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The University Library's Skills Team provides a hybrid service with online and on-campus support.
The Skills Team can help you to develop academic and digital skills to support and enhance your studies and research. You can access their webpages here.
They offer online, telephone and email appointments. When you contact them, please mention that you are a London Study Centre student so that they can support you effectively.
Essential study skills
There are skills that every student needs to be effective and get the most out of their University experience.
The online SkillsGuides help you to develop your academic practices at your own pace. They are divided into categories:
- Study & learning
- Writing & assessment
- Technology & software
- Archives
- Research
You can search across all of the guides by using the search box at the top of the right-hand side of the main SkillsGuide page.
Highlighted SkillsGuides
Introduction to university study
The Introduction to university study SkillsGuide is a great place to start and as a refresher.
It covers areas such as how you are taught, independent study, time management, university assessments, and feedback.
Knowledge Management
Knowledge management is one of the University's competencies, and is integral to successful study and research.
You will find it useful to refer to the Knowledge management guide. It brings together the methods for sourcing, creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information needed for academic success.
Academic writing
Both at University and in the workplace, you need to be able to write in different styles for different audiences.
You may need to adapt your writing style for different assessments. The Skills Team have created a range of Writing and assessment guides to help you, including: writing academically; essay writing; critical writing; reflective writing; presentations; reports; and other types of assessments such as literature reviews.
There is also a Grammar resource to help with structure, punctuation, word choice, and academic language.
As your writing is informed by your reading, there is also a workshop and a resource called Reading camp to help you practice effectively using your reading in your writing.
Being critical
An aim of higher education is to create independent critical thinkers.
Critical thinking is a complex process that requires practice. Daily study activities, such as reading, listening, discussing, debating, reflecting and writing all contribute to helping you to develop as a critical thinker.
Before you can write critically, you need to read critically. Practice asking the “5 Ws and How”. These are: What? Where? Who? When? Why? and How?
The critical writing guide will help you with:
- Determining source reliability
- Managing your reading
- Analysing and evaluating arguments in the literature
- Dealing with alternative viewpoints
- Developing your own argument
Assessments
For the more common assessment types, we have specific guides such as the Essay writing, Academic presentations, Reflective writing and Exams and revision guides.
There are many other ways in which your knowledge and understanding may be assessed
The Other assessments guide gives advice on undertaking assignments that may be common in your discipline but do not fit into these standard types. It includes Reports, Case studies, Literature reviews, Research proposals, and Dissertations, and more.
