The First Year Experience: Academic Writing

‘**My First Year Experience’ in Academic Writing**

*Brooke Boutakis*

Melbourne Polytechnics Diploma of Tertiary Studies is a course that provides you with the skills and knowledge of how to write academically, which continues on to future university studies. My First Year Experience in Academic writing was in a core class called ‘Academic and Professional Literacy’ this class draws upon your previous schooling knowledge and improves your writing and comprehension skills.

It may seem to be hard to comprehend at first but through-out the weekly quizzes and availability to have access to the lectures on moodle give you enough confidence and increases your ability to write in a more fluent and academic style. The course goes into great detail about the importance of writing in an academic style.

The structure of the course begins with an assessment drawing upon your past knowledge and having to summarise an article of your choosing, which is located on the Library online resources. Throughout the duration of the course you are expected to complete online weekly quizzes that enhance your knowledge of how to write more academically which leads me into essay structure. Through-out your course you only write two essays(this is always great news).

Learning how to structure essays is important as it is a vital part of obtaining a University degree. Structuring essays and writing academically are embedded to the students enrolled in the Diploma of Tertiary Studies at Melbourne Polytechnic as they are encouraged to write in a style that can be identified as academic.

My First year experience of the Diploma of Tertiary Studies at Melbourne Polytechnic and writing academically seemed to be overwhelming and very nerve racking, and felt as if it would be something I could never achieve but through-out the constant feedback and support provided by lecturers, the style of my writing improved greatly.

One of the main ways in which my writing style improved, was that of basic sentence structure. By being shown how to correctly compose a sentence increased my overall confidence and style of writing, I was no longer putting together sentences that did not relate to the previous sentence. Another way in which this course improved my academic writing skills was understanding how to structure and compose ideas for an essay. Did you know that in essay structure 80% of your word limit is solely the body of your argument? It is fascinating that before I joined the course at Melbourne Polytechnic I had always been taught to allow 20% for your introduction and 20% for your conclusion, which only allows 60% of the important parts of the essay.

Referencing is crucial in being able to write academically as having correct research is crucial and being able to reference this work is essential in receiving top marks. Referencing is an essential skill in proving not only that research was done but that you have not plagiarized, as well as using your references to broaden your knowledge on the set task.(if you need any assistance on how to reference, please refer to Joshua Newtons page on A guide to referencing.)

Overall, Writing academically is a skill needed though-out day to day life, whether it be on a Résumé, completing research tasks at University or even applying for a job.  Melbourne Polytechnic and the Diploma of Tertiary Studies offers a great course of how to write in a academic style.

Hope anyone looking for a course to improve academic writing skills looks no further than Melbourne Polytechnics Diploma of Tertiary Studies.