Preparing for your assignments
We’re running online workshops in term 1 to help you develop key skills needed to excel in your assignments. Ever wondered how to plan effectively? Or how to write convincingly about the evidence? Our workshops are here to try and demystify those key academic skills and provide practical ways of approaching them.
Suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate taught students. All session are online and will be recorded.
Getting started with finding information
This informal session looks at how search strategies can provide a handy structure to your research. We’ll explore breaking down a topic into keywords, exploring alternatives and how to use search operators to make database searches easier.
- Thursday 15 October 2026, 12:00-13:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a pace
Reading and notetaking strategies
In this workshop we’ll consider different strategies for reading effectively and taking active and useful notes for your assignments.
- Wednesday 21 October 2026, 13:00-14:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
Getting started with referencing
Being able to reference resources correctly is a key academic skill. This workshop will introduce you to some key principles of referencing as well as highlight the main styles (like Harvard) used at UoB.
- Thursday 22 October 2026, 12:00-13:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
Critical thinking
This workshop will explore how to apply critical thinking to your assignments. It will cover what is ‘critical thinking’ and why is it important as well as structure and analysis of arguments.
- Thursday 29 October 2026, 13:00-14:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
Planning an assignment
In this workshop we’ll look together at how a student at the University of Birmingham plans their essays to give us some inspiration.
- Wednesday 4 November 2026, 13:00-14:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
Easy formatting for Microsoft Word
Not using the full range of functions within Word? This workshop will help you to make the most of automatic functions to help with styles, sections, page numbering, automated tables etc.
- Thursday 5 November 2026, 12:00-13:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
How to paraphrase
In this workshop we'll look at the role of sources and reporting verbs in your writing and practice paraphrasing using a few simple steps.
- Thursday 12 November 2026, 12:00-13:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
Moving from descriptive to critical writing
In this workshop we’ll be taking a closer look at what makes a really strong paragraph and how we can comment on things that we have read in interesting, analytical and evaluative ways.
- Thursday 19 November 2026, 13:00-14:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
Writing concisely
This session will cover six methods that you can use to write concisely in an academic way. You will have opportunities to practice some of these and get feedback during the session.
- Wednesday 25 November 2026, 12:00-13:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
Preparing for exams and revision
This workshop will help you reflect on your own approaches to exam preparation, explore practical revision strategies and ensure you’re feeling prepared on the day for the exam.
- Thursday 3 December 2026, 13:00-14:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
Dissertation series
Finding information for dissertations
This online workshop, open to all UG and PGT students, will cover how to access and use key resources for your dissertation including journals, databases and other relevant sources of information. It will also cover the key principles of referencing so that you can confidently cite your sources correctly.
- Wednesday 11 November 2026, 13:00-14:00 (UK time)
- Online
- Book a place
PGT workshops
For workshops designed for postgraduate taught students, please see our schedule of support on our PGT workshops page.
Other workshops
Birmingham Scholars
The ASC run workshops for Birmingham Scholars. If you are a Birmingham Scholar you will have access to the following Canvas course and will be able to find information about our workshops.