Academic Skills

One of my very weak spots in university is that I am not up to the Distinction* standard of exams or essays. There could be many reasons for this, yet I suspect it has something to do with only one lesson on writing an essay that I can recall. Taught to me in 2003, once, and never had any following lessons or corrections. Reports were never covered and I fuddle my way through exams by trying to put down as much correct information as possible.
This is no longer acceptable for me.

Here I shall list some sites recommended by the ANU and a few other sites I have browsed.

Preparing for Exams: A page on preparing for exams. This site is highly annoying and changes around a lot, so I hope they don't delete and move this page elsewhere again.

Online Resources in general: The main page for the Academic skills centre. Sadly, a lot of it leads to dead ends or errors.

Courses: Information on courses for helping a person, alas most of the undergraduate ones again lead to dead ends. Hopefully this site will be up and working by the first week of the semester.

This site promises to be very useful. I found the old version to be of great help. I do hope they can finish fixing it up and put all their information up...at least their contact details so I can get into contact about the courses!

UniLearning: This site has the basics on writing essays, reports, effective writing, note taking and a few other helpful titbits. It breaks down the structure of the essays and reports, then explains why each part is needed. An example is the Structure of a Scientific Report.

Past Exam Papers: This is only accessible to members and students of ANU, but it is a collection of past exam papers so that students can get an idea of the type of questions.
Annoyingly, last year none of my classes has past exam papers for us to learn off. Hopefully this year will be different as I find them very useful for practice questions.

Alliance: This is a useful program for very large collaborations between students who may not be able to meet weekly/daily.

Study Guides and Study strategies: Information on useful study methods, note taking and memory tests.

Harvard Referencing: A site quick listing all that is needed to be known about referencing the Harvard way. Note to self: Different lecturers/tutors live different styles...but mainly they want you to be consistent.


*Distinction: The second highest mark available at ANU. Other marks, in order from lowest to highest are; Pass, Credit, Distinction, High Distinction

I am a credit average, but to be a honours student in 2011 I either need to be a Distinction average, or for the honours supervisor to believe I am suitable and enthusiastic for one of their topics (dasyurid marsupials and ecology!).