FAS1101 Review

Writing Academically: Arts and Social Sciences

Taken in: AY17/18 Sem 2
Expected Grade: A
Actual Grade: A+

Another pre-allocated module for FASS students with the rationale of teaching us how to write academically as FASS students frequently have to write academic essays for their assignments. Content includes how to do research, writing effectively, writing introduction and conclusion and, referencing. I would say that it is a pretty useful module if you were to be allocated this in your first semester of school! For me, it was more of a “oh I kinda already figured this out” as I learnt most of the technical stuff on my own the hard and cumbersome way in Sem 1 when I dived into my first academic essay for uni. Also, the general feeling that I get from this mod is that most students S/U it so that is a way out if you want to focus on your other mods! Furthermore, I did not like that this module was strictly stuck to a timeline and that I had to do things according to the timetable. This does not work well with me because I enjoy working on my own time so the strict timetable really made me very annoyed sometimes.

Again, whether you enjoy this module is very much dependent on your tutor and their teaching style and also on the topic you are writing on for your essay. My tutor is a very vibrant lady and she always made effort in making class fun. What was good about her teaching style is that she made her lessons interactive and this really helped time to pass in class. Furthermore, she is always ready to answer your questions and to guide you in your work. As for the essay, I think it is important to pick a topic of your interest so that you can sustain yourself for the whole semester because you will be reading and thinking about the topic all the time.

To score for this module, you have to be really consistent in your work or at least in the overview essay and final essay because that’s where the bulk of weightage lies. You also really have to scope your topic well to ensure that you have just enough to write about and that it doesn’t end up being too broad and general. Do read up on the topic as much as possible because this will also help in your writing! (This is also a tiring part of academic writing) Lastly, do make appropriate changes and make changes according to your tutor’s comment as they will be the ones reading and marking your essay after all!

Overall, this mod is definitely manageable because when you think about it, you only have to work on one essay for the entire semester and there are no exams for this mod too. This is very little workload compared to other modules that might even have two written assignments in one semester. For me, it was chill because I picked a topic of my interest and really avoided the things I did not want to write about. I generally enjoy writing so I did not find this mod to be dreadful (except for the strict timetable). So yay if you like writing or if you are allocated this in sem 1! But nay if you dislike writing and reading up on loads of resources.