10 Reasons Why You Should Study in the UK

November 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The first consideration when thinking about studying is the subject area you wish to study. Usually that’s the easy part, but deciding where you should study can be difficult and confusing, especially if you intend to study abroad.

In this article we will give you 10 reasons why studying in the UK is the perfect choice.

1. Renowned and Well-Respected Universities

UK universities are regularly featured in ranking league tables such as The Times’ Higher Education Rankings and the QS World Rankings. Many UK universities are featured in the rankings, with at least a third of the top 10 comprising of UK universities. Often the University of Cambridge, which is one of the oldest and most respected UK universities, holds the top spot.

2. Internationally Recognised Courses & Qualifications

The courses and the qualifications offered in the UK are internationally recognised and highly regarded by employers around the world. A qualification from a well-respected UK university is likely to give you the edge when pursuing employment opportunities in the future.
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Filed Under: Resources, Student Writing Advice

Common Mistakes in Written English

July 15, 2011 by 1 Comment
Picture of a german military sign

What mistakes do you notice?

People are the same everywhere. Whether you receive work from the west or the east, from America or China, from Dublin, Dundee or Humberside, the same mistakes are made. Of course, if no mistakes were made then there wouldn’t be the need for proofreaders. Here are some of the common errors made by authors. Let’s start at the beginning.

Contents page – think of the reader who has to wade through it. Is there really a need for chapter headings (1), subheadings (1.1) and sub-subheadings (1.1.1) all with lengthy descriptions? If your contents page is itself longer than a page it’s too long. Call me a minimalist, but a chapter-heading page is plenty. Also, I’m one of the proofreaders who will need to redo every page number when the piece is finished.

Introduction – or the enigmatically titled ‘abstract’ opening paragraph. More often than not the notion of abstract is horribly apt since it’s rare to be able to figure out what’s coming next. And isn’t that the point of the Introduction? To set out what’s coming up? Perhaps lecturers and question-setters should abandon the word abstract, since it seems to encourage people to be more, well, abstract when they should be descriptive.
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Filed Under: Common Mistakes, Student Writing Advice

Managing Your Dissertation Time Through the Summer

May 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Being a university student enrolled in a masters’ degree program can be challenging for anyone, let alone if you are concentrating on your final degree paper of the year: your master’s dissertation.  Not only will you have worked very hard on the planning, design and research processes, but you will also be socialising with your friends and enjoying your last days before you embark on your career path.   As one of the leading dissertation proofreading companies in the UK, we understand that a little extra thought into the process goes a long way.

 

Whether you enjoyed working on your dissertation is a question you will need to ask yourself when you have finished writing it during the summer months; you may have had a significant amount of passion when starting the process, but then looked at the many thousands of words to be written in dismay much later.  Also, writing a masters’ dissertation is similar to writing an undergraduate paper. However, you need to recognise that you must produce a paper that requires a significant amount of effort and present a research study that provides the reader and your supervisor with the information that is required.

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Filed Under: Student Writing Advice

Dissertation Proofreading and Editing Explained

May 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Are you ready to graduate?

Are you ready to graduate?

Well, it’s that time again for undergraduate students in the UK and abroad to submit your dissertation research paper to your academic institution. At Supaproofread, we want to remind you that all of those endless nights spent in front of your computer screen shouldn’t be thrown away without hiring a dissertation proofreading service to review your work.

You’ve finally done it, hurray! Starting the process of researching and writing your academic research paper was probably really difficult. I know it was for me when I attended university a few years ago; it was very daunting as an undergraduate, as I had only written three-thousand word essays in my first and second years, so ten thousand words seemed quite a lot! Also, the fact that I had to conduct lots of primary research for the paper made the entire process a hassle — oh, and the hypothesis had to be original… It isn’t until you get past the data processing and start to actually write an evaluation of the research that you have collected until you finally, I believe, gain a true sense of the research paper and overall process. Your mind is numb with the questionnaire or survey you changed at least 20 times, and SPSS annoys you because ‘it just doesn’t seem to work for me’. We’ve all been there, and some of us have chosen to return to do it time and again for higher qualifications such as a master’s degree or PhD. It does get slightly easier, but it’s also a pain.
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Using APA Referencing in Practice

March 17, 2009 by 1 Comment

Writing academic papers will require a referencing style; Michael has touched on the use of Chicago, MLA and APA in the past but in this post I’m going to explain and outline the APA referencing system.

APA stands for the American Psychological Association and their referencing style is very common. I’ll cover off UK and US referencing styles in future posts so don’t think I’m singling APA out for special attention.

The APA system is broken into two main parts:

  • In-text citations

  • A reference list

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What is the Difference Between Editing and Proofreading?

December 18, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Proofreading is a final check on your work to ensure accuracy, correction of grammatical errors and general presentation are within the specifications you have been given.

Editing is much more than this as it combines proofreading together with revisions that should improve the flow and structure of your work to maximise the impact of the piece.

Some may disagree as Nabakov (he of Lolita fame) once said “By editor I suppose you mean proofreader.” Indeed, editing is often referred to as the “butcher’s trade”.

Editing requires a thorough grasp of English whereas proofreading requires an ability to simply spell. It is also fair to say that editing requires the exercise of the little grey cells to a far greater extent as they will be actively considering the subject matter and how well the piece will communicate with the prospective reader. This contrasts with simple proofreading which is a more mechanical process.
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The Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of Great Article Writing

November 30, 2008 by Leave a Comment

I know I covered the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How the last time. But, haven’t you got it yet? There is always more involved than what I let on in my first post on any topic. In fact, entire books have been written about article writing. Entire college courses teach it. So, one simple post isn’t going to cover everything.

Articles that get in depth are what people want to read. Don’t simply answer the questions and move on to other questions. Get in depth information that goes deeper than anyone else writing on that topic. Otherwise, you are simply telling people what they already know.

Example:

Frederick Dominguez and his kids were lost for three days in the mountains of Northern California because they ventured out there to cut down a Christmas tree. They were found on Wednesday by a California Highway Patrol helicopter crew.

If you visit any news site or look in any newspaper where this story is told, you will find this information. Does it answer the six critical questions? Yes.

Who – Frederick Dominguez and his kids.

What – were lost and have been found.

When – Wednesday.

Where – mountains of Northern California.

Why – looking for a Christmas tree.

How – California Highway Patrol helicopter crew.

But if you can find this story anywhere, why would anyone read yours? It makes all the difference in the world that the mother of the children had no idea they were missing until she realized her youngest child didn’t go to school on Monday. It makes all the difference in the world that a new snow storm was about to come and the search was about to be aborted. It makes all the difference in the world that people like Cory Stahl who owns a pest control business shut his business down so that all the employees could help with the search.

There are plenty of answers to those six basic questions. Keep digging. Dig deeper. Make sure you have as much information as you can and discount nothing. Any bit of information can make your article more interesting than the others. That’s the essence of great article writing.

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MLA Versus APA Style

November 19, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Writing professionally, you run into things you may not have seen in awhile. The world is getting so informal and unprofessional that some of the old things go flying out the window. It takes a minute to catch up on concepts you learned years ago and get ready to apply them today.

The difference between MLA and APA is just one of those things. In fact, you just might at this moment be thinking what in the world they even are. Some of you might have a faint memory that they are documentation guidelines. But, you might not be able to remember much more than that.

If you have any kind of document to present in whatever venue you need, whether your boss needs a research journal or your professor needs an essay, you have guidelines to follow. They may have given you some guidelines on their own. But, you also have a style that your paper needs to conform to upon presentation. That style could either be MLA or APA.

MLA Style

 

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Give Credit Where Credit is Due: Plagiarism Isn’t Even Cool

October 22, 2008 by Leave a Comment

I was teaching English to high school freshmen and sophomores a few years ago when something threw me by surprise. Students were still trying to plagiarize. I had to sit one student down in particular and write the definition of plagiarism on the back of his paper so that we both knew it had been taught to him.

Later on in that same year, another paper I had asked him to write was completely copied from the Internet. I found half the paper on one website while the vice principal found the rest of it on another. I sat the student down and explained to him why his paper failed.

The next thing I knew, I was in a meeting with his mother, his father and my principal. Luckily, I had that earlier paper with the definition of plagiarism written on the back of it. While I was being questioned about my teaching methods, I simply pulled out the paper and slid it across the desk.
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Filed Under: Student Writing Advice
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