BIOL10742 Writing and Referencing Skills (WRS) Unit
This Blackboard unit, which is fully online, will be available from the beginning of week 1 in semester 2. It provides additional resources throughout the semester to help you with essay writing, laboratory reports and to extend your writing, summarising and referencing skills in preparation for your Dissertation next year. On successful completion of this unit you should understand what constitutes academic malpractice including plagiarism, be aware of how we as a University detect plagiarism and the consequences of it, and be aware of how to avoid committing it. This unit will help you enhance your academic writing and referencing skills and will help you to store, retrieve and use references within Endnote. For information on the running of the course (course aims, marking, pass criteria, how to get your results) please ensure that you read the course information pages on Blackboard.
Once the Academic Malpractice and Pre-Assessment modules have been completed, access to the content of all of the remaining (assessed) modules will be available to you on Blackboard and as an e-book that you can reference for future assignments. The deadlines for the assessments will be Friday 4pm of weeks 2-8 as shown in the Table below. Assessments will be available for two weeks prior to the deadline. Details are available on the course information pages on Blackboard.
You MUST achieve an overall cumulative score of 70% or above for the assessed WRS modules to pass the tutorial unit.
| Open (end of week except *= Mon) | Deadline
(end of week) |
|
| Academic Malpractice +
Pre-Assessment + Essential Language Skills1 |
30 Jan* (Mon) |
10 Feb (2) |
| Academic Style | 03 Feb | 17 Feb (3) |
| Text Handling | 10 Feb | 24 Feb (4) |
| Referencing the right way | 17 Feb | 03 Mar (5) |
| Planning Your Search | 24 Feb | 10 Mar (6) |
| Successful Searching | 03 Mar | 17 Mar (7) |
| Endnote Online | 10 Mar | 24 Mar (8) |
1 for students with high marks in the Pre-Assessment, the Essential Language Skills module will be optional
Queries about the WRS unit should be directed to Dr Lindsay MacDougall (lindsay.macdougall@manchester.ac.uk).
School Writer in Residence
The School has two ‘Writers in Residence’ Mrs Margaret Murphy and Mr Robert Chapman, who are funded by The Royal Literary Fund. Margaret can offer students 45 minute tutorials on effective writing, which run on Thursdays and can be booked at Http://www.wejoinin.com/writer.lifesciences@manchester. Students can email Margaret at writer.lifesciences@manchester.ac.uk.
Robert is available for tutorials on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11am-5pm. Students can book appointments with Robert via email: rob.chapman@manchester.ac.uk
Robert and Margaret are based in room 2.532 in the Stopford Building.
Should you need help with English language skills, you can contact the University Language Centre at: http://www.ulc.manchester.ac.uk/