Using abbreviations in your notes

Taking notes It must be time to get back to work. The news is full of politics again and that means the summer is over! There will be no more stories of lions running around the countryside or other ‘silly season’ news articles. Today’s news is full of the UK Prime Minister’s cabinet reshuffle which … Read more

Taking notes: practice yourself!

Taking notes Taking notes from lectures and from your reading is a very important academic skill that you will need to practise if you are going to get good at it. On Academic English courses your teachers will give you a lot of practice in this skill in the classroom by making you listen to … Read more

Learning to learn at university

Welcome to the start of a new academic year! The weather in the UK has definitely take a turn for the worse which is a sure sign that it is time to get serious about study again. Many overseas students who are reading this will have just finished an English language pre-sessional course and will … Read more

Association for Academic Language and Learning

A few weeks ago I pointed out Manchester University’s academic phrasebank to students in a lecture. If you don’t know about it (you should!) it introduces lots of different ‘academic language chunks’ that you can use in essays such as In the last few years there has been increasing interest in ….. At the end … Read more