Help and guidance to make your student learning experience a success!
Your local library is a wealth of knowledge for any subject; you should never underestimate how useful they can be to get the most out of your course. As a distance learner, your self-direction and natural curiosity for knowledge are your greatest strengths, and they are ideally suited for a library environment. Here’s our list …
Valid Arguments To be valid, an argument should be based on evidence. For example, we might say: “Tigers can produce milk…” Or “Wildlife brings tourism…“ However, these are not valid arguments unless we give some evidence, or cite a source: “… Since tigers are mammals and all female mammals can lactate for their young. Therefore, …
Invalid vs Incorrect There’s a common myth that arguments which are valid always have a correct conclusion. The best Critical Thinking students know better. Invalid arguments can be correct, and valid arguments can be incorrect. Here are some examples: Invalid argument with correct conclusion IF: All cats have fur, IF: Pingu is a cat, THEN: …
You have spent lots of time researching, working hard to produce a top quality assignment that will be appreciated by your tutor. You have timed it well; your favourite TV programme is about to start, you have some tasty food waiting for you. It’s now time to submit that assignment and wait for a response. …
Right now, learning has a bad rep. This is in part due to a few myths about learning (that it’s too hard, or only for young people, or too expensive), but it’s also partially because people no longer think of learning as powerful. This hasn’t always been the case. King Solomon, known to Judaism, Christianity …
One of the very first and most frustrating things that I learnt as a tutor was how little difference there is between the best assignments and those that only scrape a pass. Often the difference is as simple as one assignment using world class sources and another one just getting by with a few webpages. …
A straw man argument is a sneaky sort of argument which is intentionally weak. The straw man argument is named after the human-shaped, straw-stuffed punching bags which people used to use to practice fighting against. The idea was that soldiers who practiced fighting against a straw man would have more confidence fighting real soldiers when …
We have all been there. A project that is started with great enthusiasm drops down the priority as life’s demands get in the way. Whether something happens that invades your routine, or whether you just drift into a lazier lifestyle, it can be difficult to get going again once you think you have failed in …
Do you have a challenge ahead – perhaps a presentation at work, a speech or an interview? Do you fear that, although you have appropriate skills, and you have completed your preparation, your lack of confidence on the day may just jeopardise your performance? Enter the Circle of Excellence, a technique, used in Neuro-Linguistic …
If you are currently studying a horticulture course with us, we’ve compiled a list of sites we think are a great help. In no particular order of preference: The RHS The RHS website is so full of information, you can spend countless hours on this site browsing plant advice, gardening advice and even purchasing seeds for …
With more of our writing being digitised, the fountain pen is often thought of as a redundant instrument from a bygone era. But for me, when taking notes or writing appointments into my diary, I have found that the unparalleled smoothness provided by a fountain pen translates into a clarity of ideas. Because of their …
