Academic Skills One-to-One Tutorials
Academic Skills tutorials are available on a wide range of topics including:
- Planning and writing essays
- Reading for comprehension
- Note making (for reading and/ or lectures)
- Studying for exams
- Writing reports
- Citing and referencing
- Managing time
Book a tutorial
Please read the information below carefully before booking a one-to-one tutorial.
Tutorials can be booked using our online booking system (opens in a new tab).
Who are these for?
Study skills appointments are open to all undergraduate, taught postgraduate (PGT) and postgraduate research (e.g. MPhil, PhD) students.
However, if you are a PGR (e.g. MPhill, PhD) student and require assistance with writing or language, please speak to your supervisor who can email [email protected] to request that you are referred for an Academic English language tutorial.
Overview of the sessions
One-to-one appointments are free, online 60-minute sessions with an academic skills tutor designed to provide detailed and focused assistance with study skills.
Our primary aim is to help students over occasional challenges—please note, we do not offer routine tutoring services.
Sessions generally take place during office hours, which are 0900-1700, Monday-Friday. We do not offer appointments over the weekend.
Who will be my tutor?
Experienced postgraduate (PhD) tutors. Tutors are likely to be from a different discipline from your own but can help you develop effective study strategies and enhance your approach to your academic work.
If you are a current PhD student and would rather not meet with a postgraduate tutor, please contact [email protected] to book an appointment with one of our Student Development team.
What can we help with?
Study Skills sessions are designed to provide you with personalised support and strategies to become independent in your studies. We can cover the following topics within a Study Skills appointment:
- Essay research, planning and writing
- Reading for comprehension
- Note-making (for reading and/or lectures)
- Studying for exams
- Lab report writing
- Citing and referencing
- Time management
- Dissertation research, project management and planning
- Reflective writing
Writing
For sessions on essay or dissertation writing, you can supply 800-1000 words of writing for the tutor to look at in advance. This must be submitted at least 48 hours before your appointment time to allow the tutor time to read it.Information on how to submit this work will be shared at the time of booking. You may submit one piece of work once per semester. If a tutor looks at a sample of work that has not yet been assessed, you must declare this when you submit the piece, as per the Language Correction Policy (page 2).
Please note that the tutor will not be able to give detailed help with language-related elements, but they will be able to refer you to an Academic English appointment where relevant.
What can’t we help with?
- Discipline-specific problems or content- these appointments are about supporting you with the underlying skills for learning.
- Generating ideas and content.
- Proofreading your work. This is not a proofreading service.
- Detailed academic writing/ language support- though we can refer for a follow up Academic English Language tutorial where relevant.
Guidelines for appointments
- You can initially book up to 3 sessions per semester.
- If you would like an in-person appointment, please contact [email protected] in the first instance.
- Please note that it may be 24 hours before your appointment is allocated, therefore we may not always be able to fulfil last-minute requests.
- Read the information in your confirmation email carefully.
- If you are unable to attend please let us know as soon as possible.
- To cancel or reschedule please use the link provided in your confirmation email– do not just delete the appointment from your calendar as we will receive no notification of this.
- If you anticipate any problems accessing your appointment remotely, please get in touch at [email protected].
- If you would like an appointment outside of office hours (for example, to fit around caring responsibilities) please email [email protected] and we will do our best to accommodate.
Book a tutorial
You can use our online booking system (opens in a new tab) to schedule an appointment.