Assess your academic skills

Assess your academic skills Postgraduate Get Ahead July 2013

What are academic skills? • Complex, interrelated, transferrable • Crucial to being an effective learner • Go hand in hand with academic content Examples of skills?

Time management and organisation Do you: • have strategies to help you plan and organise your time? • know how much time you have available for your studies? • know what makes studying more effective for you (i.e. when and where you study best)? • keep a diary or calendar so you know when to attend lectures and when assignments are due?

Reading Can you: • select and use different reading strategies (e.g. skim, scan, in-depth)? • think about what you need to find out before you start reading (are you reading to verify facts, to understand a subject in general or to analyse a particular argument)? • critically evaluate reading?

Note making Can you: • make effective notes when reading? • make effective notes when listening (e.g. during lectures)? • do you have a way of organising your notes?

Critical thinking Can you: • distinguish between fact and opinion? • draw conclusions based on evidence? • account for different points of view and detect bias? • see the wider picture? • do you know the difference between description, analysis and evaluation?

Expressing yourself in public Can you: • use strategies to engage and influence your audience? • express agreement and disagreement while considering other points of view? • summarise a discussion? • structure an argument properly for presentations? • use PowerPoint to tell your story effectively?

Writing Can you: • express your ideas clearly in written form? • make an outline of what you are going to write? • write in clear sentences and paragraphs? • link your ideas in a logical order? • use correct grammar? • develop your own argument? • identify your audience and write in an appropriate register?

Quoting and referencing Do you know: • when you need to quote directly? • when you need to reference? • what it means to plagiarise? • what the difference between in text references and footnotes/endnotes is? • how to construct a reference list? • what a style guide is?

Library and IT skills • Two key skill areas • Includes finding materials (in print and online), research and producing documents and email • Support and training is provided through the Library and IT Services

Where to get more help • Birkbeck Library has a website with books on different academic skills that links to the catalogue. It is available at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/subguides/studyskills/studybooks • Academic Development Workshops are available at Birkbeck. More information can be found at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck/ • There are interactive tutorials to help you develop various skills available on the Get Ahead Stay Ahead website at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck/get-ahead-stay-ahead • The Library has an induction tutorial available at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/life/ and more general Library information is available at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib • IT Services has workshops and information available at: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/its/

Where to get more help Centre for Learning and Professional Development www.bbk.ac.uk/clpd Dr Jennifer Fraser (j.fraser@bbk.ac.uk) Administrator (studyskills@bbk.ac.uk)

Useful texts Tom Burns & Sandra Sindfield. 2012. Essential Study Skills: The Complete Guide to Success at University, 3rd ed. London: Sage. Martin Davies. 2011. Study Skills for International Postgraduates. London: Palgrave. IngerFurseth & Euris Larry Everett. 2013. Doing Your Master’s Dissertation. London: Sage. Angela Thody. 2006. Writing and Presenting Research. London: Sage. Mike Wallace & Alison Wray. 2011. Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates, 2nd ed. London: Sage. Gina Wisker. 2008. The Postgraduate Research Handbook, 2nd ed. London: Palgrave.

Assess your academic skills