Preparing for Academic Study

As part of the course, you will be completing academic assignments alongside the practice-based elements. This will mean that apart from developing your subject knowledge, you will need to demonstrate specific academic skills in order to successfully engage with and complete these assignments.

The first assignment will entail writing a 2000-word essay, to present a clearly argued position on the importance of inclusion in educational practice, with a particular focus on the needs of children and young people with Specific Learning Difficulties. In order to complete the assignment, you will need to develop the following core academic skills.

Core academic skills

Accessing high-quality academic resources

For this first assignment, you will research inclusive practices to support dyslexia. This will require you to be able to search for information that is relevant, academic and of good quality. As a result, you will be expected to develop your research skills by searching for resources using the University’s LibrarySearch, which enables you to search CCCU’s library collections. Here, you will be able to access printed books, e-books, journal articles, specialist databases and much more. LibrarySearch will allow you to identify which books are available in the campus libraries, access digital full-text content and manage your library account. You can complete this online module on Using LibrarySearch to expand your knowledge on what is available, including LibrarySearch functionalities. Watch the video below to see a topic search in action or check out our top ten tips for using LibrarySearch. 

Referencing

Once you have found the information for the assignment, you need to be able to appropriately reference what you have found. You will need to follow the University conventions for referencing. For this course, you will follow Harvard referencing. CCCU’s official guide to Harvard referencing is Cite Them Right by Pears and Shields (2022, 12th edition). Once you are registered, you will be able to borrow this book from the library or access Cite Them Right online, using our institutional account. In the meantime, you can access this Quick Guide to Harvard referencing, which is based on Cite Them Right. Watch the video below to find out how to use Cite Them Right:

In order to brush up on your referencing skills, you can also complete this Learning Skills Hub module on Advanced Referencing, specifically designed for postgraduate students.

Critical thinking

The first module on your course is entitled ‘Issues and debates’, and this is because there is still much debate in terms of dyslexia and inclusion. You will, therefore, need to engage with sources in a critical way, questioning writers’ positions and the evidence you are presented with. Criticality is a key component of academic writing and a core skill you will need to demonstrate as a postgraduate student. Watch the following video on the Skills for Study site to find out more about how to develop criticality.

In order to further enhance your understanding of what critical analysis entails, what it looks like in a piece of academic writing, and how to use it to help you build an argument and support your ideas in your assignments, you can complete this Critical thinking module. 

Academic writing style

Once you have identified, read and compared academic sources, expanded your knowledge of the subject and developed an academic stance, you are in a position to start planning your assignment. Hence, the final stage in the process of assignment planning is the writing of the assignment.

Academic writing at postgraduate level requires you to demonstrate a higher level of criticality and to contribute to knowledge development. You can complete this module on Introduction to Postgraduate Writing. This resource will introduce you to the key features of academic writing, which will enable you to improve on your existing skills.