Here is the schedule for the six workshops.  The dates in brackets are repeat sessions.  All sessions are at 1pm.

18th (& 20th) Feb – Essays – room C336

25th (& 27th) Feb – Literature reviews and annotated bibliographies – room C336

4th (& 6th) March – Reports – room C302

11th (& 13th) March – Reflective writing – room C336

18th (& 20th) March – Poster presentations – room C336

25th (& 27th) March – Exam technique and revision – room C336

Please drop me a line with any questions / suggestions.

David Shah – Academic Learning Support Tutor

david.shah.1@city.ac.uk

LAST MINUTE TIPS FOR JANUARY EXAMS

Get to know the exam

• You’ve probably done lots of revision by now, but have you familiarised yourself with the format of the exam?

• Look at past papers and get to know the duration of the exam, the type of questions and the marks available. It’s a good idea to work out roughly how much time you should spend on each question.

On the day

• Try to get a good night’s sleep before an exam. Don’t stay up late revising. Take the time to rest your brain.

• On the day of the exam, your main focus should be on staying relaxed and feeling positive.

• Drink fluids and eat a light meal before an exam. Try not to eat anything too heavy as this will make you tired.

• Take some light exercise. Perhaps you could walk part of the way to the exam. This would help reduce stress and encourage oxygen to the brain.

• Try some relaxation techniques. Meditation and deep breathing exercises can help control panic and anxiety.

• Don’t forget your student card and any special equipment you need, e.g. dictionary or calculator, as permitted.

• Make sure you answer the question. Support your points with evidence and theory, and organise your answer in a clear, logical way.

• Keep strictly to your planned timings. If you run out of time for a particular part of the exam, write a brief outline of what your answer would have been and then move on to the next question.

Academic Learning Support

For more advice on study skills, including critical thinking, essay writing and time management, please get in touch with the Academic Learning Support team. We offer one-to-one tutorials on these, and many other, areas.

To make an appointment, please go to the Learning Success reception in Student Services (2nd floor), or drop us a line at:

academiclearningsupport@city.ac.uk

We are also running a programme of academic skills workshops, open to all students, beginning 17th February. Full details can be found on our Moodle page:

tiny.cc/learningsuccess

Counselling

Exams can be stressful and demanding. Keep an eye on your stress level.

If you’re finding this a difficult time, please contact the Counselling team, which offers a free service. This is an opportunity to talk to someone in confidence about what’s on your mind.

www.city.ac.uk/current-students/health-wellbeing-sport/counselling

coun@city.ac.uk

The last drop-in appointments this term will be on Thursday (12th December). However, they will start again on Friday 3rd January.

These appointments are 50 minutes long, are available every afternoon from 14:00 (except Wednesdays) and can be booked on the day.

Call us on 020 7040 0246 or come to Learning Success reception (in the Student Centre at Northampton Square), and we will tell you when the tutor is available.

If you can’t get an appointment, then you could find the information you need on our moodle course (http://moodle.city.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=2966), or ask us via Twitter: @CityUniLS.

We’ll be offering a very full range of academic skills workshops next term.  Starting on 17th February, the programme will run for five to six weeks.  Here’s an outline of the programme:

Mondays – Dissertation Skills

Tuesdays (and repeated on Thursdays) – Types of Assignment, including reports, essays, presentations, reflective writing, literature reviews and exams

Wednesdays (and repeated on Fridays) – Critical Thinking and Writing

All sessions are at 1pm.  For rooms, please see the calendar.

The slides for this workshop are here:

Memory techniques slides

And you can find the worksheet here:

Memory and revision worksheet

Always a contentious subject, the slides are here:

Referencing and Plagiarism

and the plagiarism test is here:

Plagiarism test

Spoiler alert! Answers over the fold …

(more…)

This week we looked at critical reading and thinking. You can find the slides here:

Critical reading and thinking slides

Plus the worksheet:

Critical reading and thinking worksheet (with answers)

What you need to do is to be careful when you’re doing assignments where it’s tempting for you to describe what you’ve found out about the subject (for example, if it’s a subject you’re already very interested in). Critical discussion requires putting some distance between you and the subject, and that’s difficult if you’re too emotionally close to it.

‘Never choose an subject you’re interested in for your assignment’ would be a terrible thing to say, because it’s that extra reading and knowledge that adds value to your qualification. However, bear in mind that this will be a temptation.

In these sessions, we looked at note-taking, and paragraphs and topic sentences. You can find the lecture slides here:

Note-taking slides

Topic sentences slides plus worksheet

Note-taking is something which will feature in the future following your course, if only in meetings. I mentioned something about this, and you can further explore in this post at the ever-excellent Lifehacker:

http://lifehacker.com/167307/geek-to-live–take-great-notes

However you do it, just make sure that you write down enough information so that you can reference the source later – otherwise you could be accused of plagiarism.

So far, the workshops have looked at understanding your assignment, assignment structure, and time management and procrastination.

The handouts are on our moodle course, in the ‘Workshop materials’ section. If you haven’t already enrolled on the course, you’ll be automatically asked to enrol when you look at the handouts.

If you can’t make it to the workshops, I’ve created some videos which contain the slides from the workshop, plus a recorded commentary to explain what they mean.

Week 1: understanding your assignment

Week 2: assignment structure

No week 3 yet due to storm destruction! In the meantime, any comments are welcome.

PS Is having the workshops 13:00 – 14:00 ok for most people? If there are other times which would be more suitable, please let me know here, or via academiclearningsupport@city.ac.uk or @CityUniLS.

Thanks

Richard