Academic Skills and Studying with Confidence: Report on Key Elements

This report delves into essential academic skills, emphasizing the importance of trustable information sources, proper referencing, and effective presentation techniques. It differentiates between reliable sources like scholarly articles and unreliable ones such as blogs and student assignments, stressing the significance of using credible information for academic integrity. The report explains the concept of referencing, highlighting its role in acknowledging sources and avoiding plagiarism, with examples of APA, Chicago, and Harvard styles. Furthermore, it defines presentation as a method of conveying information, discussing its elements and importance in academic work. The conclusion summarizes the interconnectedness of these skills for academic success.

ACADEMIC SKILLS
AND STUDYING
WITH CONFIDENCE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Information about trustable and non-trustable information sources.......................................1
What is referencing and why it is required. Provide specific examples in this context .......1
Discuss about the term presentation. Also, specify the major elements of good presentation 2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Academic skills are the behavioural aspects which are learned by a student to
successfully increase their knowledge and potential to perform work. Confidence in an
individual assure that complex work will be performed in a challenging manner (Cottrell, 2019).
This assignment is going to discuss about types of information sources and why they are used.
Also, need of referencing will be discussed. At last, information about presentation will be
mentioned and different elements which make a presentation good will be discussed.
MAIN BODY
Information about trustable and non-trustable information sources
Trustable source of information are also called as reliable information sources. These
sources offers a well reasoned theory, arguments or discussions that is backed up by strong
evidences. Trustable sources for required information includes scholarly papers, books, peer
reviews articles. Information available at these places is considered as trustable. Untrustable
sources of information include those information which is not reliable and can not be trusted for
their accuracy. For example, websites, blogs, presentations, PDF, assignments of other students
etc. Information and data which is included in these places is opinion of people which can be
either true or false. Hence, relying on this information is not desirable (De Gale and Boisselle,
2015).
It is important for a student or any other individual to use trustable information for their
assignments and research paper so that they can collect right facts or data. This will helps them
in generating right results so that expected outcomes can be achieved in a proper manner. It is
advisable that a student should not use Untrustable information source. This is because gathered
information from these sources can be wrong due to which entire project or activity can face
setback. For example, if a student collects information from a screenshot which has no authentic
sources, changes of wrong information will be very high in context with the situation where a
student gathers information from a book or peer review journals (Rabiner, Godwin and Dodge,
2016).
What is referencing and why it is required. Provide specific examples in this context
Referencing is considered as an important aspect while preparing an assignment or
carrying out research. It helps in adding information about those individuals which have given
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their contribution in an academic or educational field. If an individual use ideas of other in their
academic writing without their acknowledgement, this is considered as intellectual dishonesty.
Referencing is very important while carrying out work on a research paper or assignment. Some
of the reasons in this context are stated below:
 It helps in denoting that the writer is careful and thorough while preparing their academic
work. Also, it helps in indicating which part of academic work is the perception of writer
and which concepts are borrowed from knowledge of others (Fallows and Steven, 2013).
 Referencing helps in identifying which work material is original and which is taken from
other sources.
There are different styles by which an individual can perform referencing. These styles
are different from one another but helps in giving credits to the right persons. For a book named
“ Transferable skills in higher education” written by Alinson Assister in 2017 some basic styles
of referencing are APA, Chicago, Vancouver, Harvard etc. In this context, some examples are
listed below:
 APA: Assiter, A. (2017). Transferable skills in higher education. Routledge.
In case of APA, last name of writter will came first and initial of fist name will be used
afterwards. Also, year of writing book will be enclosed in brackets. After it, name of book will
be mentioned.
 Chicago: Assiter, Alison. Transferable skills in higher education. Routledge, 2017.
In this kind of referencing, last name of writer will be mentioned at first and then first
name will came. After this, name of written book will be included and in last year of written
book will be mentioned (McLean and Ransom, 2017).
 Harvard: Assiter, A., 2017. Transferable skills in higher education. Routledge.
This is the most common method to perform referencing. This method is similar with
APA referencing style but in this method year of written book will not be enclosed in brackets.
Discuss about the term presentation. Also, specify the major elements of good presentation
Presentation is stated as a way to represent a specific topic to other people. In some
formats, it is also called as Keynote address. It is basically a practice of explaining and showing
the content available in a topic so that reader can easily understand the perception of writer.
Presentation is of two kinds i.e. verbal and written presentation. Verbal presentation includes
telephonic, radio, face to face or any other kind of presentation (Paterson, 2016). Written
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presentation can be in the form of letters, book, magazines, social media etc. Elements of good
presentation include an introduction, conclusion, body, reliable information content etc. If these
elements are aligned in a proper manner, then overall look of a presentation enhances due to
which readers shows more interest in acknowledging about it.
CONCLUSION
As per this discussed report, it has been said that academic skills of a person are not
complete without using trustable information source, referencing and appropriate presentation
skills. A trustable information always have copyright and authentic source. These aspects are not
available in Untrustable source of information. With the help of referencing, owner of an idea or
thought can be given proper credit. If presentation of a academic work is not good, reader will
feel reluctant is considering it. Without presentation, a reliable information also seems as useless.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cottrell, S., 2019. The study skills handbook. Macmillan International Higher Education.
De Gale, S. and Boisselle, L. N., 2015. The effect of POGIL on academic performance and
academic confidence.
Fallows, S. and Steven, C., 2013. Integrating key skills in higher education: Employability,
transferable skills and learning for life. Routledge.
McLean, P. and Ransom, L., 2017. Building intercultural competencies: Implications for
academic skills development. In Teaching international students (pp. 57-74).
Routledge.
Paterson, R., 2016. The accidental global professional: A series of conflicts in teaching academic
skills in higher education. Educate~. 16(1). pp.3-14.
Rabiner, D. L., Godwin, J. and Dodge, K. A., 2016. Predicting academic achievement and
attainment: the contribution of early academic skills, attention difficulties, and social
competence. School Psychology Review. 45(2). pp.250-267.
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