Essential Study Skills
Taking Notes
The resource outlines the three most effective methods for writing lecture notes with helpful illustrations.
Stacks
Participating in Class Discussions
Advice on preparing for class participation, from understanding the assigned topic, preparing for discussion, making informed comments, and asking thoughtful questions.
An outline of strategies for preparing and engaging in class discussion and advice on how to respectfully disagree.
An excellent guide to developing oral communication skills, with the emphasis on the ability to converse, to discuss, to argue persuasively, and to speak in public. This book will help you to become a good listener, express yourself clearly and persuasively, ask thoughtful questions in lectures and tutorials, contribute effectively to class discussions, prepare talks or presentations, and perform well in interviews.
Conducting Academic Research
An annotated bibliography to the major resources on each stage of conducting university level research, including consulting reference sources, locating books and journal articles, and evaluating different types of publications to the topic of your research.
This book shows researchers how to do comprehensive research on any topic. This includes not just lists of resources, but discussions of the ways to search within them: how to find the best search terms, how to combine the terms, and how to make the databases (and other sources) show relevant material even when you don’t know how to specify the best search terms in advance.
Reference
Concentrating
Stacks
Thinking Critically
Writing Well
The University of Toronto Writing Centres provide a number of advice files on developing academic research and writing skills, including instructions on writing essays for specific disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and the sciences. This resource outlines the major differences and expectations between high-school level and university-level writing.
Presenting
Stacks
A detailed guide to the preparation and delivery of both individual and group presentations: understanding the elements of engaged and effective presentations, developing content and structure, designing presentation slides, and answering questions from your audience.
Working on a Group Project
Stacks
Designing a Research Poster
This chapter from Presenting Your Research: Conferences, Symposiums, Poster Presentations and Beyond outlines the structure and organization of research poster presentation sessions at conferences and symposia and provides advice on considering the size, design, use and colour and branding of posters in the sciences and humanities.
Preparing for an Exam
Questions?
Please consult one of our reference librarians or schedule a research consultation if you have questions about the resources listed in the guide or if you would like to find additional books, articles or online sources and advice related to developing various study, research, and writing skills.
created by: Agatha Barc | updated: 12 January 2022