This document discusses using academic reading in postgraduate assignments. It explains that students should use reading to support arguments and ideas in their writing as they are part of an academic community that values research. Reading needs to be analyzed, compared and synthesized before being incorporated into assignments. The document provides tips for effective reading such as reading with learning objectives in mind, choosing sources carefully, and keeping notes on critical questions. It also discusses developing an academic voice by analyzing readings and stating one's own interpretations. Comparing, contrasting and synthesizing multiple sources is important for situating one's work within the existing literature. Examples are provided to demonstrate effective synthesis in writing.

1. Academic Writing: using your
reading in PG assignments
• Explain when and how to use academic reading
in your writing
• Apply techniques of comparison and synthesis
to a selection of readings
• Write an extended synthesis of a selection of
readings
Rhian Wyn-Williams
Skills@ljmu.ac.uk

2. Where’s the reading?
• Look at the extract taken from a
student's essay on your handout.​
• Work together to identify where
they have used reading in their
writing.​
• How have they used the reading?​

3. Over the past two decades, the issue of the ethical stance of businesses appears to have become more
explicitly an area of public debate and consumer awareness. Two illustrations of this are the number of
publications that give consumers information about the most ethical companies (for example
the Ethispere and Good Shopping Guide sites), and the fact that many large organisations now have an ‘our
ethics’ tab somewhere on their website. The UK ethical sales market is currently valued at over £38 billion,
and has been expanding year on year over the past decade, with current growth at about 8.5% (Ethical
Consumer Research Association and Triodos Bank 2017). This essay will briefly define business ethics and
then consider whether it does and should have value as an aspect of both business activity and business
theory and training. Defining what constitutes a business is contentious in itself, but for the purposes of this
short essay it will be defined as any profit-making enterprise, including charities ,who make profits to invest
back into the enterprise (Smith and Jones, 2014; Rogers, 2013 ; Appleton, 2011). Similarly, there are
numerous, overlapping definitions of business ethics. Shaw and Barry define it as ‘what constitutes right and
wrong (or good and bad) human conduct in a business context’ (p. 25). This is a broad definition that needs
some refining in two areas. One distinction to make is that ethics is not the same thing as general
morality. Crane and Matten (2016) explain that although morals are a basic premise of ethics, ethics and
ethical theory go a step further because they focus on how morals can be applied to produce
explicit standards and rules for particular contexts, of which business is one. Ferrell, Fraedrich and Ferrell’s
definition of business ethics as the ‘principles and standards that guide behaviour in the world of business’
(Ferrell et al. 2002, p.6) is pertinent here, as it emphasises the application of morals to produce codes and
guidelines. Codified ethical behaviour usually falls under what is called ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR),
which in turn is usually seen as part of corporate governance, although there is overlap between the two areas
of activity. The second aspect of defining business ethics which needs unpacking is that, as Crane
and Matten point out, ethics is not synonymous with legality. They state that there is some overlap between
law and ethics, but that legislation usually only regulates the lowest level of acceptable behaviour. In addition,
as Trevino and Nelson (2010) state, the law is limited in what it can do to prevent unacceptable actions,
because legislation follows rather than precedes trends in behaviour. Business ethics, then, according to
Crane and Matten, is mainly concerned with areas of conduct that are not specifically covered by law, and that
are therefore open to different interpretations, a fact that means a particular behaviour may be legal albeit
viewed by many as unethical.
Opening statement based on
reading
Specific examples to support
Use of statistics to explain why this
issues should be researched
Thesis statement: what the essay
will discuss
Synthesised reference showing
research
Analysis of the research
Specific selected research to
support and extend
Showing synthesis and depth of
understanding
Concluding based on research

4. Why is
reading essential for
your writing? • You are part of an academic community that
values research and evidence: all of your work
needs to be supported by that research and
evidence.
• That community is connected through ideas,
theories, concepts, evidence: sit at the table and
join in.
• You don’t want to steal from that community:
academic integrity.
• When working on your dissertation or thesis, you
need to show how your research fits in.

5. • Read with your module’s learning objectives or your
research aims and objectives in mind.
• Choose your reading carefully so that you get a wide
range of different perspectives.
• Keep asking yourself: Do I need this? How will I use
it?
• Read abstracts, introductions and conclusions first
before you decide whether to carry on reading.
Your writing
Your
reading
Reading for your post-graduate degree

6. Finding your academic
voice
• Now you are sitting at the academic table, you need
to join in.
• What do you think? What is your interpretation?
What does the reading mean to you and for your
assignment?
• Your analyse of the reading will help you do this.
• Keep asking questions: Why? How? What if? What
next? So what?

7. This means you need to
analyse, compare and
contrast, and synthesise
your reading before you
can use it in your writing.
‘Zoom in and zoom out’

8. Analysis and evaluation: zooming in
Read critically:
• Who is the author?
• What is the central point or main argument?
• What findings and conclusions are made?
• What evidence is used? Effective?
• What methodology has the author used?
• Does the author make any assumptions?
• What is not being said?
• Is there any explicit or hidden bias?
• What is its significance?
• What are its limitations?
• How can I use this?

9. Have a go...
• In your groups, you have a range of extracts about
the role of education in society for the question
‘Discuss the role of Higher Education in the UK in
the 21st Century’.
• Read the one allocated to you, using some of the
critical reading questions.
• Share your article and thoughts on it with the rest
of your group.

10. Arthur H. Camins
‘Debate about the purposes of education never seems to
end. Should young people become educated to get prepared to
enter the workforce, or should the purpose of education be focused
more on social, academic, cultural and intellectual development so
that students can grow up to be engaged citizens? With each new
workforce development or economic competitiveness demand on
our…schools, there has been push-back from those who want
greater emphasis on a broader view of education. But it doesn’t have
to be either-or. Education should prepare young people for life,
work and citizenship. Knowledge of the natural and engineered
environments and how people live in the world is critical to all three
purposes of education. Critical thinking, creativity, interpersonal skills
and a sense of social responsibility all influence success in life, work
and citizenship. For example, unhappy personal relationships often
spill over into the work environment, while a stressful workplace or
unemployment negatively impacts family life. Uninformed
disengaged citizens lead to poor policy choices that impact life, work
and citizenship. To paraphrase the verse in the old song, “You can’t
have one without the others.”’

11. Paulo Friere
The goals and purposes of adult education as
societal transformation and contended that
education is a consciousness-raising process.
From his view, the aim of education is to help
participants put knowledge into practice and that
the outcome of education is societal
transformation. Freire believed in human’s ability
to re-create a social world and establish a
dynamic society, and that the major aim of
education is to help people put knowledge into
action. Doing so, according to Freire, would
enable people to change the world – to humanise
it. Freire is clearly concerned with creating a
better world and the development and liberation
of people. As such, the goals and purposes within
this learning context are oriented to societal as
well as individual improvement.

12. bell hooks
‘The heart of education as a practice of
freedom is to promote growth. It's very much
an act of love in that sense of love as
something that promotes our spiritual and
mental growth.
When people frequently ask me, 'What
changed your life; what enabled you to come
from this working-class, segregated home
where [your] parents were not college-
educated people into being one of our
nation's well-known intellectuals?' [My
answer is,] 'It's there in that space where I
learned to be a reader and a critical thinker.'

13. Mike Rustin
‘Opposition to the government's higher education
policy [of greater focus on employability skills] is
from people who has so far been expressed in very
traditionalist terms – with the idea that a university
has an intrinsic value and good. On the one hand,
you have the marketised view of universities as
equipping people to earn their living, and on the
other hand, a traditional view that universities are
about pure learning, but the students we have here
have always seen benefits beyond learning for its
own sake. We have really hard evidence to show
that students are fairly clear about why they want to
go to university – and for the vast majority, it is
about getting a better job and having a successful
career. A lot of people say what about learning for
learning's sake? I find that problematic. Everyone
has a purpose for why they want to learn.’

14. Comparing and synthesising your reading:
zooming out
To synthesise your literature, you need to:
• Make comparisons and connections
• Position key points against each other
• Identify themes and trends
• Areas of agreement or disagreement
This is where you start to position yourself.

15. Jamie is evaluating the effects of
undergraduate students’ study
habits at LJMU.
How could per improve this
paragraph to show more
synthesis?
• Hennessy (1968) believes that all first year
university essays should only be written from
lecture notes as students know so little of their
subject. According to Choudrey (2015), academic
essays should be well researched. This research
should be done from books listed in the module
handbook and using the online resources in the
library. Beko (2013) says that assignments are
written using information collected from the library
and reliable online sources. Cottrell (2012) argues
that students should use library resources and some
academic websites.

16. It could like this...
According to Choudrey (2015) and Beko (2013) students should research
for assignments using resources in the library and from online sources.
They both stress that website based research should be done carefully.
This is further supported in the work of Cottrell (2012). Choudrey
(2015) also adds that book lists in Module Handbooks should also be
used. These contemporary opinions are in contrast to Hennessy writing
in 1968 who argued at least in first year students should only refer to
lecture notes for research.
Similarity
Additional point
ContrastThis is a simple example. How
can you achieve this with the
more advanced reading and
evaluation you need to do?

17. Research into mega-events has highlighted their positive economic impact (Getz and Page, 2016), which Kasimati (2003) has
demonstrated to be frequently used as justification for event bidding. However, economic gain is not restricted to sale generation
but can also be found in the host’s tourism industry (Taylor, 2005; Djaballah et al, 2015) and job stimulation in the surrounding
area (Djaballah et al, 2015; Yolal et al, 2016). This has been argued by both Kapalnidou (2013) and Chun Ma (2016) to positively
affect the social needs of residents, thus reinforcing the notion that the economic impacts of hosting a mega-event can act as a
basis for achieving wider social needs. Lee et al., (2017) have hypothesised that this is not only the case for individuals, through
increased income, but also for wider communities. Indeed, in relation to job related impacts, wage has been found to be the
largest multiplier and consequently can be viewed as being the most impactful effect (Lee et al, 2017). In turn, this repeatedly
been shown to increase the amount of tax received in the area (Taylor, 2005; Ying-Wen et al, 2016; Kim et al, 2017), suggesting
further positive economic benefits can be felt in the local area after the holding of a mega-event. Similarly, Lee et al., (2017)
emphasise the impact of permanent jobs being created by the hosting of a mega-event and therefore the long term benefits they
bring, but the figures they present are relatively modest. However, there is far more convincing research that has noted that
most employment generated by hosting events is in fact not permanent due to the very nature of those events (Taylor, 2005;
Mathurin et al, 2013; Dwyer et al, 2016; Kim et al, 2017). Ultimately then, despite the positive economic impact of hosting a
mega-event, the research indicates that any economic boost experienced individually and by the wider community is only
temporary. This project will consider whether small-scale hotel-based events offer similar economic impacts and whether any
positive impact experienced is also short-term in nature.
In pairs, read this example paragraph from a PG student, which is on your handout.
How are they showing their synthesis? Think about their use of language to show
synthesis and refer to their reading.

18. Research into mega-events has highlighted their positive economic impact (Getz and Page, 2016), which
Kasimati (2003) has demonstrated to be frequently used as justification for event bidding. However,
economic gain is not restricted to sale generation but can also be found in the host’s tourism industry
(Taylor, 2005; Djaballah et al, 2015) and job stimulation in the surrounding area (Djaballah et al, 2015;
Yolal et al, 2016). This has been argued by both Kapalnidou (2013) and Chun Ma (2016) to positively
affect the social needs of residents, thus reinforcing the notion that the economic impacts of hosting a
mega-event can act as a basis for achieving wider social needs. Lee et al., (2017) have hypothesised that
this is not only the case for individuals, through increased income, but also for wider communities.
Indeed, in relation to job related impacts, wage has been found to be the largest multiplier and
consequently can be viewed as being the most impactful effect (Lee et al, 2017). In turn, this repeatedly
been shown to increase the amount of tax received in the area (Taylor, 2005; Ying-Wen et al, 2016; Kim
et al, 2017), suggesting further positive economic benefits can be felt in the local area after the holding of
a mega-event. Similarly, Lee et al., (2017) emphasise the impact of permanent jobs being created by the
hosting of a mega-event and therefore the long term benefits they bring, but the figures they present are
relatively modest. However, there is far more convincing research that has noted that most employment
generated by hosting events is in fact not permanent due to the very nature of those events (Taylor,
2005; Mathurin et al, 2013; Dwyer et al, 2016; Kim et al, 2017). Ultimately then, despite the positive
economic impact of hosting a mega-event, the research indicates that any economic boost experienced
individually and by the wider community is only temporary. This project will consider whether small-
scale hotel-based events offer similar economic impacts and whether any positive impact experienced
is also short-term in nature.
Comparison,
contrast and
synthesis
Reporting verbs
Analysis of reading –
the voice
Here it is with key features highlighted

19. A reading grid can help you. This is part of Jamie’s assignment
evaluating effects of undergraduate students’ study habits at LJMU
Author, title Topic Key idea/theme Strengths/
Weaknesses
How to use Relate to project
A. Rieder (2017)
The First Year at
University (LJMU
Press)
Effects of
stress on
university students
during transition
Chap 3: students
need differences
in study practices
made clear at the
outset: primarily
the responsibility
of the university
Very small sample
but longitudinal
study – appropriate
methods
Rich data – see
transcripts
Compare to Jones
(2001) and Ali
(2002) -they
emphasise the
responsibility of
the student in
adapting
Show agreement
with Smith, 2013;
Mohammad et al,
2015; Jackson,
2017
Jackson also uses
longitudinal study
Part of current
growing concern
with students’
mental health –
chap 3 only e.g. so
far relating it to
study practices –
lack of sustained
research: I aim to
fill!
Will test with a
bigger sample size
(notice how you
make the
connections)

20. Have a go….
• You have a copy of a basic reading grid. In your
groups, complete it using the articles on the role
of Higher Education in society, which you read
earlier.
• Once completed, write a short paragraph
synthesising the information.

21. Reflection…..
• What top tip you would you now pass on to another
PG student about using their reading in
assignments?

22. Next steps
• This Friday:
• Academic Writing: summarising, paraphrasing and
quoting for PGs (developing techniques to more
effectively use your reading)
• The following week:
• Academic Writing: reflections
• Academic Writing: case studies