It’s been an amazing journey for the last 3 months, and I can’t say enough how much I’ve enjoyed my time as an intern. Through it all, I’ve learnt a lot and improved my skills in web design, as well as having learnt a lot about Customer Engagement, a field of work I never fully understood before this role.
I’ve met so many people and I feel like I’ve had a chance to get to know a little of everything that happens in the Library. It’s amazing how much goes on behind the scenes to bring the fantastic experience we get as students at the University of Hull, and I appreciate it more having seen behind the curtain.
Well, it feels like a whole bunch of stuff. I’ve done research into Customer Engagement Strategies, delivered presentations on the same, helped edit SkillsGuides, gave my input on a wide range of stuff to help the Library have a student perspective. I’ve helped design and run Usability Testing sessions and fixed bugs or improved aspects of the Library website.
I’ve also done some less easily defined things, like learning how a workplace works, making connections, and speaking to a wide variety of people working in different roles so that I can get an insight into what they do. I think these skills will really help me in my job search and future careers.
Speaking of, what’s next?
Well, I’m hoping to continue now to get an IT job in another University (or academic library) somewhere in London, where I live. As fun as it’s been to work remote, I’m excited to learn how to work in a physical workplace and everything that comes with that, including interacting with and directly helping customers. Wherever I end up though, I’m planning on keeping in touch with the amazing people I’ve met during my internship here.
Well, my internship adventure has now come to an end and I’m writing this after saying all my goodbyes. This has gone very fast the past three months only feel like a few weeks, but it has been a great learning experience for me. I have learned new things got to build on my experience as a copywriter and met some nice people along the way.
If you are a former student and considering an internship at the university I would highly recommend it. You will have a great time whilst also gaining valuable experience in your chosen field.
My Journey
My Internship first began back in August where I was nervously and excitedly pondering where the journey would take me. The first couple of weeks was just about getting to know the basics. Then I really started to get into my job role which was to write and adapt the digital skills course for students. If you want to know more about how this went check out my previous post at the halfway point of my journey.
I have now come to the end of the road I have finished all the content I was writing for the digital skills course. I overcame a few obstacles and actually exceeded my expectations in terms of how much work I completed. Over the course of the university year, you will all get to see my work published on the library blog and hopefully it will be both informative and enjoyable. As I planned with the help of my supervisor Lee the course is delivered in a different format to how similar courses have been delivered so as to hopefully be more engaging for students.
Goodbye and thank you
I would just like to thank all the staff I’ve worked with as well as my fellow interns, and my supervisor Lee whom I previously mentioned. I will now probably consider taking a taking a couple of weeks off before I get into job searching for copyright work in the London area. Although I’m not ruling out the possibility of working with the university again at a later date. Goodbye and thank you for the experience.
Stella Cottrell thinks so. Cottrell is the author of Mindfulness for Students (2018) which isn’t only a book explaining what mindfulness is and how it can be useful, but it’s also full of exercises which can help you learn how to be mindful.
What do you think of when you hear the term “being mindful”?
You may scoff thinking it’s some mumbo jumbo about meditation and spiritual healing. You wouldn’t be wrong, it is to do with meditation, but there is a reason mindfulness has been practiced throughout the world for at least 2500 years. It helps build your awareness and makes you more focussed. It can teach you techniques to help you in stressful situations and prevent you from becoming overwhelmed. These techniques can also help with productivity, therefore can be very helpful for students.
Cottrell simplifies it by not simply telling you but showing you by having you do an exercise – something we will do at the end of this post. For now, I’ll tell you this, to experience mindfulness first you must stop. Stop moving, stop doing and simply be in the moment. Take time out of your day, even if it’s five minutes to do nothing but be aware of your surroundings, your mind and body.
To become mindful, you are asked to simply observe, but this doesn’t mean you must stop thinking. As we know this is almost impossible, and a misconception of mindfulness and meditation. You don’t need to stop thinking but become aware of your thoughts. For example, if you were sat listening to your surroundings and thoughts emerged, you acknowledge them and then refocus on your listening.
As I previously said, the techniques you learn as you become more mindful not only help with your mental wellbeing, but also your productivity. You learn how to refocus your attention, not become as easily distracted and enjoy your studies. Yes, enjoy them.
Firstly, you want to start every day mindfully. Don’t worry this is incredibly simple and you will no doubt forget to do it sometimes to begin with but creating a new habit can take time. Be persistent and don’t get annoyed with yourself for forgetting. Just tell yourself you’ll remember next time and be proud of yourself for doing so.
At the beginning of each day, you want to do a meditation or mindfulness exercise, like sitting concentrating on your breathing or listening to your surroundings for 5-10 minutes. If you are unable to do this, you can bring the exercise to an activity such as brushing your teeth or even as you travel to campus. When doing this exercise set the tone of the day, what will you be doing and what do you want to get out of your day. By doing this first thing you are more likely to continue having this mindset throughout the day.
Speaking of the structure of your day, try and set time aside for meditation and/or mindfulness exercises. Again, this could be simply doing a 5-minute breathing exercise to help your concentration. It is also advised to do these before lectures and study sessions. If you’re self-conscious about doing this in public, you could go to the chapel in Larkin or find a quiet place away from crowded areas.
When it comes to your study time you can also learn how to have a mindfulness approach to this time.
As first years we are, usually, eager to get started and excited about our studies, but as we realise how tough our studies can be at times our relationship with them may change and become more negative. We want to change our relationship with studying and how we think – yes this is still about being mindful. Being mindful, as I’ve said previously is becoming more aware of our thoughts and feelings and asking ourselves why we may feel negatively at times. Change how you communicate about studying.
Do you have an essay coming up that you’d rather not write? Before you start your assignment why not sit for a moment and think about how this could be enjoyable. Is the topic something you’re interested in, have you enjoyed learning about specific things related to it, what are they? Does this essay relate to something you want to do in future? Try not to divert from your assignment by daydreaming about the future though, set a 5-minute timer and allow yourself this space to feel positive about the assignment. You’ll find yourself enjoying your study time a lot more if you go into it positively.
Continue learning how to be mindful
I have only touched the surface of mindfulness in this post, but I hope you have found something useful here. If you wish to learn more about how mindfulness can help your studies, I highly recommend Stella Cottrell’s book, Mindfulness for Students. It is full of exercises you can do to help with studying.
A mindful exercise
Set a timer for 5-minutes.
Close your eyes and smile gently to loosen your face muscles, then relax your face.
Bring your awareness to any sounds you hear, don’t describe them just notice them.
If you notice your mind beginning to wander, try not to get irritated or annoyed, simply bring your awareness back to what you hear.
When the timer goes off, open your eyes, stand up and stretch.
Now you can go about the rest of your day. Have a good one and remember to stay hydrated.
Being away from home for the first time and having to juggle academic life, relationships, socials, and finances can be daunting. Some students thrive but others may need a helping hand. Many of our Library staff are trained Mental Health First Aiders so please reach out to one of us if you are feeling overwhelmed. We can give you our time, useful advice and direct you to specialist services in case you need extra support within the University or further afield.
The University Library can be a busy and bustling place however it also hosts areas of peace and quiet contemplation. In the corner of the Reading Room on the first floor, you will find our Switch off Zone. This is an area with comfy chairs, a peaceful view, mindfulness colouring books and word searches to complete at your leisure. It’s a place to switch off your devices and simply relax for a while. No need to book, please just settle in and unwind.
Nestled alongside the Switch off Zone is a collection of books aimed at supporting your mental health. The Reading Well collection includes books on managing stress, grief, shyness, depression, eating disorders and insomnia among many others. These titles can be borrowed just like everything else, please check them out using the self-service machines within the Reading Room.
Finally, please ask for help if you are struggling with any area of your student life. All of the Library staff are easily identifiable by their yellow lanyards and are happy to signpost and support in any way they can.
As it’s approaching Halloween I thought it appropriate to theme this week’s post on digital wellbeing and some of the fears that may be caused by the digital world. Namely stress and anxiety which may sometimes feel as if it is coming out of nowhere (a bit like a flying pumpkin), but is likely in part due to our developments in the digital world. Whilst technology has many major benefits there are some downsides when it comes to our mental wellbeing.
Distraction
Problem
One of the biggest impacts on our digital wellbeing is our phone usage the persistent messages and notifications mean that we are constantly distracted by continuously checking our phones. A UK study found that we unlock our phones roughly 85 times a day, and use them for about five hours each day. This means we are unable to focus our attention and consolidate things into our memory, causing us to feel more and more ‘goldfish-like, which can be quite distressing in itself.
Solution
So how can we avoid this? The most obvious choice is to turn off your phone although this can be difficult for some people and you may need to keep your phone on if you have responsibility for other people. So if you can’t turn off your phone there are ways you can minimize these distractions. You can temporarily hide your notifications by turning on do not disturb in the iPhone Control Centre or on an Android device by going to Digital Wellbeing and parental controls turning on Focus mode. Here are some instructions for how to do this on those devices. There will be similar instructions available online for other devices.
Another important aspect of our digital wellbeing is our usage of phones at bedtime. You get into bed intending to go to sleep, but you just want to check your phone to find out something unimportant like tomorrow’s weather or scroll through your feed. Then an hour later, there you are watching a totally random video about monkeys. Looking at our phones when we should be sleeping over-stimulates our brains, making it harder just to switch off, and exposes us to blue light from the screen. Research suggests that blue screen exposure can reduce melatonin production, which interrupts our circadian rhythm (sleep-waking cycles), making it harder for us to fall, and stay, asleep. Unfortunately, poor sleep tends to mean poorer resilience and higher levels of anxiety and stress.
Solution
The best solution as before is to turn your phone off and maybe do something else before bed like reading a book. However, if you really need to keep it on you can adjust your phone’s lighting using Bedtime Mode (Android) or as previously mentioned Do Not Disturb (iPhone).
While in the past there was often a clear boundary between where work-life ended, and home life began… this area is now very much grey. This may not be as much of a problem when you are a student but is something you must be aware of when entering the working world. Most of you will have your work emails on your phones meaning you are constantly available and contactable. This makes it very difficult for us to ever truly disengage from work and relax.
Solution
Appoint a gatekeeper. Don’t have the willpower to self-regulate? Appoint a loved one as a technology gatekeeper. If you’re really struggling
This is a more expensive option, you could consider getting two separate devices. One device is dedicated to work the other for your free time.
F.O.M.O
Problem
Fear Of Missing Out is essentially a type of social anxiety that arises from the fear that you are missing out on something; maybe an event, work or social opportunity, a communication, a connection, or just something that you might like be a part of. So we want to be connected ‘just in case’. Many people probably have considered leaving social media but the majority decide not to, because of FOMO. Ironically, the more connected we are, the more likely we are to experience FOMO because it is often caused by the posts we see on social media sites like Facebook. This leads us to believe our friends and acquaintances are having exciting and/or interesting experiences in our absence.
Solution
Relish feeling out of the loop. Great things will sometimes happen when you aren’t out there and sometimes you’re not invited. But you are likely missing out on way more boring things than exciting. You just have to admit that sometimes you will miss out like everyone else and sometimes it’s nice just to have moments to yourself
Take a break from social media. Try staying offline for a day, a week, or maybe even a month and it will likely put in perspective what is really important. You will realize life is much the same only you are less worried about what other people are doing. If you wanted you could even go as far deleting you social media apps but that’s up to you.
Use software to prevent FOMO. There are Apps available such as Forest for iOS, Space for Android, RescueTime for Windows, or SelfControl for Mac. All these generate reports to help you see just how much time they spend online and set time limits. Most phones already have inbuilt features for checking screen time as you can see.
We can’t help but compare ourselves to others, and social comparison theory suggests that we use these comparisons to evaluate how we think and feel about ourselves. Social Media, encourages this, as it is full of information that can be used to rank our apparent social success (e.g. friends, likes, shares, followers).
These metrics are problematic because if we don’t get enough likes on something we post, or if someone has more likes or friends than us, it can make us feel inferior especially if one day you get a load of likes then the next barely any. It’s almost like you think you are getting a treat with all those likes but in fact, it’s a trick. Furthermore, the disparity between real life and what people post on social media means that we often see an extremely edited ‘highlight reel’ of people’s lives. This links back to FOMO with this false impression that others lead a more interesting life than yours but in reality, it has its ups and downs as it does for everyone.
Solution
We previously talked about limiting time spent online but there are more ways to prevent social comparison. Here are some boundaries you can put in place to protect yourself:
Unfollow any accounts that make you feel bad about yourself.
Set a timer that lets you scroll for 30 minutes. When time is up, step away.
Turn off your phone when you’re with your family and friends.
Don’t feel obligated to reply to every comment and message
When you feel a need to check social media, ask yourself why. Are you bored, uncomfortable or seeking affirmation?
I hope this has provided some useful information about your digital wellbeing and given you some helpful solutions to many of these issues. if you have time why not watch this video which explains many of the ways you can optimise your phone for your digital wellbeing.
Writing skills allow you to communicate clearly with others, share ideas and create useful resources. Even if your subject area or profession doesn’t focus solely on writing you will likely still require a certain level of written communication expertise. Today we’ll discuss the writing skills that we have experience in based on our studies and how these could be important for you.
Research and Planning
By John Weightman
Whether you’re writing a book or a short essay planning can make all the difference. You should start with just a rough skeleton that maps out the order of your overarching thoughts. Next, go through each thought and start outlining the sub-elements. The idea is to focus on breadth before depth. If you focus too much on any given section of your writing, it’ll be harder to rearrange it later if you realize there’s a better way to structure the document. Properly planning any piece of writing before you begin provides a few key benefits:
Improves the structure and flow of your writing.
Organises your thoughts.
Cuts down on thinking-time when writing.
The best way to improve your planning skills is to develop an iterative approach.
In addition to planning in any academic writing knowing how to reference is incredibly important. It demonstrates the depth of your research and acknowledges other people’s work. It ensures that you avoid plagiarism by making it clear which ideas are yours as well as showing your understanding of the topic. There are many ways to reference depending on both the source and the referencing style most of which are discussed in the University Skills Guides and will be fully covered in a later blog post.
Writing skills for STEM
By Codey McShane
For students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses, it can sometimes seem like you don’t need to spend much time on your writing skills because they might not be as directly related to the work you’re doing. Whether it’s writing a research paper or creating technical documentation, the ability to express your thoughts through writing is an important skill even in the most technical of fields.
Within these fields, you’ll be required to write with clarity, ease and without jargon to prevent miscommunication (Google Developers, 2021). When writing, you should be aware of your audience and tailor your communication to their level of knowledge about the subject.
Developing your writing skills may also improve your critical thinking and problem-solving techniques. In STEM you’ll find yourself dealing with complex ideas and information – being able to break that information down and then evaluate or convey it to others is more difficult than learning the information in the first place. Developing your writing skills will improve your overall ability to communicate. (Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007)
So, writing a blog about a blog
By David Moore
Writing blogs in my experience expresses to the reader the importance of creation, that being a story, a game or animation. This shows the development of creation and the journey of the creator, such as, where they may have gained inspiration and learnt new skills/ techniques. Without writing skills and creativity a blog would be a bland description of the designer’s day to day activities. Writing skills are important to help the reader understand what the writer is entailing, to show their point of view and expression to their piece of work. Without writing skills, you would not be able to provide clear communication, understanding or development to a project or share your own point of view with others.
Reflective Writing
By Joanna Rawnsley
Being able to reflect on your work is crucial to all academics, be it writing a reflective journal about your creative process, a blog about your research and how it’s helped you progress, or a commentary on a group task you did in a lab. You will always be learning from your previous work and using your experience to help you in future tasks. It’s not only crucial in writing heavy subjects such as English and History, but practical ones like the Sciences and Performing Arts.
Reflective writing makes you look at your work through a critical lens, this doesn’t mean writing in your assessments “my work is rubbish.” It means looking at your strengths and weaknesses, where did you go wrong and what would you do differently next time. It’s not all negative though! Maybe you achieved a great grade on an assessment after using techniques you learnt in class, this can also be a part of your reflection.
Reflective writing helps you understand yourself better and recognise any necessary changes you need to make in your techniques.
Google Developers (2021) Overview of technical writing courses | Technical Writing [online]. Available at: https://developers.google.com/tech-writing/overview [Accessed: 15 September 2021].
Quitadamo, I. & Kurtz, M. (2007) Learning to Improve: Using Writing to Increase Critical Thinking Performance in General Education Biology. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 6(2), 140-154.
Canvas is the University of Hull’s virtual learning environment (VLE) and it is used to support you in completing your course. The site provides you with access to your grades, module materials, resources and files as well as allowing you to send messages. It is also where you will submit the majority of your assignments. Canvas is also available as an app and if you need help with anything just email help@hull.ac.uk with your problem.
Accessing Canvas
On-campus PCs
Log on to an open access PC anywhere on campus. Next, open the browser and select Canvas VLE from the homepage, it will automatically log you into Canvas and your dashboard will be displayed.
Laptops and off-campus PCs
Open a browser and go to canvas.hull.ac.uk. After this, you will then be asked to sign in using your 6-digit University of Hull username and password.
Mobile Devices
Simply search for Canvasin your app store and select the Canvas Student app. It will then ask for your school where you will type the University of Hull and it will take you to the Single Sign-On Service. Login here with your 6-digit username and password.
Using Canvas
Canvas provides its own Student Guide which will tell you almost everything you need to know. The University has also created guides on using Canvas which you can view as part of the Skills Guides but I will briefly go over some aspects of Canvas now.
Assignments
Probably the most important aspect of Canvas is for submitting assignments. When starting a new module you can view your assignments using the Assignments tab. This will take you to the page listing all of the assignments for your module. You can see when they are due and all of the information required for the assignment. The Canvas Student Guide and the University Skills Guides provide you with full instructions on submitting your assignments.
Profile and Notifications
You can adjust your Notification Preferences via the Settings link. This will ensure that you are kept up to date on everything happening in your courses. It’s also possible to add more information to your profile such as an image or other contact details. This isn’t necessary but it is a useful way to recognise other students and academic staff,
Navigation
When logging in you will first see The Dashboard which will help you see what is happening in all your courses. You can also control the courses you see on your dashboard by:
Clicking Courses on the Canvas navigation panel
Clicking All courses at the bottom
Clicking the star beside the name of a course to add or remove it from your Dashboard
The Global Navigation Menu (pictured to the left) is also useful for navigating and is located on the left side of every page in Canvas. The Global Navigation links provide quick access to frequently used Canvas features.
University email
All students and staff have a University email account and it is important to regularly check this account as your tutors, the University, and sometimes other students will use it to contact you. If you are a new student and do not have an account for some reason you can go to the university help desk on-site at the university and they should be able to help. Alternatively, you could also let the university know of your issue via the support portal.
Accessing your university email
On-campus PCs
Log on to an open access PC anywhere on campus. Open the Chrome browser and select email from the homepage. The sign-in page will open and then you can use your 6-digit username and password to sign in. It should remember this after the first time.
Laptops and off-campus PCs
Open a browser and go to mail.hull.ac.uk. Then simply sign in as before and again it should remember you.
Mobile devices
If you want, you can add your university email account to your mobile phone or Tablet. The Email User Guides on the ICT SharePoint will provide you with instructions based on your operating systems.
Email etiquette
Both as a student and in the workplace email etiquette is very important, so you should take care with how you write and use your email. Here are some useful tips:
Add a subject name and ensure it is meaningful.
Be concise and to the point no one wants to read an endless email
Don’t type in all capitals
If you receive an email sent to a group, don’t use Reply All unless you really need everyone to see your reply.
Include a signature of your name with a contact number.
I hope this has been helpful especially for you first-year students. Be sure to check out next week’s article on the JISC digital capabilities tool.
This blog post revisits one of our most popular Twitter threads of the year. Now you can read the same content in a convenient article format. Yay.
Why can’t we always buy what you need? How much do eBooks cost? How do we work with you? Sit tight – we’re going to answer a lot of questions and share some shocking figures about how much resources cost!
We talk to Faculties and @HullUniUnion a lot. We find their input massively helpful, and we also talk to students and academics as part of our commitment to deliver excellent customer service.
We talk to our users often (especially with big projects like redesigning our Library Search); you may even be one of the people we’ve spoken to. If so, cheers! ANYWAY >>
We have been talking to a lot of people who say they found it annoying when we have paper copies of books instead of eBooks. I can get them on the Kindle, they say; they’re only £10. How come you can’t buy us enough eBooks?
We have to answer this question A LOT and often, we hear that we should get better at communicating the answer. So! We wanted to tell you why we can’t *always* get the volume of eBooks you need. You right now:
We know not everyone cares about the detail of how we buy things… But we like telling you things, we want to be open about how things work, and for those that are interested, here’s the situation… The tl;dr is: Publishers sell differently to us than they do to you.
So, first things first, we buy eBooks whenever we can. This is for obvious reasons – it’s easier to provide access to people who are not on campus if the book is online. We know some people much prefer printed books and we get that. We still buy thousands of print books too.
We can’t buy Kindle books. We can only buy eBooks that are licensed to universities. And not all of them are….
Some titles are only available to *individuals* as an eBook, and not to libraries. This is a choice the publisher has made. Some titles we simply cannot buy as eBooks.
Some titles we can buy as eBooks, and we do, but the price differences are eye-watering. Here are some examples. There’s a book that costs £40.00 on Kindle. eBook price for us (and it’s not an unlimited eBook, it’s max. 3 users at once)
£1,018.50
There’s another. It’s £32.52 on Kindle. The price to us, for 1 user? A mere £500. It was £167 when we first bought it, which is pricey enough. Then the publisher realized it was a popular eBook and increased the price for libraries.
There’s a book we need which costs £53.25. Quite a lot, right? To us, for an eBook – which only three of you can read at once: £662.
And there is the title that is £40 on Kindle, but we must pay £1,344 for 12-months of access. After a year the access ceases… unless we pay another £1,344! Or more because the publisher will probably increase the price.
Sometimes we just can’t do it. We simply cannot justify buying the eBook and end up buying multiple paper copies. A recent example: a 1 user eBook was £800. £800!
There are worse examples than this, but these are all Hull-specific examples from recent purchases.
Sometimes we get a credit model. We pay x hundred pounds; the eBook can be used 400 times. Then we pay the same amount again to top it back up when the 400 times are used up. *Sometimes* we’re not allowed to top it back up because the publisher has withdrawn it from eBook sale…
Sometimes we get a credit model. We pay x hundred pounds; the eBook can be used 400 times. Then we pay the same amount again to top it back up when the 400 times are used up. *Sometimes* we’re not allowed to top it back up because the publisher has withdrawn it from eBook sale…
This is so unbelievably frustrating for us, and even more so for you.
When you go to the shelf and the physical book isn’t there, it’s annoying but at least it makes some sort of sense.
When an eBook you read yesterday isn’t there today, it’s just maddening.
Anyway, this thread is long enough already, there’s some context for eBooks, paper copies, and all that stuff. If you’ve made it this far, WE APPRECIATE YOU.
What we’re saying is, we do absolutely everything we reasonably can to get you eBook access to everything you need. If you end up having to borrow physical copies, or you have to queue for the eBook, believe us when we say we tried everything to avoid you being in this situation!
We buy thousands of books a year (thousands!) and come across this problem many times a day. We’re trying as hard as we can to get you the resources you need. But we can only get what the publishers offer.
We hope you have found this insight helpful. We want our students to know we do everything we can to find solutions to your problems. Our Collections Admin team works tirelessly to get what you need – wherever possible!
We gave Hull examples but it’s happening everywhere. If you’re interested in this, we’d suggest you check out #ebookSOS (not least for some prices which are even wilder than the ones above) which is curating the wider conversation.
We’d also like to thank @UoYLibrary – this thread was their idea and we’re grateful they let us pick it up. We’ve changed it lots and added Hull-specific examples, but a lot of credit goes to them
Why can’t we always buy what you need? How much do eBooks cost? How do we work with you? Sit tight – we’re going to answer a lot of questions and share some shocking figures about how much resources cost! pic.twitter.com/IUX290U893
— Hull Uni Library (@HullUni_Library) May 10, 2021
The University Library is happy to be hosting four internships, providing four of our recent graduates with paid work experience. Our interns all started 23rd August and will be working with us for 12 weeks. They will be delivering defined projects, and we look forward to the energy and enthusiasm they will bring.
You can find out more about our new interns via our new University Library Blog over this week. Each of our interns have written an article to introduce themselves. Here is the publication schedule:
We asked our volunteers what their top study worries were at the start of their studies. This has helped us come up with this list to address your most common concerns!
Time management
Time management is an important part of university life, especially as it is your responsibility to ensure you manage your university deadlines, alongside your social life and other commitments. If you’ve come to university from school, 6th form or college, this can be quite overwhelming! To help you make the most of time, we’ve developed a full section on Time management in our Introduction to university study SkillsGuide.
Academic writing
Your first piece of written work at university can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. We have several SkillsGuides to help you including the writing academically and essay writing. If you’re stuck where to start, check out our seven top tips for writing academically.
Recommended reading
Reading is an essential part of all university courses, and it is one of the primary ways in which you can engage in self-directed learning. If you’re unsure what to read or where to start, you should check out the reading lists for each of your modules. These are linked in each module within Canvas, but can also be accessed directly via ReadingLists@Hull.
Searching for information
While ReadingLists@Hull is a great place to start, you need to eventually find your own material. This is a particularly important part of written assignments as you will require evidence to support the specific points you are making. The Library has an excellent range of Subject LibGuides that will help you find all the specialist resources we have in your area of study. This can be used alongside our SkillsGuide on Finding books and journals which will help you get the most out of your Subject LibGuide.
Referencing
Referencing can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. For advice on getting started or our full referencing guidelines, check out our Referencing your work SkillsGuide. Think of referencing guidelines as a set of important rules. Follow those rules, and you have nothing to worry about!
Notetaking
We like to think of ‘notetaking’ as ‘note-making’. This is because the most effective notes are not copies of what you have seen, read or heard. If you want to make the most of the notes you create, check out our Notetaking SkillsGuide.
Exams
Whoa! While it may seem a bit early to be worrying about exams, this does seem to be a concern for a lot of students. The important thing at this stage is that you realise your revision starts now. We don’t say this to panic you – just to make the point that ongoing effective notes are a great way to ensure you’re keeping on top of your learning. Check out our Notetaking SkillsGuide for now, and closer to the time you can use our Exams and revision SkillsGuide to make the most of your exam preparations.
Mental health
The University cares about your mental health and wellbeing. Through our Student Wellbeing Team and a range of external partners, we offer a whole range of services to support you. You can find all of these services on the Wellbeing and mental health pages.
