We are going to be putting on a series of academic writing workshops next term, and we’d be grateful for some feedback about the subjects to be covered.

Below are three possible programmes. It may be possible to run two out of the three, so which one(s) would be most useful for you? Would you like to take out or add any subjects?

1. Assignment Types

• essays
• reports
• literature reviews/annotated bibliographies
• exams
• poster presentations
• reflective writing
• dissertations – a short overview

2. General academic writing

• understanding your assignment
• critical reading & thinking
• academic writing style
• citing and referencing
• introductions and conclusions
• paragraphs & punctuation
• the writing process
• editing & proofreading

3. Dissertation Writing Skills

• overview and key features
• writing a research proposal
• introduction and literature review
• methods and results
• discussion
• conclusion and abstract

All suggestions gratefully received! You can leave a comment below, tweet us @CityUniLS or send us an email: academiclearningsupport@city.ac.uk.

Best wishes

Richard

Learning Success are now offering 1:1, confidential study skills support sessions at the Bunhill Row campus of Cass Business School for students registered with Dyslexia Services, in addition to the provision offered at the main campus at Northampton Square:

• 50-minute bookable support sessions will be offered fortnightly on Tuesday afternoons starting at 2pm and 3pm.
• There will also be a drop-in session from 4-5pm which can be accessed by both students registered with Dyslexia Services and students who wish to discuss the services offered by Learning Success. Additionally, staff may also access this session if they have any queries related to Learning Success provision.

The first dates for these sessions, held in room 3011, are:

(1)  Tues 27^th November

(2)  Tues 11^th December

(3)  Tues 8^th January

To book a 2pm or 3pm session, please phone the Learning Success reception desk on 020 7040 0246 and request a Cass support session.

Alternatively, you can access 10-15 minutes per person in the drop-in sessions without pre-booking. Availability will be offered on a first come, first served basis.

Further information on the services offered by Learning Success is available at:

• Intranet site: https://intranet.city.ac.uk/students/learning-success/
• Learning Success Moodle site: bit.ly/learning-success
• Departmental video ‘Introduction to Learning Success’: bit.ly/RNsidw

Neil Goldwasser

On Thursday the 29^th of November Learning Success will be taking part in Wellbeing and World Aids Awareness Day in the Sadlers Bar from 11pm -1pm.

There will also be stalls there from the Health Centre, Sports and Student Counselling.  You will be able to talk about your mental health and wellbeing, and there will be information on Aids Awareness and opportunity to find out more about sexual health support through the Health Centre. It’s an opportunity to explore the links between wellbeing and studying here at City from all the staff there on the morning, as well as finding information on the various services and workshops.

This workshop for new Electrical Engineering undergraduates was organised by Arti Agrawal, and we looked at various study skills issues – especially those relating to the step up from pre-university courses to the undergraduate experience.

I hope it was helpful for everyone. The handouts are on moodle: http://moodle.city.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=907472 , and let us know below if you have any questions or comments about what was covered.

Next month, the Counselling Service and Learning Success will be presenting a series of workshops relating to exams and revision. Here’s some information about them, plus the schedule. As ever, any questions or comments – please post.

Time Management – A practical session with advice to help you develop your own revision timetable

Top Tips for Exam Success – A lively session where you can learn some great exam tips and maybe share some of your own.

Revision and Your Memory – Advice and tips about how you can improve your memory and learn more effectively

From Anxiety to Calm – A session to help you identify and change your responses to exam anxiety to lead to a calmer, clearer stateof mind

Mindmaps and your Revision – Mindmaps use both the left and right side of the brain, incorporating words, images and colour. This workshop will give you an opportunity learn how to use mindmaps in your revision.

Start your Revision Now–Do you put things off. During the workshop you will have a chance to think about why you procrastinate and ways to change this.

I’m running another workshop, this time for undergraduate Psychology students (specifically, PS1002 Academic and Professional Skills for Psychologists). It’ll be on note-taking, plus some other areas, like critical reading and thinking.

The slides are available in the workshops section of the Learning Success moodle course. Click here: http://moodle.city.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=899989 . The worksheet’s there as well.

If you’ve got any comments or suggestions, please let us know by posting a comment below.

We are going to run a lot of workshops this term – some for specific departments and courses, and some for all students (both undergraduate and postgraduate).

As part of this, there will be a series of eight workshops for undergraduate and postgraduate students on Academic Writing. They’ll be on Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes (1:00 – 2:00 pm), starting on Tuesday 9th October. You don’t have to book, just turn up on the day (but please arrive on time – it may be quite busy). The full schedule is as follows:

Tuesday 9th October: Understanding your assignment

Thursday 11th October: Referencing

Tuesday 16th October: Presentations

Thursday 18th October: Plagiarism

Tuesday 23rd October: Critical Thinking

Thursday 25th October: Note-taking

Tuesday 30th October: Time Management and Procrastination

Thursday 1st November: Memory Techniques

Course materials will be available via Moodle once the course has started: http://moodle.city.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=30381. If you can’t make it to the workshops a video commentary on the course materials will be available.

You don’t have to bring along your own work. The workshops will be delivered lecture-style, but with a lot of group work and opportunities to ask particular questions.

The moodle materials will supplement the course, including information on other areas and different types of assignment that you could be asked to complete.

For those of you on twitter, follow us on @CityUniLS. The workshops will be using the hashtag #citywritingworkshops.

If you have any comments or questions, please post a comment below.

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