Welcome to the University of Essex Online!
The Study Skills Team at the University
of Essex Online is here to help students develop the vital study skills needed to
help them study successfully during their time with us.
As it may have been a while since you have studied, we understand that getting back
into the swing of it can be difficult. Therefore, we are emailing with some further
tips to help you with your upcoming Academic Readiness Assessment to ensure you are
putting the necessary steps in place to pass.
Here are some tips to help improve your study skills:
• Ensure that you read the assignment guidance carefully and that you
address all the points.
• To do well in your discussion forum, your posts will need to have a
sound structure. A good post will have a beginning, middle and end, otherwise known
as your introduction, main body and conclusion. Even though each post is not as
long as an essay, we should still be structuring our arguments in this way. We
should think about our posts like this:
Introduction
This is where you will introduce the point or points you want to discuss in your
post. You may also want to give some context here about why you are discussing
these and their relevance.
Main body
Here, you will discuss your points in further detail. You will also include some
evidence from your wider reading to give your work credibility and help you
demonstrate your points.
Conclusion
Here you can sum up your main points and what you have learnt from your
research.
Follow up question
As part of a discussion, it’s a good idea to ask a follow-up question. You need to
make sure that this question animates the discussion, therefore, you should avoid
yes or no questions. Maybe you could ask for people’s opinion of what you have
read? Perhaps you could discuss something you learnt from your research? The choice
is yours; you just need to ensure that you keep the debate going.
• You will also need to be aware of the referencing expectations of your
programme. When using external sources in your work, you must reference these
accordingly to demonstrate where you have found this information. You do this by
using a referencing style. The styles can vary across programmes so you will find
more information about this in the Academic Integrity Workshop in Study Skills
Hub.
• Alongside your correct references, you need to practise incorporating
information into your posts by using direct quotations, paraphrasing and
summarising.
• To clarify, paraphrasing is taking the words of the original source and
restating them using your own vocabulary. In this way, you keep the meaning of the
original text but do not copy its exact wording. Even though paraphrasing uses your
own words, you must still include a citation to show where you found the
information.
• Summarising is similar to paraphrasing in that it involves taking the
information from the original text and rephrasing it in your own words. However,
with summarising, students should look at a paragraph as a whole, extract the main
ideas and then write their own thoughts on the topic in their own words.
• Quoting is taking the words directly from the source and using them
word-for-word in your assignment. Quotations should always have “quotation marks”
around all the words directly from the source and a citation to show where that
quotation can be found. Only 10-15% of your work should be made up of quotations as
the tutor wants to read your thoughts on the ideas, rather than a collection of
thoughts from another author.
• You can read more about this and practice your paraphrasing,
summarising and referencing by visiting the Plagiarism and Referencing sectionin
the Study Skills Hub.
• When it comes to utilising third-party chatbot services such as
ChatGPT, it is imperative to exercise caution and uphold academic integrity. The
responsible use of these resources, in accordance with the university's AI and
academic guidelines, is crucial to avoid any potential academic offences, including
plagiarism.
1. Finally, you will need to write in clear and coherent English. The
University of Essex Online has a very diverse student population, for many of whom
English is not their first language. We understand that it can be difficult to
start academic study in a language that is not your native tongue, however, we do
have support available for these students and with regular practice and contact
with academic texts, this will improve throughout your course. Students who are
seeking support in this area can contact the Study Skills Team.
Please know that you can get in touch with the Study Skills Team at any point
throughout your course to help you build the essentials skills to be a successful
student. To contact the team, you can find our contact details here. You should
also familiarise yourself with the Study Skills Hub where you will find lots of
useful resources to help you improve your academic study skills as you progress
with your course.
Finally, we’d like to wish you the best of luck with your Academic Readiness
Assessment and your future studies with us.