The presentation assists users when submitting draft essays for analysis by OpenEssayist to make full use of the feedback in order to draft another version of their essay.

1. OpenEssayist: Feedback and Moving
Forward with Draft Essays
Professor Denise Whitelock
The Open University, Walton Hall,
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK
denise.whitelock@open.ac.uk

2. Talk Back
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Checking
understanding by
‘talk back’
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Summaries in
OpenEssayist
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Key words = key
ideas
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http://www.open.ac.u
k/researchprojects/s
afesea/
DMW BUiD January 2014

3. OpenEssayist: What it tells you
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•
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The system’s focus is to present summaries of your
own work in different ways, to encourage you to reflect
constructively on what you have written.
In other words Open Essayist tells you from its analysis
what are the most important or key points in your
essay. You can then think about whether that was what
you intended to emphasis in your essay. If not then
you can make the appropriate changes.
A very important aspect of the OpenEssayist system is
that it will not tell you what to write, or how to rewrite
sections of your essay, or even what is correct or
incorrect in your essay.
DMW BUiD January 2014

4. OpenEssayist: A tool for reflection
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Different views with distinct roles presented
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The purpose of this feedback is to encourage you
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to reflect on the draft text you submitted,
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how the key terms are being used across the
essay
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how they combine to form a cohesive discussion.
to help you consider how your essay is
organised,
DMW BUiD January 2014

5. GRAPHICS
ANALYSIS
ESSAY

6. OpenEssayist: How it gives feedback
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Three aspects of your essay are analysed by the
system:
• the structure of the essay (which paragraphs
constitute the introduction, the conclusion, the
discussion sections, etc.),
• the key words and key phrases of your essay
(which are the most important words and phrases,
the ones that are most representative of your
essay's overall meaning)
• the key sentences of your essay (which are
whole sentences that are most representative of
your essay's overall meaning).
DMW BUiD January 2014

8. Key Sentences
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Do you think OpenEssayist
identified the parts of your
assignment correctly?
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Did it find the introduction
and conclusion and main
text?
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If not, why do you think that
happened?
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Is anything missing from your
essay?
DMW BUiD January 2014

10. Key Words
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Are you surprised
about any of the
words in the top
row?
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Do you think some
important words are
missing?
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13. Overview
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All the analyses i.e. keywords and summaries are
shown on the main text
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The results of individual analysis are shown together
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Note where key words and key sentences appear in
your essay
DMW BUiD January 2014

15. Think about the structure of the essay
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Think about whether the key words identified by
OpenEssayist are the ones you need to answer the
question in your assignment. If they appear in the
introduction, are they helping the reader to understand
that this is what you are going to be writing about in the
main text?
•
Are the key words in the conclusion similar to those in
the rest of the text but provide a summary of your
answer?
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Can you pick out the three biggest words or phrases?
DMW BUiD January 2014

19. How to use OpenEssayist (1)
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Use the system as a resource, as part of your writing
process.
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A “draft” must be at least 500 words long. Submit as
many drafts as you like.
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Take time to explore the different views of the system’s
analysis. Some views might be more familiar and
useful to you than others. Some views might become
useful only after you have encountered other views.
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Once a draft has been analysed by OpenEssayist, you
can access any of the views at your own time and
pace, according to your needs.
DMW BUiD January 2014

20. How to use OpenEssayist (2)
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There is no silver-bullet
Any of the system’s many views might give you some ideas
for revising your draft.
Don’t just focus on what the system is saying about the draft
but also look for discrepancies, between what you thought
you wrote and what the system is telling you.
• Is there anything missing from the key words?
• Are they distributed where you expected them to be in
your essay?
• Are there key words in your conclusion and
introduction?
• Are the key sentences revealing the main points that
you wanted to make in your essay?
DMW BUiD January 2014

21. Hints when using the system
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Do you agree with OpenEssayist that these sentences are a good
summary of your assignment?
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Are any important ideas that you want to convey missing from this
summary?
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Are there lots of sentences in the summary that are about
something that you think is unimportant or irrelevant to your
assignment?
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Do you think there are important themes in your assignment? Are
they mentioned in your draft?
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Do you think the introduction section as recognised by
OpenEssayist is about the right size, or has OpenEssayist go it
wrong?
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Do you think you should try to lengthen the introduction? Or the
conclusion?
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Is your draft long enough? Too short?
DMW BUiD January 2014

22. How to use OpenEssayist (3)
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Take notes on your
thinking while
exploring your draft
and its analysis. Use
the in-board notepad
for that purpose.
DMW BUiD January 2014

23. Issues to consider (1)
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To be able to use the system fully, we recommend that
you use a modern browser, such as Firefox or
Chrome (any recent version) or Internet Explorer
(version 9 minimum).
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OpenEssayist offers very limited support for editing
your draft online. Use your own word processor, and
then copy and paste the text in the provided form in
OpenEssayist.
DMW BUiD January 2014

24. Data Collection
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Collect different types of information:
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log of your activities using the system,
the drafts you might have submitted for analysis,
the results of these analyses,
Any comments you might have made using the insystem report tool
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Interviews
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Data collected is anonymous and for the sole purpose
of the research project (with the exception of the selfhelp forum which is obviously a space shared by your
tutors and other students).
DMW BUiD January 2014

25. Tweeting
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Follow or interact
with the SAFeSEA
twitter account
@TheOUSAFeSEA.
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Hash tagging may
be use #SAFeSEA.
DMW BUiD January 2014