Dear god, I’m currently two thirds of the way through my first OU course essay and it’s killing me. I never went to college or uni after high school (much to the career advisors dismay) so I’m well out of touch on the whole writing thing. Referencing stuff is literally making my brain melt!

Only got another 750 words to do by midday Thursday (though I’m gonna try to finish it tonight) and I’m already dreading the next one as this is supposed to be pretty light to gently break us in!

I went to college and (occasionally) university. I’d love to try to finish my degree through the OU, but the very thought of essays and deadlines terrifies me. Maybe one day I’ll be grown up enough. Good luck with it all, I admire anyone who tries.

Think of it like riding your bike. No one is going to expect you to complete the TdF first time out.

iirc, my first piece of written work at uni was total pants, in fact most of the first term was best forgotten about. You get the hang of it in the end.

Just do your best.

Mendeley makes referencing easier

https://www.mendeley.com

OU Harvard referencing guide is what you need. http://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2620

Do your referencing as you write, it makes things a lot easier. When I started doing ou stuff I’d been out of education for over a decade having dropped out of college. I wrote some pretty crappy essays until I got the hang of how it all works. Speak to your tutor if you have any problems and go to the tutorials as they usually go deeper into essay writing skills and the topics you’re writing about. I found them really useful. Keep plugging, it does get easier.

OU do a good “how to write an essay” book which I found helped loads when starting to write essays again after years of report writing.

I found the best advice was to break it into its relevant sections and approach them almost as individual tasks – intro, conclusion, references etc.

I found the best advice was to break it into its relevant sections and approach them almost as individual tasks – intro, conclusion, references etc.

I always planned my best essays too. Started with key words or thoughts, maybe a small diagram etc…

Do your referencing as you write,

Very much my experience.

Plan it and structure it. Don’t start writing until you know exactly what you will say. And for goodness sake don’t use the third person constantly.

And don’t forget the saying about apologising for writing a long essay because you didn’t have time to write a short one.
If you are struggling to fill the word count, take some time out to think what you should be covering and in how much detail.
Good luck

You will get there!

Same here, joined the marines after A’ levels then went back to uni in my late 20’s.
My last essay I was told my essay skills were first class. By masters level I was doing then in 4 hours.

I was bottom of the class in English at school… Didn’t read Shakespeare until I was 24!

My first essay was an eye opener. Everything seemed to have changed from how I remembered you were supposed to do it. My advice would be to do your best with the content and expect to have some feedback on structure. The biggest surprise for me was to find that I was advised to go what I see, as all Sun journalist on every paragraph, and start each with a one sentence headline style summary and then put the content in. The second essay I did I seemed to manage this by writing a paragraph then taking the final sentence I’d written for each one and put it at the top!

Definitely reference as you go and bibliography. It’s taken me five years to realise what good advice that is, and to put in the bibliography things you don’t explicitly refer to in the text but draw on concepts from.

I always write about 30% more than the word count and then step back and pare it down to what the most important bits are, what actually makes the case.

I’m on my sixth year and it hasn’t got any easier … but at least now I am at the concorde fallacy point where I’ve put so much time and money in I can’t stop regardless of the reward / outcome!

And find out how harsh the person marking it is likely to be. I had a tutor for English Lit who claimed to stop reading after the word count. If you know somebody who is good with words and grammar and that, get it proofread.

isitafox, I feel your pain, I recently completed a course and had my first essay* returned several times to amend, which was really getting me down as I thought I was sticking to the guidlines.
I had some great advice/feedback from a lecturer and finished my first essay, it helped me with completing the next few and I found I grew in confidence with each one. Might even enroll on another course!
* First essay for @ 30years!!

if you know anyone who has been to uni or done a degree, any degree that involved writing essays then ask them to proof read. One check for spelling and to check wether what you’re saying actually makes sense. Pick a friend who’s not afraid to tell you how it is. My wife did an OU english degree and I proof read it, she said it was very helpful when I told her this bit is rubbish or that bit doesn’t make sense. You’re tied up in emtionally so won’t be able to see where it’s pants. Good luck, may the force be with you.

I’m feverishly taking notes over here. I left school at 16 with practically nothing 11 years ago, and now I’m about to start an open degree! Good luck, and report back when you’ve had some feedback!