Welcome to the course
Welcome to this course on good academic practice. This is a course about effective referencing and the language we use to write at university.
This course will help you to understand the importance of referencing and how to use different referencing styles, helping you to develop the skills and confidence needed to produce good quality academic work.
It is ideal for students new to referencing, as well as being useful for students who have some experience of referencing, but need to develop a more in depth knowledge of referencing and how to use the styles available.
The course will also help you to think about how we learn to write and the kinds of language which is used in academic writing such as essays, reports and dissertations.
Completion time: 2 hours
The course is divided up into four main sections,
Why it's important to reference
- Understand why you need to reference
- Learn how to effectively engage with your sources, paraphrase and avoid plagiarism
Academic Language
- How do we learn to produce academic writing?
- How do academic writers use tentative language, reporting verbs and pronouns?
How to reference
- Select the referencing style you have been asked to use
- Find examples of citing in text and creating reference lists
- Access onlne tutorials
Using referencing software
- Find out about EndNote Online, it takes the hard work out of referencing and it's free to use while you're at University.
Good luck and don't worry, help is always available.
If you have any queries about the course, please contact the Academic Skills Centre at asc@contacts.bham.ac.uk.
Image from iStockPhoto, purchased for use by University of Birmingham.