Academic skills

Academic skills

The course is about Academic skills. These sills are very important for students who wish to learn. They help improve the students reading, writing and organizational skills. This course is very appealing to me because I want to enhance my academic qualifications for a better future. The course will increase the research skills of the students so that they can organize and prepare much better reports. The research of information of other professionals and using them to support your story is a significant part of this course. It was my understanding that all the data can be used without any verification by the course has changed my perception.

The start of the course we learnt a lot about plagiarism, citing and referencing. I learnt that I could not pass on someone else’s research and information as my own. This will be plagiarism or in common words stealing. You can use the data, but you will have to paraphrase it into your own words. Citing and referring is also a newly learnt skill as you have to give the credit where it is due. When research or information is used, it should be cited so that the source of information is established. The data from sources which have not the background or credible sources cannot be trusted. Turnitin is a platform that has a wide variety of sources, and you can check the plagiarism of your report. It compares your work with the other sources like website, books, journals etc. and reports you about the amount of plagiarism found. Quoting phrases or sayings without any alternation is allowed. There are different styles of referencing the sources, but the most common style is the Harvard referencing style.

Harvard style is the most commonly used referencing style, but it is not the only one. I learnt that the Vancouver referencing style is also very important. The Harvard style is usually represented by the author’s name and date. The Vancouver style is also known as a more economical referencing style. This is commonly referred to as the author number style. The style uses numbers to indicate the particular references. The two styles will be very useful for the reporting skills that I will acquire in the academic skills course. The referencing styles to dedicate to the original source is a good way to give credit where it is due.

The reporting methods are very useful, but they cannot be used effectively without good listening skills. Listening has been emphasized a lot as it can help in taking notes after listening to the teacher. During the course, it was emphasized that note-taking is very important as it can help reduce the study time and increase knowledge skills. Listening is very important as the teacher can sometimes highlight something that is not in the course material but is very useful to the student. I also realized that I could make notes more understandable by using bullets or roman numerals. The lecture explained very useful techniques called the Cornell method as it can divide the lecture into three parts. The body of the paper is the biggest as it contains all the relevant points, and the summary has an overview of the lecture. Listening is a must for taking notes as you can respond to the changes and developments by taking mental notes of the lecture.

The fifth lecture was all about verbal presentation skills. Presentation is very important in professional life. I knew that, but the basis of an effective presentation is learnt after this lecture. I was not aware of the importance of facing the audience. I am very shy in nature, but in the lecture, I learnt about the importance of convincing the audience with confidence. The presentation must be interesting to engage the audience and not boring. The presentation must be filled with content and use pictures to keep the audience interested. The lecture informed about techniques to convert my nervousness into enthusiasm. The use of body language was not understood as clearly before the lecture. The importance of making eye contact, moving around, and body gestures are important parts of body language while presenting. The group activity helped me with my confidence level and made the presentation much more fun.

The course of academic skills also cleared my thinking related to the oral presentation. The importance, structure and elements that are related to the oral presentation were discussed by the lecturer. The video clip was shown to develop a better understanding of oral skills. The lecture very clearly stated the different elements that should be considered in order to improve oral skills. Planning, preparation, practice and performance were explained with context to the previous lectures. Oral speaking a basic academic skill so this lecture was very helpful in highlighting the weaknesses in the students so they can improve them in the future.

One of the best things of the course was that every weak the lectures used to recap the skilled study that was presented last week. The eight weak of the course explained the key support for the students and the resources that were offered at the university to the students. The course outlined the support staff that were present to help the students study smartly. Physical books and online resources were also explained by the lecturer. It is very important to use the resources smartly for making an impact on the presentation. The canteen can also be used for discussions with other students to exchange ideas about academic skills.

The course and its presentation every week have been very useful to me to realize the actual lack of skills in my personality. The course very effectively explains the methods that can be used to boost academic skills. From the collection of information to presentation in an interesting manner has been briefed by the teachers were precise. The additional sources offered are also very useful to make notes related to verbal presentation and good use of body language.