Have you ever been stunned by a low grade, when you were expecting an A or B? Are you struggling to make the jump from a second to a first? Doing Essays and Assignments gives you an insider's view on what tutors and professors really want when they assign essays and projects, and reveals how you can raise your game and achieve the best grades. Drawing on a survey of lecturers, and examples of real student work, this handy guide provides practical advice to help you not only understand what is expected of you, but also get ideas on how to deliver what your tutor is looking for. Providing a behind-the-scenes look at marking, find out how you can successfully craft the perfect written assignment, and discover tips and techniques on: Planning and deadlines, helping you manage your workload effectively Gaining higher marks through critically formed arguments Communicating clearly with the correct language, grammar, and expression Avoiding common marking pitfalls such as referencing and plagiarism. This new edition also reveals how to successfully navigate group work, literature reviews, and presentations to improve your grades. With valuable insight from tutors, and practical tips to apply to your work, you might just want to keep this book to yourself...! SAGE Study Skills are essential study guides for students of all levels. From how to write great essays and succeeding at university, to writing your undergraduate dissertation and doing postgraduate research, SAGE Study Skills help you get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips, resources and videos on study success!

Have you ever been stunned by a low grade, when you were expecting an A or B? Are you struggling to make the jump from a second to a first? Doing Essays and Assignments gives you an insider's view on what tutors and professors really want when they assign essays and projects, and reveals how you can raise your game and achieve the best grades. Drawing on a survey of lecturers, and examples of real student work, this handy guide provides practical advice to help you not only understand what is expected of you, but also get ideas on how to deliver what your tutor is looking for. Providing a behind-the-scenes look at marking, find out how you can successfully craft the perfect written assignment, and discover tips and techniques on: Planning and deadlines, helping you manage your workload effectively Gaining higher marks through critically formed arguments Communicating clearly with the correct language, grammar, and expression Avoiding common marking pitfalls such as referencing and plagiarism. This new edition also reveals how to successfully navigate group work, literature reviews, and presentations to improve your grades. With valuable insight from tutors, and practical tips to apply to your work, you might just want to keep this book to yourself...! SAGE Study Skills are essential study guides for students of all levels. From how to write great essays and succeeding at university, to writing your undergraduate dissertation and doing postgraduate research, SAGE Study Skills help you get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips, resources and videos on study success!

""This is an ideal introductory book for budding researchers who are embarking on the development and then analysis of data, and in this case, more specifically questionnaires using partly or exclusively closed questions amenable to statistical analysis."
Primary Health Care Research and Development"

""The text is a welcome addition for nursing students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level research. Having reviewed the text I can only inform you how a student described a chapter in the book recently when she borrowed it. 'The language is clear and unambiguous'. I will be strongly encouraging students to either purchase the text ... with the purpose of giving them a foundation in statistics.""
William Evans, Institute of Technology Tralee, Ireland

This accessible book is essential reading for those looking for a short and simple guide to basic data analysis. Written for the complete beginner, the book is the ideal companion when undertaking quantitative data analysis for the first time using SPSS.

The book uses a simple example of quantitative data analysis that would be typical to the health field to take you through the process of data analysis step by step. The example used is a doctor who conducts a questionnaire survey of 30 patients to assess a specific service. The data from these questionnaires is given to you for analysis, and the book leads you through the process required to analyse this data.

Handy screenshots illustrate each step of the process so you can try out the analysis for yourself, and apply it to your own research with ease.

Topics covered include: Questionnaires and how to analyse them Coding the data for SPSS, setting up an SPSS database and entering the data Descriptive statistics and illustrating the data using graphs Cross-tabulation and the Chi-square statistic Correlation: examining relationships between interval data Examining differences between two sets of scores Reporting the results and presenting the data "Quantitative Data Analysis Using SPSS" is helpful for any students in health and social sciences with little or no experience of quantitative data analysis and statistics.