academic skills courses
This website showcases online courses to teach college students academic writing and academic presentations. Both courses are comprehensive, visual and interactive.
They are available on an annual college licence for unlimited users, and sent as simple hyperlinks to embed in a VLE, no logins or passwords needed. Just click and go.
Watch the video below to see how it works and scroll down for links to sample units.
the courses
These courses provide engaging materials for students or staff in the basics of academic writing or academic presentations, suitable for High School, International, Presessional, Access or Foundation students, or first year undergraduates.
The courses are designed for both self-study and in-class support. Users can choose individual units to study or complete the whole course, ideally in the order given.
how it works
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students watch short, subtitled videos & study the notes
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they practise through interactive exercises
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they finally put it all together in guided tasks with models
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Each unit comes with a downloadable Word and PDF pack with the notes, the task and model answers, all optimised for screen readers for the visually impaired, plus all videos have optional subtitles.
Click here for sample presentation unit
Click here for sample writing unit
presentations
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content - what to say
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structure - where to say it
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design - what it looks like
Final quiz
writing
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formality 1 - using grammar
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formality 2 - using vocabulary
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introductions - general & thesis parts
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body & conclusions - what to include
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notetaking 1- format & styles
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notetaking 2 - synthesising
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paraphrase- ways to do it
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citation - format; fitting in paraphrases & quotes
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reference lists - making one with software
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research skills - finding reliable sources
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academic integrity - avoiding problems
Final quiz
screenshots
my story
My name's Eveline Powell, and I'm a university lecturer in English, writing and study skills. I set up this business, studyshark, to create and sell online courses based on my 20 years of experience, and have sold to publishers and colleges in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Ireland, UAE, Canada and South Africa. I live in Hastings on the south coast of Britain with my cat, Yoyo, and dog, Coco, who are both very poor at writing, but very good at eating, sleeping, looking forlorn, and eating again.
Terms & Conditions
Let's get this right from the start! Please check that your institution has the capacity to support a package on its VLE through a hyperlink. Otherwise, email me with issues and click below to read licence details.
Your privacy
Let's get this right from the start! This site complies with GDPR privacy regulations. As there is no individual login for users, I do not collect personal information so do not sell or share such information with a third party for profit. The only information collected relates to geographic location, timings and device type. Also, all non essential cookies are automatically disabled on the cookie banner below unless you personally enable them. Otherwise, email me with issues and click below to read the details.