Help

WrAssE is for anyone who is interested in writing at university, whether you are a student or a member of teaching or support staff. Please use the detailed instructions below to guide you through the site. Please contact the WrAssE team by emailing learn@plymouth.ac.uk if you have any comments that could help us improve the site.

Searching for examples of student writing

You can search by subject or level of study using the drop-down lists, or by keyword using the search box. To see a wider range of examples select ‘all’ and click on the search button. The results page shows the title and first line of all the relevant examples in the database. Click to select and an example of student writing will open.

Within the writing you will see that some phrases, sentences or paragraphs are highlighted. Hover your mouse over the highlighted text or click to see the comment associated with this section of writing. Different types of comment appear in different colours. Click on 'what does this type of comment mean?' in any comment box or see the 'functions and qualities' page for more explanation about this.

Contributing an example of student writing

You will have to be registered and logged in to the site to make a contribution. Click on the 'register' or 'log in' buttons at the top of the page to do this now.

Once you are logged in, click on the 'Contribute' button and begin filling in the details about your piece of writing. There is an upper limit of 1000 words for extracts as we find this is best for concentrating on what is best about the actual writing, though you will have the opportunity to upload the whole document if you like. You will then copy and paste in your extract. Please be aware that some formatting may be lost: in particular we ask that you replace automatic footnote/endnote marks with numbers in square brackets and make sure the accompanying references or notes appear at the end of the extract.

Once you have submitted an extract you will be asked to give us a brief reflection or overall comment on why you think this is a good example of student writing. You can skip this if you wish.

You will have the opportunity to provide detailed comments on the extract. You do this by selecting relevant phrases, sentences or longer sections, clicking 'add comment' and adding your comment to the selected text. You can optionally select the type of comment this is from a drop-down list of 'functions and qualities' of writing. Please do not use this function unless you have read the "Functions and Qualities" section of this web site and looked at several existing extracts to see the kind of comments that students find useful. You can skip this if you wish.

You will have the opportunity to upload the full assignment from which the extract was taken, and also to submit the assignment brief, if you have it. You do this by choosing the file(s) from your own device and uploading them. Please be sure you have permission from the person who wrote the original assignment or assignment brief to do this. You can skip this if you wish.

Finally you will have the opportunity to provide keywords to help other students find relevant examples of writing. Again, you can skip this if you wish.