Key study skills
for postgraduate taught students
Jenni Rodd
Faculty Tutor, PGT
j.rodd@ucl.ac.uk
…with thanks to Rachel Benedyk
Today's Objectives
• Thinking about reading
• Structuring your writing
• Avoiding plagiarism
Why do we read?
Do you always know exactly why you are
reading something?
• Overview of new topic
• Looking for specific information
• Looking for other sources to read
How do we read?
• Skimming
• Rapid
• Detailed
Think of a study situation when you would
apply each of these types of reading
What do we read?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Journal articles
Textbooks
Other books
Directed reading
Suggested reading
What do your lecturers/colleagues read?
• Internet?
Reading resources
Read the internet?
• Think of one study example where the
internet would be a good source of reading
material, and one where it would be a bad
source.
Managing your reading
Time is precious!
• Choose your reading very carefully
• Always be reading something
• Usually take notes
• Ask questions:
– “Why am I reading this?”
– “Is it worth reading?”
– “Does this make sense?”
– “Would I have done that?”
– “What is the ‘message’?”
Critical Evaluation During Reading
Never accept anything a face value:
• Is the logic of the argument flawed?
• Are there alternative explanations of data?
• Are there other experiments that need to be
done?
• Are there factors that haven’t been controlled?
• Are the right questions being asked?
Structuring your writing
Writing is hard
• Factual stuff is easy
– this academic stuff is hard!
• Who are you telling?
• the lecturer? (probably not)
• a fellow student? a friend?
All Writing has a Message
•
•
•
•
What is your Message?
Never deviate from the message
Remember the order of information the reader will need
Don’t include stuff irrelevant to the message
***avoid ‘everything I know’ writing***
The message might be:
– “The answer to this question is definitely X”
But more likely:
– “The answer is probably X, but we need more evidence to be sure”
Or even:
– “We don’t know the answer to this question yet, because …”
• Don’t be afraid to offer an opinion backed up by a
convincing argument
Beginning writing
• Lots of ways…
– What is the main message?
– Group and order everything you know to convey this
message.
• Don’t be afraid to throw away and start again
• Don’t view rewriting as ‘failure’
• Do you need to know what you are going to say before you
start writing?
***** Practise! *****
• You have to practise
• Write often
• Get feedback often
– I would NEVER submit work without asking someone else to read it
first
• Read and criticise often
– Reading the work of others improves our writing
Academic writing style should be
clear and simple!
Consider:
Don’t leave yourself open to accusations of having a
tendency of building redundancy into your written work.
You would probably be well advised to take extreme care
not to use many more words than are strictly necessary;
that kind of writing behaviour is of no use to anybody and,
because it is highly superfluous, will not encourage the
people who read your words to be overly impressed.
• Be concise 
• Avoid complicated jargon – never try to sound ‘clever’
Useful Books and Links
• M. Cutts, “Plain English Guide”
• Strunk & White, “The Elements of Style”
• On-Line English Grammar
http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/index.cf
m
• Advice on academic writing
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice
• Frequently found faults in students’ written work an interactive illustrative site from another
university:
http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/business/bsadmin/
staff/s3/fff.htm
• Critical reading towards critical writing
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/reading-andresearching/critical-reading
• Take a look at this site, and I recommend you
download the “marked assignment.doc” from the
Assessment Material section
http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/business/bsadmin/
staff/s3/jamr.htm#Reading%20techniques
Avoiding plagiarism
Plagiarism
What is it?
• the passing off of another person's work as if it were your
own
How can it happen?
• most frequently occurs as the copying, word for word, of
parts of a published or unpublished work without any form
of acknowledgement
• copying another student’s work
• recycling your own work from a previous assignment
• employing a ghostwriter to produce work for you
• using someone else's ideas without citing them
It is still plagiarism even if….
• the work copied has not been published
• you’ve altered the odd word here or there
Collusion
What about group assignments?
• you must produce your own, independent write-up
• if you use the same data set, then each student must
conduct their own analysis and draw their own conclusions
from the shared data
• if in doubt, ask for clarification before doing any work
Will you get caught?
• It’s REALLY easy to spot it!!
– Your lecturers have read the books you are likely to be
reading (and the work of your fellow students!) and will
recognise copied passages
– Changes in style of writing (from your words to those of
another author) are easy to spot
– Anything you find on the web will pop up if we type it
into google!!
– A sophisticated detection system (Turnitin®) scans
work for evidence of plagiarism
• access to billions of sources worldwide
(websites, journals previously submitted coursework)
What are the consequences?
• If plagiarism is detected
– you may have to explain yourself to a university panel
– the piece of work will normally be given 0%
– the matter will be noted on your student file.
Good work practices
• DO NOT leave things to the last minute
– pressure will tempt you to skip corners
– start writing as soon as possible
– make sure you understand the assignment
• DO NOT write essays with the relevant
sources open in front of you
• DO learn how to cite and quote work
correctly
Quoting
Direct quotes should be used sparingly
• one or two at most
• use only because the original is so exquisitely beautiful
• too often suggests you do not understand the material
Direct quotes should be wrapped in quotation marks,
followed by citation and page numbers, eg:
As Young states, the assumption “reflects real cross
relationships between the judgments about choices made
by a person, and cannot be avoided … the reality is that
people are often forced to make rapid and radical revisions
of their estimates of the correctness of particular options
as they work their way through [the options available]”
(Young, 1998, p. 474).
The Reference Section
Referencing is a common source of error in student
work
• make sure you get it right
• sloppiness gives the impression you do not care
• learn how to reference properly
Referencing is different for different sources
• http://www.apastyle.org/faqs.html covers
everything including books, journal articles,
websites, interviews etc
Main Points
(my three messages!)
• Your time is valuable, so make sure that all
reading has a specific purpose
• Academic writing is VERY hard, but gets
easier with practice and feedback
• Plagiarism is a serious issue and must be
avoided!
Any questions?
Any suggestions from your own experience?