Opinion: When you are asked for your opinion you are never asked just for what you think here and now. There is a significant assumption being made about the nature of a university opinion. You need to re-interpret opinion to mean informed opinion . You are not expected to write what you already know about a topic. Why would you want to pay fees to write about what you know now? You do not need to be enrolled in a university to do this.

Informed opinion: When you are given an essay topic at university it is usually anticipated that at the time you do not know the answer. The expectation is that you will go on a reading "journey" and discover an appropriate answer which you will develop into an academic essay.

Academic essay is a formal piece of written English that addresses a particular topic and produces, through reading research, a response which indicates to the marker that the student understands the question. The aim is for students to broaden their knowledge about the question to the extent that they can, in their own words, enter into a discussion about the question, raise further issues and, in some cases, more questions. Many university essays are set around topics where there is no final answer and perhaps there never will be. What students aim to do is to produce the best answer they can, given the opportunity to read around the topic. Lecturers are not looking for all answers to essay questions to be the same. What they want to read in your essay is an argument.

Argument is the point of view, together with the evidence that you find to support the view. The marker must be able to read your essay and understand what your point is and be confident that your evidence is relevant. In other words if you collect as much information broadly related to your essay topic and try to make an essay out of it you may fail. The aim must always be to work out your "angle". Ask yourself what the main idea is that you are attempting to develop. An essay requires information but not just raw, descriptive data from a book or a journal. You, as the writer, must choose how to "tell a story" about the topic you are given.

Scholarly referencing needs to be understood as a method of citation. Its purpose is to show where you have found information to support your point of view. The citation in the body of your essay indicates that something you have written, whether it is in your own words or a direct quotation, comes from your research. If ideas are ‘out of your head' the citation shows that you are not the only person who thinks this way. Referencing also needs to be understood as an academic writing convention. Academic essays are not about what you know on the spot. They are about what you are capable of finding out. To write an essay you need to become an intellectual detective. Referencing is the evidence that you have undertaken reading research so don't try to hide your sources. Showing that you have referred to the work of others is your strength as an academic writer. Referencing is not a form of weakness; it demonstrates your research skills to the lecturer marking your work in much the same way as rough workings demonstrate an answer to a mathematics problem. Sometimes the mathematics teacher cannot give a student full marks for the right answer to a maths problem because the student has not shown their workings. Likewise, the essay marker who cannot see how you have arrived at your answer is likely to write on your paper – "How do you know this?" "Who says so?"

Citation: This is the actual reference in the body of your text. You generally show the author, the date and the page number depending on the citation method you are asked to use.

Citation method: There are many ways of referring to literature. Different journals use schemes with names such as New England Medical Journal, American Psychological Association, Harvard and so on. Your discipline will tell you what method they want you to use. It may seem tiresome but you will be marked down if you do not use the preferred system. Disciplines require preferred systems because they have a responsibility to assist you learn how to write professionally in their area. Using the correct referencing system is an important part of learning the subject.

Written English: for most private writing such as note taking, it does not matter about spelling, grammar or expression. Providing you can understand what you mean there is no problem. However, as soon as you give your writing to someone else to read, the rules change. If you write as you think without spending time editing and refining what you have written you will probably find typing and spelling errors, that you have used too many words and that you have repeated yourself. Occasionally you might find that you have even written the exact opposite of what you were thinking. The point is that if a piece of writing is to be assessed it will be assessed as an answer to a question and as a piece of writing in its own right. This means that you are restricted to formal written conventions in academic writing. In general, this means that you cannot abbreviate words, you should not use dot points unless indicated and you need to write in a sequential manner, with complete sentences and paragraphs, in a way that includes a well thought-out argument.