After reading pages 236 – 280, I have realised that my standard of English may not be as high as I would ideally like. On reflection these few chapters of ‘The study skills book’ have taught me many things which I would’ve classed as basic, however do not remember from higher English two years ago. One of the main things I took from these sections was that whe writing in an academic style you need to avoid the impersonal tone. I am quite prone to writing in this way and realise now that I will have to move away from this when writing my assignments. I also learnt that it is imporant to use words such as “those, these, this and that” followed by a noun.

I think that discovering another way to plan a paragraph will be useful when it comes to writing our essays. I have never used a paragraph plan which is set out as: Topic sentence – Developer Sentence – Modulator Sentence – Terminator Sentence. I prefer this plan to the one I have used previously and hope that it will enhance my writing.

One key tip I took from the book was that spellchecker can often change words, or make mistakes. I normally always rely on my microsoft spellchecker and when proof-reading rarely look out for spelling mistakes. McMillan highlights the importance of spelling and punctuation in conveying a message clearly. In future I think that it would be of best interest to not only proof-read my essay myself, but to get others to also proof-read.

I hope that through further reading of ‘the study skills book’ I gain further knowledge of how to improve and develop my writing style and language.