On this page are things which will be useful to students (most of the rest of this website aims to help teaching staff make your learning better). Most of the extracts below have been adapted from two of my study-skills books: ‘How to Study’ and ‘How to Get a Good Degree’.
Writing Avoidance Tactics
You’ll have your own collection of these! Assignment late? Essay behind schedule? This little download lets you see the variety of reasons why people don’t manage to write things! Maxine Alterio works in New Zealand and is a best-selling fiction author as well as a lecturer.
excuses_1.zip (1054 downloads)
Managing your time, and getting started on a task
This is an extract from ‘How to Study’, and should help you become more efficient and get over some of the work avoidance tactics you may have!
managing_your_time_1.zip (1239 downloads)
Getting your referencing right
In academic writing, you can lose a lot of marks simply by not being exactly right when referring to others’ work and quoting from your sources. This extract from ‘How to Study’ should help.
referencing1.zip (1074 downloads)
Building on feedback
An adapted extract from the 2nd edition ‘How to Get a Good Degree’ (2007, Open University Press) which can help you to benefit more from feedback.
building_on_feedback_2008-1.zip (1631 downloads)
Make a good question bank as you study
This extract from ‘How to Study’ is about paving your way to good exam results, and planning forward to make revision effective, efficient, and much less boring.
Making-and-using-question-banks-w-1.docx (1108 downloads)
Take charge of your revision!
Do you realise that your whole lifestyle and career prospects can be at stake when it comes to choosing sensible revision strategies? This extract from ‘How to Get a Good Degree’ should help you make the right choices now.
revision_1.zip (1069 downloads)
Refresh your exam technique
Your next set of exams could be the most important in your life! You’ll already have your way of going about exams, but every little improvement helps, and following the suggestions in these downloads may make all the difference to you. And good luck! Here are three collections of practical suggestions.
The first is on building really useful revision tools: question banks, so you can prepare for just about anything that might come up in an exam.
Next are some suggestions for how best to spend the first few minutes of any written exam: doing sensible things right at the start can pave the way towards much better marks.
Finally, are some suggestions about how best to go about the main task: writing answers to exam questions, and using your wits to squeeze every available mark from whoever is marking your script.
Making-and-using-question-banks-w-1-1.docx (940 downloads)
First-few-minutes-of-an-exam-w.docx (977 downloads)
Answering-questions-to-maximise-your-marks-w-1.docx (984 downloads)
Managing Disappointments
This is about any kind of disappointment. Several readers have told me that the following advice proved helpful when they were confronted with a serious disappointment. I hope you never need this advice!
Disappointments1.zip (1081 downloads)