Liberal Arts Graduate Returns to St Mary’s as Head of Department for PE at St Malachy's Castlewellan With Thirty-Five Students in Tow
Mark Vernon a 2006 graduate on the Liberal Arts Degree and HOD for PE at St Malachy's, brought thirty-five students to St Mary’s last Friday, 4 September, to participate in a lecture/discussion on advanced writing skills. The students sat in Lecture Theatre 1 (just as undergraduates will do in a few days) to be taught by Jonathan Worley, the writing centre director at St Mary’s.
The students were seeking advanced tuition in academic writing to assist them with an A-level course in BTEC Sport, a course which has no exam but which places extensive demands upon written work. The main topic for discussion was how to integrate sources properly into written reports using bracketed citations. The importance of finding good sources, and the relevant portions of them, was a prelude to a consideration of how to properly cite these sources when using paraphrase, summary and quotation within a piece of writing.
As a second topic, the importance of proofreading, or reading an essay over carefully before submission, was stressed along with practical examples of how to proofread.
“I was especially interested”, Mr Worley said, “in welcoming them and in encouraging them to be enthusiastic about higher education, as well as in helping to prepare them for the big step up to university. Talking with Mark's students over lunch, I learned that several of them were interested in both of our undergraduate degrees: Liberal Arts and Education. Judging from their interest, attention and participation, they would make good candidates.”
Head of PE Mark Vernon with several of his students who attended the session on Writing Skills.