My Academic Journey

 

Academic skills are the abilities, strategies and habits that can help learners succeed in an academic setting (Japan's Recruit Co. Ltd, 2004). Academic skills includes reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking. Within a month the tutor presented on academic integrity, academic writing, and note taking skills. The students were given group work, exercise, and quiz where the classes were interactively conducted. The first topic to introduce in the module was an academic integrity. During the session of academic integrity, the tutor presented on definition, types of academic dishonesty, and technique to acknowledge others' work. Till date I have been copying the information from the internet without having knowledge on plagiarism but, after learning academic integrity I knew it is an act of plagiarism. However, measures such as acknowledging or giving credit for other’s work can be taken to interpret the problem of plagiarism.

 

After the first topic, the tutor presented on note taking skills. There are two ways of note taking which includes outlining and mind maps. Mind maps which are also known as brain patterns support in portraying the idea into a diagram and I learned that usage of colors and images can stimulate the mind and prolong the memory. Mind maps could be convenient for revision. Outlining can be another measure of note taking and it consists of taking notes by organizing ideas into topics and sub topics. Such a method can be considered to maintain notes on lectures. Next to note taking skills, the tutor introduced academic writing. Academic writing is writing produced by scholars through structured research and it includes academic essay, reports, theses, exam responses, and research papers. Though academic integrity and note taking skills were uncomplicated as I am familiar with it however,   academic writing was tough to understand. The features such as formality, structure, logic, evidence, objective, and precision must be taken into account while writing academic writing. Therefore, constant practice could improve my writing skills.