things, but the SST does.

You’ll find the contact information for the SST on your StudentHome page.

I don’t mind students asking me questions outside my expertise. I understand that I’m the friendly face of the OU for my students and part of my job is to signpost students to the right place when they don’t know who to ask. I also know that for some students, eg. students with anxiety, it might be much easier to ask their tutor who they know than to send an email to a stranger or anonymous email address. So you can keep emailing me and I won’t be mad about it. But if you are able to go direct to the people who can help you, that will save you some time.

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Quick Answers: Why did my tutor make a comment on my essay but not my friend’s, when they did the exact same thing?

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment

Tutors don’t point out every single mistake, or weakness, or area for improvement in your essay, because we don’t want you to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. We pick out two or three things you can work on for next time. These might be the most important things, or they might be the easiest to fix. Your feedback is tailored to you. That’s why it’s different than your friend’s feedback.

How to layout an Open University TMA – free download

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment
Hand-drawn sketches of layouts for perhaps a webpage, infographic, or something like that
Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

I have created a TMA (tutor-marked assignment) template you can download for free and use for your own TMAs. It should be useful for Open University social science students. It may also be useful for other subjects and universities, but you should check with your own tutor or lecturer how they expect you to layout your assignments.

Using this template isn’t plagiarism because there is no content here; no answers to essay questions or text that would be marked. You’ll replace all the text in it with your name, module number, essay question, essay, and so on. It’s just to remove some of the guesswork about how to layout your assignment.

If you have already submitted assignments with different layouts than this, they’re not necessarily wrong and it doesn’t mean you’ve lost marks. Certainly the nitty gritty details don’t matter e.g. whether to bold or centre justify the essay title, whether or not to put the word count in brackets, etc. The most important points are to make it clear what question you are answering, where your answer begins and ends, dividing essays into paragraphs properly, and including a References section where appropriate.

tma-layout-templateDownload

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Leave out unnecessary information

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment
Here you can see the crispy, wonderful smelling Franziskaner-loaf and rye whole-grain tin loaf all baked by Franziskaner bakery in Bozen (Italy)
Photo by Wesual Click on Unsplash

My sister tells stories like this: I’ll ask her “Why is your leg in a cast? How did you break it?” and she’ll say “Well, I was in Asda and I needed some bread. But they didn’t have the bread I usually get, Hovis Tasty Wholemeal, so I got some Allinson’s granary bread instead. And then I remembered my husband doesn’t like granary bread because the bits get stuck in his fillings….”. The story goes on for hours and eventually I find out she was rear-ended by a bin wagon driving back home, and all the information about Asda and bread and my brother-in-law’s fillings was completely irrelevant to why her leg is in a cast. Drives me mad. I love her, though.

When you are writing essays, only include the information you need to answer the question. Just because the question was about attachment, that doesn’t mean it’s always appropriate to describe Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Test protocol in great detail. Not every question about Piaget requires you to list all his developmental stages. Ask yourself “Would my essay make just as much sense if I left this part out? Would it still answer the question?”

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Don’t use ‘scare quotes’

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment
Closeup of a plaque on a park bench which reads In loving memory of Jen and Ted South. Two of life's "nice" people
From https://old.reddit.com/r/suspiciousquotes/comments/cyqi4b/a_loving_tribute/

If you are quoting someone else in your essay you must enclose the quotation in quotation marks (although it’s often much better to remove the quotation and express the idea in your own words). And in my opinion that is the only proper use of quotation marks in essays.

Sometimes people put quotation marks around a word or a phrase to distance themselves from it, e.g.:

Michael Moore, the so-called “journalist”…

This implies that some people call Moore a journalist, but the writer wants the reader to know that she wouldn’t call him a journalist herself. It’s a rather snide construction and in my opinion it has no place in academic writing. If you don’t agree with a phrase either don’t use it at all, or state your opinion clearly and justify it. e.g.:

In my opinion, Michael Moore’s work does not match the definition of journalism because ….

Or if your tutor doesn’t allow first-person writing:

Michael Moore’s work does not match the definition of journalism because ….

Another way people sometimes use quotation marks is for emphasis. Sometimes a pub will advertise something like:

Traditional Sunday roast “beef” lunch served here

Which always makes me think they’re using scare quotes and they’re trying to say:

Some people might call it “beef”, but I wouldn’t call it that myself.

Language is always changing and although using quotation marks for emphasis is considered incorrect now, it may become normal and acceptable in future. But you just don’t need to use typography to emphasise anything in academic writing. Don’t use bold or italics or underlining or all capitals and certainly don’t use quotation marks for emphasis.

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Tease Apart a Quotation Free Download

Don’t start sentences with an “-ing” word

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment
A blue plate, smashed to fragments
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Sentence fragments are incomplete sentences, like these:

  • And a cup of coffee.
  • A long time ago.
  • Showing that teenagers have undeveloped prefrontal cortexes.

You can make these into complete sentences by adding in the missing part:

  • I’d like an all-day breakfast, please, and a cup of coffee.
  • A long time ago, there was an old woodcutter.
  • Jay Giedd conducted a study showing that teenagers have undeveloped prefrontal cortexes.

The last example is a very common type of sentence fragment seen in essays. Starting a complete grammatical sentence with an -ing word is possible, but it’s more often a red flag that a sentence fragment is coming. If you find yourself starting a sentence with an “-ing” word, ask yourself whether it’s a sentence fragment, and how to turn it into a complete sentence.

There’s a more detailed explanation of what makes something a complete grammatical sentence, what makes a sentence fragment, and how to fix them here: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/sentence-fragment/

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The Open University is a proper noun

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment
A modern-looking university building made of concrete, plate glass, and brick
Robert Hooke building at Open University Campus in Milton Keynes by Chmee2 licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

The Open University is a proper noun. “Proper” in this sense is like “property” – it means “belonging to someone or something”. A proper noun is the official name of someone or something.

Proper nouns should almost always be capitalised. It would be wrong to write the open university, if you meant the British university based in Milton Keynes.

People’s names are proper nouns. You should write:

  • Melanie Rimmer, not melanie rimmer
  • Donald Duck, not donald duck
  • Jean Piaget, not jean piaget

And so on.

Place names are also proper nouns:

  • Milton Keynes, not milton keynes
  • City Road, not city road (if you mean the road in Cardiff called City Road)

Business names are also proper nouns:

  • The Macintosh Centre, not the macintosh centre
  • Taste Buds Café, not taste buds café

There are a few exceptions; for example the feminist bell hooks chose to write her name in lower case to honour her grandmother. The business eBay starts with a lower case letter. But the general rule is always capitalise proper nouns.

Quick answers: what’s the difference between a Bibliography and a References section?

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment

A Bibliography is a list of all the sources you read whilst preparing a piece of writing.

A References section is a list of all the sources you referred to in a piece of writing.

So if you read it but didn’t cite it, it would belong in a Bibliography but it wouldn’t belong in a References section.

Are you supposed to include a Bibliography? Or are you supposed to include a References section? Check your Assignment Guide to make sure.