im thinking about what to right about a subject,this is to be done in a formal report style im just stuck on my title of the report.It can be on anything and has to include a table ,referencing and quotes from books.
I am thinking about the title to include.
countryside issues.
mtbing or cycling issues.
social science issues.
or science type issues.
or not issues but discuss the topics shown above
Bruce
thanks

I take it you don’t need GCSE English to get into Uni anymore. 8)

im dislexic….so i doesnt come naturally

What are you studying? It helps to chose a topic you are actually learning about and what you’ve listed is quite broad…..

If you are wanting it to be mtb related then 2 obvious topics come to mind:
1. Talk about access rights in England compared to the access rights in Scotland. Plenty of scope for drawing your own opinion into it.
2. The impact of mtb riders on natural paths. There is a thread on here from a few months back that contains the papers relating to this

Both have enough academic material to work with. I think i might still have some papers that were related to a project I did at uni.

So it’s an assignment to get you into the practise of writing a report or essay. Keep the title and theme simple and identify 5 or so reference texts, which include a mix of books, papers and web sources.

How about something like ‘Is it time for a Kinder Scout type trespass to improve rural access for MTBs’.

You could compare and contrast access legislation in Scotland and England/Wales, use some of Dave’s articles out of the magazine for some ideas about how things could be improved and look at some rambling website / books etc., to include the red sock brigade’s view on it.

Good luck.

Edit: too slow – Mr Slipper has the same idea

Get Mendeley for storing and managing papers and inserting citations then auto-generating bibliographies, it may seem OTT now but it’ll become useful in the long run.. It’s like onenote but free.

Cutting and pasting from wikipedia will get you 0 and/or thrown off.

yeah for sure,im looking at doing something environment related.
my course is a bsc in adventure recreation and buisness management

I take it you don’t need GCSE English to get into Uni anymore?

fixed that for you!

write you title last so it fits in with your research, use an academic search engine and put possible topics in see what it throws just read the abstracts see what interests you then make an informed decision. trick is that there is a style to writing academically this is best picked up by reading academic texts, avoid websites focus initially on peer reviewed journals

Look at the change in the social class make-up of cycling as an activity.

It used to be a working class method of transport and cycle sport reflected that, now it’s the new golf…

I tutor first year undergrads & regularly have to mark essays. My tips are:

– keep it concise, don’t waffle
– think *carefully* about what figures to include, add captions explaining what they are and make sure they link with the text
– Check through carefully to make sure you haven’t said anything that (1) isn’t true (2) is so general as to be meaningless
– Explain statements, don’t just add a reference and expect the reader to know what you mean. Say how somebody found something, what it means for your topic and how it fits in with the rest of your essay and the rest of the published literature.
edit: and structure: plan properly and afterwards make sure everything is in the right order.

That doesn’t really help with your title, but I tear my hair out every week marking crappy essays so if I can make 1 marker’s life a bit easier… 😉

Whatever you do, get the basics right first. And that means Harvard Referencing. Both in terms of how to insert your referenced work into your text so that your writing flows well and is coherent, and the accuracy of your reference list at the end. I can not emphasise the importance of this enough, it is the foundation of all academic writing.

Also, ensure that you only use academic sources. Despite stating this, and providing examples, til I was blue in the face, I still had to mark work with references such as: walkerscrisps.com and milk.org!! The real bain was fooking wikipedia though. Never, I repeat never, use wikipedia. It is not an academic source and if you use it you will fail.

As a benchmark figure, I suggest using at least 5 different sources (books, journals, appropriate websites) per 1,000 words. More is better, but that amount will set you up well for years 2 and 3 – which count towards your final classification. Start off lazy and the yearly transitions will be a huge shock.

Good luck.

Never, I repeat never, use reference wikipedia

Fixed that. Wikipedia is amazing for getting a broad idea of a topic before looking for hard facts elsewhere. Trying to figure out basics of a topic from primary research is difficult and time consuming, Wiki is easy to read and all in one place (obvs shouldn’t be taken as gospel though).

highclimber – Member

I take it you don’t need GCSE English to get into Uni anymore.

fixed that for you!

Fixed the fix. Subject + verb = affirmative statement.
Auxiliary verb + subject + verb = question 😉

Yes, I am a grammar pedant, it’s my job.

Also, ensure that you only use academic sources

Not totally appropriate if you want to do an assignment which may include opinions expressed through other media. Your approach is fine for a formal scientific assignment, but I’d suggest casting the net wider in a cross-discipline report of this type.

Asking STW??????

LOL!

I take it that you don’t need GCSE English to get into Uuni anymore.

😉

“That” is optional. 😉

Shouldn’t it be university instead of uni? Just like you couldn’t score in a brothel instead of Rooney?

lol @ TSA. I used to do the walkers.com thing all the time, primarily because I didn’t understand referencing. 6 yrs later I still always get something wrong. 🙁

The early years and pioneers of mountain biking could be an interesting area to research?

Learn to reference, it’s easy and will help a lot for everthing else you do at uni, including your final year project. Loads of people I knew at uni had problems with referencing, but it’s probably the easiest thing and I’m not sure why they were so thick about it 😕

This might help as a guide for referencing.