Mastery

This post was prompted by an article on a blog published by Cath Duncan: http://www.mineyourresources.com/2010/02/in-defense-of-mastery-or-how-to-mine-the-inspiration-in-your-irritation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MineYourResources+%28Mine+Your+Resources%29

Mastery means depth and depth takes time and effort. Of course focus will help us to make sure that our time and effort is well directed, and we sometimes have resources we do not realise but if it is instant it probably is not worth much. I mean if anyone wants an instant degree there are plenty of places you can get one, or you could just print your own, or go on a proper degree couse and buy all your assignments on the internet. But that’s not really what it is about. Or at least that is not wht it should be or could be about. There is so much more to be gained from real learning, real knowledge, real thinking that any effort in this direction is likely to be rewarded hundreds of times over. I’m currently developing some new ideas to enable people to do coaching and personal development work over the internet, and so far I’ve been refining and testing this for over a year. The thinking and planning which has gone into this has been at least four years, and it’s informed by work I’ve been doing for over twenty years. I’m also doing some evaluation work on the outcomes of residential care where a part of the qualification for me to do this is some work I did 25 years ago! I’ve been involved in learning and changework for a long time, and using irritation as a way to drive creativity is a great idea, the mother of invention and all that….. Maybe there are differences or distinctions we need to recognise between a fantasy and a reality. Of course we can expand our map of ‘reality’ and develop new skills and knowledge and inpiration but there will probably be some time and effort involved somewhere along the way, and we may want to celebrate this fact.

Using internet sources for academic writing

I have been marking  assignments this week and  I’ve been concerned about the quality of some of the sources which have been used, especially websites and dictionaries. To do well in academic assignments you must use appropriate academic sources and think about what you are writing. General dictionaries and websites are fine if you want to check information quickly, but will not be much use in writing assignments, as the information they give is at too general a level, and may be of dubious quality.

In defining key terms, or discussing important questions there is often some disagreement amongst academc writers, and your assignments need to reflect this. If you use a dictionary, you will get a definition, but not a discussion, which makes it difficult to do well. Similarly if you use a website which you get through a general search engine, the information which you get may be very generalised, wrong, biased or innapropriate to your context. Start with the sources in your module guide or reading list. If you need to use other sources you need to be selective in this, especially in relation to websites.

If you have not already done so I strongly suggest that you work through the internet tutorial for your subject area: http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/

I hope this will help. Andy

Busy times

Just to say that posts on this blog are a bit limited at the moment because there’s a lot of marking going on. I see that a few people have looked at this and it will take time to get going. But don’t be shy. Please make a comment tell me what it is that you’d like to see here and we’ll see what we can do. My belief is that we can do a lot more together than we can ever accomplish alone.

Academic writing

Academic writing

First post of the New Year and it is a quick one due to marking deadlines. This is a powerpoint presentation I use with my students during the first year of their degree courses. It includes hyperlinks to useful sites including the Manchester University Phrase Bank which really does help break the code for those unfamiliar with academic conventions.

Hello world!

Hi, this is a blog to help you achieve academic success. We are a group of academics dedicated to providing you with the best advice and support to enable you to succeed in your chosen field. For many years we have provided these resources to our own students. We are now making them available more widely.
We firmly believe that everyone, from whatever background, has the right to education. Everyone has the potential to benefit from sound advice, encouragement and guidance.