Do your students find it difficult to develop their essays? If so, Alke Groppel-Wegener’s ‘Writing Essays by Pictures’ may provide a helpful guide. She approaches what can appear to be a dry process in a creative and imaginative way. The book uses engaging visual metaphors and analogies to highlight the important aspects of academia. The writing process…Continue Reading Picturing how to write essays
The focus of this month’s writing group was creating blog titles to grab the attention of readers. We looked at advice from Corey Wainwright’s blog post on the subject, which outlined the following key points: Start with a working title – note down a rough title to give you a focus when you start writing a…Continue Reading How to hook readers in with catchy blog titles
September saw the successful pilot of Student Minds ‘Look After Your Mate’ here at City. Lead by the Student Counselling & Mental Health Service in collaboration with Learning Success (LEaD), Student Experience and Engagement (S&AS) and the Students’ Union, the initiative encourages peer support and a more supportive, inclusive community. It achieves this by enhancing…Continue Reading Look After Your Mate: promoting student mental health and peer support at City
The growing field of learning analytics (LA) is gaining significant attention in Higher Education, reinforced by the increasing amounts of student data generated through various software. It has become a hot topic not only for practitioners but also researchers. City’s own Learning Analytics Project (LeAP) aims to maximise the potential of all our students, improving…Continue Reading Into the world of research on Learning Analytics
November is a busy month for Turnitin assignment submissions. We have 69 assignments due this month. This post provides some tips to help students who are submitting to Turnitin. A PDF of the Turnitin Checklist is also available for download. Featured image by Dan Dimmock on Unsplash…Continue Reading Turnitin Checklist
October’s Writing Group was our busiest yet, with participants from different City departments and also representatives from the Students’ Union. We continued our focus on editing. This time, using advice from Stephen King, we waged war on the “Atrocity of Adverbs” (Popova, 2013). We read his advice on tightening your writing by avoiding adverbs. In…Continue Reading “Fear is at the root of most bad writing.” Stephen King