Theme: ADTIS: Academic Development & Training for International Students

Producing an effective literature review is often an essential part of the writing process. In this session, we will explore the fundamental principles of literature reviews and develop techniques for writing literature reviews in an effective way. No preparation is required for attending this workshop.

Integrating sources into your own writing is a key requirement in most academic genres. In this workshop you will re-familiarise yourself with the principles of summarising and paraphrasing source material and practise this in order to boost your confidence when working independently to integrate sources in your written work.

Unlike in many other languages, punctuation in English is occasionally a matter of style rather than of obedience to fixed rules. This workshop will refamiliarize students with the basics of punctuation and show them how guidelines can be followed and occasionally broken.

Building a cohesive and logical argument is a key element of academic writing. Often, feedback from supervisor will tell us that argumentation needs to be improved. In this workshop we examine what precisely is meant by argumentation and look at ways to improve the quality of argumentation in our own academic work.

As a graduate student at Cambridge, you are expected to write clearly. This workshop looks at some common barriers to clarity in writing – and suggests strategies for overcoming them.

Many students on the ADTIS programme will be studying on examined courses. As the University returns to in-person examinations, this workshop will examine how best to prepare for exams, both in the run-up to them and on the day of the exam itself.

This workshop offers the opportunity for up to seven students to present for 15-minutes each, on a subject of your own choice. This could be repeating a presentation you have given previously, practising a presentation you are due to give in the near future, or even designing a presentation for the purposes of the workshop in order to improve your presenting skills.

You will receive immediate oral feedback on both your spoken English and presenting style on completion of your presentation, as well as the opportunity to field questions from the rest of the group.

N.B. – although the maximum number of presenters is seven, further students may sign up to watch and ask questions.

There is an accompanying video on presentation skills which you should watch before attending this workshop.

The most effective writers are actually skilled self-editors. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to approach the editing process – and what to look for when revising your work. Please bring along a piece of work you’d like to edit.

Proofreading is the final stage of ‘checking’ and ‘touching up’ a paper before a final submission. In this workshop we will explore how to proofread effectively and practise doing this with example texts and samples of our own written work.

Students are encouraged to bring samples of their own written work to proofread in this session.

The prospect of a viva can be intimidating – but it needn’t be. In this workshop, we’ll look at how you can prepare for your viva so you can perform with confidence on the day.

For all non-native speakers of English, the pronunciation and production of vowels is one of the more complicated aspects of the spoken language. This workshop will give a brief introduction to the vowel system in English and offer students the chance to improve their grasp of this particular aspect.

There is nothing to do before the workshop.

This workshop will look at a few of the specific difficulties which speakers of Slavic languages have in the pronunciation of English.

The most significant grammar mistakes that foreign students make are usually those that greatly change the meaning of the sentence. Modals, such as can or would, are often used to indicate the position of the writer in academic writing, so their inaccurate use can easily give a very different meaning from that intended.

One of the biggest leaps students have to make as they move from undergraduate to postgraduate study is in the amount of secondary work they need to absorb and process. This workshop will offer some general instruction on how best to sort, assess and analyse a large quantity of information at speed.

Do you want to increase the probability of completing your PhD on time and be happier doing it? Come along to this talk given by our ADTIS Life Coach, Dr Sue Jackson who will share the "Seven Secrets of Highly Successful Research Students” with you. You will be asked to reflect on what each of these “secrets” means to you, and prepare an action plan accordingly. You will also be introduced to what life coaching is about and shown how to sign up for an individual life coaching session if you wish. Please bring a notebook or paper and something to write with.

Even if the writing of foreign students is grammatically correct and coherent, it can sometimes have an undesired impact on the reader because it is written in the wrong style. This webinar will give some guidance on what is usually considered good academic style in physical and biological sciences, and engineering. Students will be asked to complete some exercises after the class.

The most common way for students to share their work with their colleagues is via presentations, using a variety of techniques and methods. This webinar, which dovetails with the Presentation Skills Practice workshop on 23 November, will introduce some ways in which you can make your work come across as coherent and effective.

Do you want to increase the probability of completing your Master’s Degree on time and be happier doing it? Come along to this talk given by our ADTIS Life Coach, Dr Sue Jackson who will share “Some Secrets of Highly Successful Research Students” with you. You will be asked to reflect on what success means for you and prepare an action plan accordingly. You will also be introduced to what life coaching is and shown how to sign up for an individual life coaching session if you wish.

Please bring a notebook or paper and something to write with.

Foreign students often find that in everyday situations they struggle to understand native speakers who are talking quickly. Students also sometimes struggle to speak quickly themselves. This workshop will review some of the ways in which English pronunciation changes during fast, natural speech. It should therefore help students’ listening and speaking. Before the class, students must watch a video on Moodle. The real-time webinar will focus on practice, feedback and questions.

One of the key areas in which non-native speakers of English have difficulty attaining native-level accuracy is in the use of prepositions. Although this webinar does not pretend to give students all the answers, it will provide a number of ways to conceptualise the use of prepositions and hopefully clarify this complex area of grammar.

When we look at databases (corpora) of academic language, we see patterns in the way speakers express their ideas and opinions. In this workshop, we focus on how speakers use language patterns in academic presentations to organise their ideas and interact with their audience, focussing on three key ways to achieve fluency. This is a practical workshop with opportunities to speak and try out aspects of your academic presentations.

Academic culture in English-speaking countries places a lot of emphasis on avoiding plagiarism, but conventions are often different from those in students’ home countries. This webinar will examine what constitutes plagiarism and look at the University of Cambridge regulations. Students will then be asked to complete some exercises online.

Towards the end of the Michaelmas Term, most students start to prepare written work for submission and evaluation. This workshop, offers some key ideas about the microstructures which can be deployed within a piece of academic writing, and shows students how best and most effectively to present their ideas.

In this second session, we continue to work with patterns and chunks in speaking, based on corpus databases of academic language. We look at three more key ways of using chunks to interact fluently with people in academic presentations. This is a practical workshop with opportunities to speak and try out aspects of your academic presentations. Ideally you will have attended the first Academic Speaking in Patterns and Chunks Session but it’s not absolutely necessary.

Practise your presentation skills and receive peer and tutor feedback. This workshop offers students the chance to give a short presentation, with or without PowerPoint. Its aims are to hone the skills required for an effective presentation, and to practise in a supportive and friendly environment. A maximum 7 students only to present for up to 10 minutes each. Students must be ready to present a pre-prepared, short presentation. Before the webinar, please also email your slides to spa29@cam.ac.uk to enable better feedback.

Note: This workshop is a slightly condensed version of Academic Speaking in Patterns and Chunks Sessions 1 and 2, which were offered and oversubscribed earlier in November.

When we look at databases (corpora) of academic language, we see patterns in the way speakers express their ideas and opinions. In this workshop, we focus on how speakers use language patterns in academic presentations to organise their ideas and interact with their audience. This is a practical workshop with opportunities to speak and try out aspects of your academic presentations. Please make sure that you are in an environment where that is possible for the duration of the session.

If our writing is cohesive and coherent, there are logical connections between words, sentences, paragraphs and sections. This workshop explores different techniques for increasing cohesion, which should make your writing easier to read and more effective.

Easter term is the time when examined courses are traditionally assessed. This workshop will help students prepare for exams by offering them guidance about how to revise their year’s work, and how to deal with the exam itself.

There is nothing to do before the workshop.

We all know that academic papers should be clear and concise. But how can we achieve this in our own writing? In this workshop we will explore various ways to develop clarity in academic writing, and we will work through a number of example texts in order to gain practical experience of improving the clarity of written work.

No explicit preparation is required for this workshop, but you may find it useful to bring a piece of your own writing with you.

The switch to hybrid working and the use of online conference platforms for much teaching and graduate presentation work offers its own specific challenges. Following on from earlier workshops on in-person presentations, this workshop gives students a chance to present and get feedback on the specific complications of online presentation.

This workshop is limited to seven students.

Students should prepare a brief (5-7 minute) presentation on an aspect of their academic work. If using audiovisual aids, students should send these to jww41@cam.ac.uk the day before the presentation.

This workshop offers an introduction to various techniques for proof-reading a text, to try to ensure that it is as error-free and coherent as possible. It will also teach how to read and use basic proof-reading symbols.

There is nothing to do before the workshop

Learn the secrets for producing clear, concise and compelling business writing. Whether it’s a day-to-day email or a persuasive pitch, you’ll pick up techniques for quickly identifying your key message — and engaging your reader. The workshop works as a standalone session or as a follow-on to last term’s class on report writing.

There is nothing to do before the workshop

Making the distinction between when to use the infinitive form of the verb (‘to run’) and the gerund (‘running’) is difficult for non-native speakers. This workshop will identify some general rules and some avoidable pitfalls.

There is nothing to do before the workshop.

This workshop offers a friendly forum in which speakers of Slavic languages can practise aspects of English pronunciation. The main focus will be on speakers of Eastern Slavic languages, but speakers of all Slavic languages are welcome to attend.

There is nothing to do before the workshop.