Webster's Word Power Better English Writing

• Ask your tutor or teacher for recom­mendations – which books, journals or periodicals are good for your particular essay or thesis? Is there a reading list for your subject?
• Look through the contents page and index – this will tell you quickly whether the information you are looking for is there.
• Ask the librarian for help if you are having problems using the library cataloguing system.
When you are looking for information on the internet, try the following:
• Ask your tutor or teacher for recom­mendations – which websites are good for your particular essay or thesis?
• Stay focused. Don’t go wandering off onto websites that have nothing to do with your project.
• Avoid experiencing information overload by writing a list of questions you want to find answers to, and reject the information that doesn’t answer them.
• Stick to two or three sources at one time. You can come back for more.
• Don’t go past the first page of your search engine.
• Don’t believe everything you read on the internet –

Giving yourself a bit of time between writing the first draft of any piece of text and going back to revise it, can give you a bit more perspective on whether it is good or bad.

What do I want this piece of writing to do?
• What are its aims and outcomes?
• Who are my readers?
• What do I want them to learn/know?
• What do they need/want to learn/know?
• What is the simplest and most effective way of passing on this information?