Essential Academic Skills encourages and supports students to develop their skills to become the best learners they can be. It takes a step-by-step approach to the essential skills required to complete a university degree and provides comprehensive learning support through examples and activities.

KEY FEATURES

• A step-by-step approach to the core skills of finding sources, reading, writing, listening, speaking and researching within a university context.
• Complete instructions on how to avoid plagiarism, and enhance the use of sources, through paraphrasing, quotation, summary, in-text citations and reference lists.
• Comprehensive coverage of the essential assessment skills needed for success at university – academic essays, reports, case studies, reflective essays, presentations, group work, examinations, and primary research.
• Academic language support relevant to all university study and specific for each skill
• Appropriate academic examples provided for each step in the skill learning process.
• Useful in-book and online activities for students.

NEW TO THIS EDITION

• New Chapter 2 Academic Language Support
• Chapters 4 Reading in an Academic Context and 5 Basic Academic Writing Skills have been significantly updated to cover the new technological possibilities in searching and referencing and to incorporate the latest version of the APA style (APA 6th)

1. Thinking About Learning
Ideas about the nature of learning
Approaches to learning

2. Academic Language Support
The distinctiveness of academic language
Creating coherence

3. Listening and Participating
Listening
Listening well
Listening in different contexts

4. Reading in an Academic Context
Skills in finding sources
Reading well

5. Basic Academic Writing Skills
Writing objectively
Incorporating claims from the literature
Writing citations
Writing reference lists
Constructing a paragraph around claims from the literature

6. Further Academic Skills: Working on an Assignment
Responding to the assignment task
Organising ideas and information
Planning
Writing drafts

7. Essays and Reflective Writing
Essays
Reflective writing

8. Doing Case Studies and Writing Reports
Case studies
Identifying the problems
Making recommendations
Writing up the case study
Reports

9. Collaborative Learning: Working in Groups
Collaborative group work
Cooperative group work
Formal and informal group work
Benefits of group work
Roles people play in groups
How groups develop
Managing group work challenges
Managing micro processes

10. Presentations
The art of presentations
The informative presentation
Giving a team presentation
Leading a discussion

11. Examinations
Why examinations
Learning throughout the course
Focuses learning for an examination: revision
Preparation for particular types of examinations
Types of examinations
Types of examination questions
The examination
What if …

12. Doing Small-scale Exploratory Research Projects
What is research?
Researchable issues and questions
The research process
Quantitative versus qualitative research
Scientific rigour
Generalisation
Case studies
Ethics

13. Writing about Research
Writing up your report
Appendix A: Basic Guidelines for Writing Citations and Reference List
Items (APA 6th)
Appendix B: Additional Exercises for Chapter 5
Appendix C: Case Study Exercise
Appendix D: Reading and Understanding a Research Article
Bibliography

Kathy Turner – Lecturer, Queensland Institute of Business and Technology, Griffith University

Lynette Ireland – Lecturer, School of Indigenous Australian Studies, James Cook University

Brenda Krenus – Senior Adviser, Strategic Initiatives, to the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic), RMIT

Leigh Pointon – Academic director, Queensland Institute of Business and Technology, Griffith University

The following resources are available for students using Essential Academic Skills: Second Edition

• Multiple choice questions: Test your own academic skills with these multiple choice questions:
  • Ch 1. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 2. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 3. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 4. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 5. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 6. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 7. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 8. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 9. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 10. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 11. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 12. Multiple Choice Questions
  • Ch 13. Multiple Choice Questions

The following resources are available for adopting lecturers of Essential Academic Skills: Second Edition

• A testbank containing multiple choice questions for each chapter of the book. This testbank can be utilised in your university’s Virtual Learning Environment.
• PowerPoint slides for each chapter
• Instructor's Resource Manual

For more information about this title or the resources, please contact your local Territory Manager.