Postgraduate studies call for advanced critical thinking, argumentation, writing and research skills.   You may be expected to define your own topics, analyse and evaluate primary and secondary source materials, and undertake written specialised writing tasks such as literature reviews, research proposals, abstracts,  and reports.  Your lecturers and supervisers will give you more detailed guidelines, but these resources provide a general overview to get you started.

 

Academic Writing

Writing a research essay, Master's thesis or PhD dissertation is very different from the writing tasks you encountered at undergraduate level. Not only will the process (planning, drafting, editing, and revising and revising and revising) take you months or even years, there are a number of specialised tasks to master. Your superviser will provide you with specifics, but these resources offer a useful starting point: thesis ingredients

Whether these tasks are separate pieces of writing or part of the whole, they have specific stylistic requirements:

• Writing a research proposal (pdf - 300KB)
• Writing a literature review (pdf - 286KB)
• Writing an abstract (pdf - 297KB)
• Writing a critique (pdf - 258KB)
• APA style (pdf - 375KB)
• Avoiding plagiarism (pdf - 464KB)
• Paraphrasing & summarising (pdf - 261KB)
• Reporting verbs (pdf - 155KB)
• References & bibliographies (pdf - 378KB)
• Referencing FAQs (pdf - 320KB)

Also check out the 'how to write' pages and links on PostgradLife

 

Research Skills

In order to successfully complete postgraduate studies, you need effective project management, reading, critical thinking and oral presentation skills.

Time Management

• 2012 course workload planner (pdf - 42KB)
• 21 ways to get the most out of now (pdf - 323KB)
• Time management: answers to some common questions (pdf - 284KB)
• Week planner (pdf - 196KB)

Critical Thinking

• Critical thinking process (pdf - 331KB)
• Reading and critical thinking (pdf - 364KB)
• Writing and critical thinking (pdf - 346KB)

Effective Reading

• SQ3R (pdf - 271KB)
• Signposts in reading & power reading (pdf - 350KB)

Oral Presentation

• Oral presentations (pdf - 337KB)

Also check out the Research skills seminars and links on PostgradLife.