In collaboration with subject tutors at Liverpool Hope, the Marks+ project aims to address concerns regarding unintentional plagiarism and first year students’ engagement with essay writing and tutor feedback. Central to these aims were a referencing workshop and a new marking process whereby tutors were asked to identify predetermined referencing errors in students’ essay writing. Students were then given the opportunity to attend a tutorial to discuss these and their writing in general, engage with feedback, think about future assignments and gain 5%.

A series of student-centred workshops and one-to-one tutorials give students the opportunity to formatively discuss their tutor feedback, referencing, writing skills and future essays. Underlined by Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development, this process gives students and tutors an insight into the students’ positions regarding referencing. It is intended that such an approach will enable us to help students to engage in dialogue to improve their understanding of, and engagement with their writing.