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Academic writing differs from discipline to discipline. How the writing is structured, and what counts as evidence depends on the discipline or field, such as history, zoology or physics. Use the resources on this page to assist you with writing your assignments.
Planning Essays and Assessments
The resources below have been developed to help you understand the writing process. Read them in order to start planning your next assignment.
- Assignment Planning Guide (PDF, 606 KB)
- Five steps to unpack your assessment (PDF, 248 KB)
- How to understand essay task words (PDF, 103 KB)
- Building an argument in an essay (PDF, 161 KB)
- 10 features of academic writing style (PDF, 108 KB)
- Most common words in academic writing - Academic Word List (PDF, 134 KB)
Essay Writing Basics
There are some common features of academic essay writing. Essay Writing Basics contains five short videos that explain the core elements of essay writing. They introduce the basics, and give you an idea of the main elements of an essay, including how to respond to an essay question, and how to write a Thesis Statement (the sentence that contains your main point), and Topic Sentences (which start each new paragraph).
Assignment Guides
We've developed the following downloadable guidelines to assist you with your university assignments.
- How to write a Critical Essay (PDF, 145 KB)
- How to write a Reflective Essay (PDF, 80 KB)
- How to write a Critical Review (PDF, 61 KB)
- How to write an IMRaD Style Laboratory Report (PDF, 258 KB)
- How to write a Laboratory Report (PDF, 90 KB)
- How to write a Literature Review (PDF, 79 KB)
- How to write a Business Report (PDF, 91 KB)
- How to write a Science Essay (PDF, 74 KB)
- How to write a Scientific Report (PDF, 74 KB)
- How to write an Annotated Bibliography (PDF, 93 KB)
- How to upload, edit, and share a Video Presentation on YouTube_ (PDF, 434 KB)
A Visual Guide to Essay Writing
Dr Valli Rao, Associate Professor Kate Chanock, and Dr Lakshmi Krishnan use a visual approach to walk students through the most important processes in essay writing for university: formulating, refining, and expressing academic argument. Download the pdf guide by clicking the image.
Library Guides
The JCU Library has a large range of guides to assist you with your academic writing, researching skills, and referencing.
Library Introduction to using Endnote Software for Referencing