We have put together some guides for useful skills that will serve you well over the course your history degree. We're happy to add more resources here on request - just let your reps know what you'd like to see, or contact us directly. There are lots of other tips and tricks in the Assessment section of History Hacks.
Building an Essay Bibliography - a video walk through of how to find relevant reading, including virtual browsing, footnote chasing, and Google Scholar. Note: does not cover bibliography formatting.
Essay Planning - step-by-step guide on how to plan an essay.
Sample Essay Outlining - activity to compare and contrast two essay plans.
Reverse Outlining - a useful trick to help turn an rough draft into a polished final product.
Reading Tips - some suggestions on ways you can get the most out of your seminar reading.
Reading for arguments - activity designed to get you thinking about reading and note-taking effectively.
Writing a Learning Journal or Seminar Diary - help with shorter reflective writing.
How to include footnotes in a word count - unless clearly stated otherwise footnotes count towards word limits.
Handling language with sensitivity - this provides some recommendations and resources on writing with sensitivty about topics like slavery
The 301 Academic Skills Centre, on Glossop Road (opposite the Students' Union building), offer tutorials and advice on general academic skills. They have a wide range of support on offer through their pages - here we have picked out just a few that may be particularly useful during your time with us:
See the fuller list of 301 skills guides.
If you're keen to work on your academic writing, consider booking a 3o minute online appointment to discuss a piece of your work with the Writing Advisory Service. Run out of the English Language Teaching Centre by experienced language tutors, these can be great, one-on-one sessions for helping you to think about clarity and structure in your written work.
The University library also provides a number of online tutorials and workshops which focus on digital literacy, reading, and communication.
Seminars make up a key part of the contact time you will have over your degree. We have put together a guide on seminar participation, as well as a sample of how a seminar is structured, to help you make the most out of this type of contact time:
The rapid emergence of large language model (LLM) artificial intelligence (AI) applications has transformed the educational landscape. The following resources offer clarity about acceptable and unacceptable use of AI and about how to declare that you have deployed it for your assessments:
We expect you to aspire to high levels of professionalism over the course of your studies. Your written work should be formatted in accordance with our style guide, which provides instructions on the likes of footnotes, bibliographies, and layout.
We revised the guide in the summer of 2023 and it is now split into different parts. If you're new to referencing, or if you've had feedback that indicates you're making mistakes, we strongly recommend you read the early sections, which set out the basic principles.
Identifying Sources for Referencing - a quiz to help you know what you're trying to cite.
Improve Your Referencing - a quiz that tests you ability to spot some common referencing errrors.
How to Save Words in Referencing - pointers on how to keep the word count down in footnotes.
With the exception of some group assignments, the work you submit must be your own. Learning to quote, paraphrase, and reference properly is a key part of any History degree. Failure to do so can often lead to accidental plagiarism, which can lead to disciplinary action being taken, and may have serious consequences for your degree. There are a range of resources available for you to make sure you don’t fall into plagiarism or unfair means more broadly: