Preface ...................................................... xiii
Acknowledgements .............................................. xiv
1 Starting out ................................................. 1
1.1 The transition to university life ....................... 2
1.2 How degrees are awarded ................................. 3
1.2.1 Modules .......................................... 4
1.2.2 Semesters ........................................ 4
1.2.3 Credits .......................................... 4
1.2.4 Degree classification ............................ 5
1.2.5 University standards ............................. 5
2 Your degree - preparation for a career ....................... 7
2.1 Skills for success ...................................... 7
2.1.1 Planning your study and leisure time ............. 8
2.1.2 How much work should I do? ...................... 10
2.1.3 Effective private study is an essential part
of your course because .......................... 10
2.1.4 Golden rule 1 - plan your time .................. 10
2.1.5 Golden rule 2 - use the time effectively ........ 11
2.1.6 And finally... the responsibility for learning
rests on you .................................... 11
2.2 Help! .................................................. 11
2.2.1 Where else can you ask for help? ................ 12
2.3 Personal Development Portfolios ........................ 13
2.3.1 Why should you keep a PDP? ...................... 13
2.3.2 How to keep a PDP ............................... 14
3 How to learn in a university setting ........................ 17
3.1 The learning process: "deep" and "surface" learning .... 17
3.2 Individual study-how do students learn? ................ 18
3.2.1 Where to study? ................................. 18
3.2.2 When to study? .................................. 18
3.2.3 For how long should you study? .................. 18
3.2.4 Should you study by topic or by time? ........... 19
3.3 Effective reading ...................................... 20
3.4 When the good times go bad ............................. 21
4 Making the most of teaching ................................. 23
4.1 Learning from lectures ................................. 23
4.1.1 How do you get the most out of lectures? ........ 23
4.1.2 Before the lecture .............................. 23
4.1.3 Active listening ................................ 24
4.2 Learning from tutorials ................................ 26
4.3 Learning from laboratory practical classes ............. 27
4.4 Field trips ............................................ 28
4.5 Teamwork ............................................... 30
4.5.1 Large teams ..................................... 30
4.6 Books .................................................. 32
4.6.1 Buying books .................................... 32
4.7 Using libraries ........................................ 33
4.7.1 Making the most of the library facilities ....... 33
4.7.2 Journal papers and how to understand them ....... 35
4.7.3 How scientific papers are published ............. 35
4.7.4 How should you read a scientific paper? ......... 37
4.8 Using the internet as a source of information .......... 38
4.8.1 Finding reliable internet resources ............ 40
5 Presenting your work ........................................ 43
5.1 Plagiarism ............................................. 43
5.2 Good writing and writing style ......................... 45
5.2.1 Third person, passive voice and the past
tense ........................................... 45
5.2.2 Sentences ....................................... 46
5.2.3 Clarity ......................................... 48
5.2.4 Accepted usage and jargon ....................... 48
5.2.5 Over-use of adjectives .......................... 49
5.2.6 Legibility and quality of presentation .......... 49
5.2.7 Waffle and irrelevant material .................. 49
5.2.8 Check your writing style ........................ 50
5.2.9 Some common errors of English usage ............. 50
5.2.10 Some general points of style and punctuation
using a word processor .......................... 52
5.3 Illustrations and tables of data ....................... 52
5.4 Referencing your work .................................. 53
5.4.1 What information is included in a reference? .... 54
5.4.2 Styles of referencing ........................... 54
5.4.3 A (fictitious) reference list ................... 55
5.4.4 Compiling a reference list ...................... 56
5.4.5 Citing references in your text .................. 58
5.5 How to write a good essay .............................. 58
5.5.1 General considerations .......................... 58
5.5.2 What is found in a good essay ................... 60
5.5.3 Assessing essays ................................ 60
5.5.4 Planning your essay ............................. 62
5.6 How to write a practical report ........................ 66
5.6.1 The title page .................................. 67
5.6.2 The introduction ................................ 67
5.6.3 The methods section ............................. 67
5.6.4 The results section ............................. 67
5.6.5 The discussion section .......................... 73
5.7 Posters ................................................ 74
5.8 Oral presentations ..................................... 75
5.8.1 Planning ........................................ 75
5.8.2 Resources for delivery .......................... 75
5.8.3 Tips on using Microsoft PowerPoint .............. 76
5.8.4 Content and organization ........................ 76
5.8.5 Practice ........................................ 77
5.8.6 Your final presentation ......................... 77
5.8.7 Dealing with questions .......................... 78
5.8.8 Improving your presentation technique ........... 79
5.9 Summative and formative assessment ..................... 79
6 Using computers and information technology .................. 81
6.1 Computer-based learning ................................ 82
6.2 Being organized - file storage and management .......... 82
6.3 Keep file sizes small .................................. 83
6.4 Back-ups and passwords ................................. 83
6.5 Email and etiquette .................................... 84
6.5.1 Sending emails .................................. 85
6.5.2 Etiquette ....................................... 86
6.5.3 Replying to messages ............................ 86
6.5.4 Organizing your emails .......................... 86
6.6 University printing services ........................... 87
6.7 "To buy or not to buy; that is the question..." ........ 87
7 Revision and examinations ................................... 89
7.1 Effective revision ...................................... 89
7.1.1 Plan a realistic revision schedule .............. 89
7.1.2 Revise little and often ......................... 90
7.1.3 Plan your method of revision .................... 90
7.2 Examinations ........................................... 93
7.2.1 How to fail your exams .......................... 93
7.2.2 Styles of exam .................................. 93
7.2.3 Plan your time .................................. 98
7.3 What is looked for in an examination answer ............ 98
7.3.1 In-course assessments ........................... 99
7.3.2 Summary of advice on examinations ............... 99
8 Taking a year out .......................................... 101
8.1 Why bother? The pros and cons of taking a year out .... 101
8.2 An industrial year out ................................ 102
8.2.1 How to make a success of your industrial
placement ...................................... 103
8.3 Study year abroad ..................................... 105
8.3.1 How to make a success of your study year
abroad ......................................... 105
9 Your final year ............................................ 107
9.1 Final year projects ................................... 107
9.2 Planning for life after university: thinking about
careers ............................................... 108
9.2.1 Gather information ............................. 108
9.2.2 Assess your skills and qualifications .......... 108
9.2.3 Make a short list of available jobs ............ 108
9.2.4 Make the most of first contacts ................ 109
9.2.5 Your curriculum vitae .......................... 109
9.2.6 Making an application .......................... 110
9.2.7 The 'milk round' ............................... 111
9.3 Be prepared for opportunities when they arise ......... 111
Appendices for Office 2007 .................................... 113
Appendix A: Working well with Word ............................ 115
Al Menus, ribbons and toolbars ................................ 115
Al.l The Quick Access Toolbar ............................. 116
A1.2 The notation used .................................... 116
A2 General time-saving tips ................................... 117
A2.1 Shortcut menus and the right mouse button ............ 117
A2.2 Shortcut key combinations ............................ 117
A2.3 Selecting parts of a document for bulk operations .... 118
A2.4 The Clipboard(s) ..................................... 119
A2.5 The Insert key ....................................... 120
A2.6 Moving around a document ............................. 120
A2.7 Finding and replacing text in your document .......... 121
A2.8 Saving your work regularly and keeping back-ups ...... 121
A2.9 Don't be afraid to explore! .......................... 121
A3 Producing polished documents: formatting tips .............. 122
A3.1 Character formatting ................................. 122
A3.2 Paragraph formatting ................................. 123
A3.3 Saving time by setting your styles ................... 127
A3.4 Quick and easy tables of contents, and lists of
figures and tables ................................... 130
A3.5 Page formatting ...................................... 132
A3.6 Inserting and formatting objects in your document .... 133
A3.7 Using tables for clear presentation .................. 136
A3.8 Multi-column documents ............................... 138
A3.9 Spelling, grammar, thesaurus and word count .......... 139
A3.10 Printing your document ............................... 139
A4 Using the Review ribbon .................................... 140
A4.1 Keeping track of changes to your document ............ 140
A4.2 Producing a document through group collaboration
and receiving electronic feedback from supervisors ... 142
A4.3 Ownership and properties of a document ............... 142
A5 Producing drawings in Word ................................. 143
A5.1 Text boxes and the drawing canvas .................... 143
A5.2 Drawing freehand ..................................... 144
A5.3 The Selection Tool for grouping objects and
creating complex diagrams ............................ 145
A5.4 And finally-fancy text ............................... 146
A6 Macros ..................................................... 147
A6.1 Creating a macro ..................................... 147
A6.2 Running the macro .................................... 148
A6.3 Example macros ....................................... 148
Appendix B: Perfect PowerPoint ................................ 151
B2 Standard formatting in PowerPoint .......................... 152
B2.1 Using the Slide Master to set your style ............. 153
B2.2 Creating new slides using the standard layout ........ 154
B2.3 Creating slides'freehand' ............................ 154
B3 Inserting hyperlinks ....................................... 155
B3.1 Inserting hyperlinks as text and images .............. 155
B3.2 Using Action Buttons for hyperlinks, shortcuts
to other files and for sound effects ................. 156
B4 Animation effects .......................................... 157
B4.1 Creating the animations .............................. 157
B4.2 Moving through your slides ........................... 158
B5 Organizing your presentation ............................... 159
B6 Giving your presentation ................................... 159
B6.1 Using the keyboard keys to move through slides ....... 159
B6.2 Tailor your presentation to your audience by
skipping or omitting slides .......................... 159
B7 Printing handouts .......................................... 160
B8 Using PowerPoint for posters ............................ 160
B8.1 Setting the poster size .............................. 160
B8.2 Adding components to your poster ..................... 161
B8.3 Aligning the components of your poster ............... 161
Appendix C: Easy and effective Excel .......................... 163
Cl Workbooks, worksheets and cells ............................ 163
C2 Entering and editing data .................................. 164
C2.1 Entering data ........................................ 164
C2.2 Replacing or correcting data in a cell ............... 165
C2.3 Numeric formats ...................................... 166
C2.4 Operations on blocks of cells ........................ 166
C3 Performing calculations .................................... 167
C4 Formatting spreadsheets .................................... 171
C4.1 Sorting your data .................................... 171
C4.2 Formatting rows and columns .......................... 172
C4.3 Formatting text and aligning data .................... 173
C4.4 Borders and shading for impact ....................... 173
C5 Producing charts and graphs ................................ 174
C5.1 Creating a simple scatter chart ...................... 174
C5.2 More complicated scatter charts ...................... 177
C5.3 Switching to a different type of chart ............... 177
C5.4 Inserting trendlines ................................. 178
C5.5 Inserting error bars ................................. 179
C5.6 Other types of chart ................................. 180
Index ......................................................... 181
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