Study skills hub

Essay Writing

Monday 16 March 2026 1pm - 2.30pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

How to understand correctly what essay titles are asking you to do, and how this can help you to adopt an appropriate essay structure and line of argument are the main focuses of this session. It will also introduce a range of essay structures and strategies for developing persuasive arguments. Find related online resources here: https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/academic-writing

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Reference management

Tuesday 17 March 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

How do you manage your reading and keep track of the material you find? In this workshop, we'll take a look at how managing your reading fits into the academic reading and citing process, reflect on what might work for you, and explore options for keeping track of your reading. We'll then look at how reference management software can help you store, organise, and use citation information, looking at how specific features of Zotero and Paperpile can be used for this process.

Reference Management Practical Guide

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How to Use Feedback to Improve your Mark

Tuesday 17 March 2026 3.30pm - 5pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Sometimes, when we get feedback from markers, we are not sure which direction to take to make improvements. In this workshop, we will be looking at feedback on assignments from academic staff and identifying how this advice can be used to improve our writing. We will also consider what resources/sessions are available from the academic skills community to work on these areas for improvement.

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Academic Grammar and Vocabulary

Wednesday 18 March 2026 10.30am - 12pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

A range of grammatical structures that are commonly found in academic texts will be introduced, focusing on their function and form so that you can start using these structures in your own writing. We will also focus on academic words that occur frequently together in academic texts, such as ‘conduct research’, and how the use of these phrases (collocations) can make your academic writing sound more natural. Please find related online resources here: https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/academic-writing

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The Distractibles Meetup

Wednesday 18 March 2026 12.30pm - 1.30pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: LFA/144 Academic Skills workshop room (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Students/staff

Finding it hard to focus and plagued by distractions? Join The Distractibles Meetup on Wednesdays, 12.30pm to 1.30pm in the Library, LFA/144. We are a support group of staff and students with small group chat and accessibility ideas to try. Whether you're neurodivergent or just easily distracted, our peer-support group might be just the thing for you. The Distractibles

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How to run better Zoom meetings

Wednesday 18 March 2026 12.30pm - 2pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Whether you are using Zoom for meetings, interviews, teaching sessions or looking to generally improve your video-conferencing skills: join us to look at all the settings and best-practice to follow to make your Zoom sessions run smoothly with confidence.

We will look at:

• Setting up your Zoom calls with confidence
• Managing participants, keeping on top of the chat and being a responsive host
• Common faux-pas, issues and troubleshooting
• Managing hybrid meetings effectively
• How to record and share your meetings
• Following accessibility best-practices

Video conferencing

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Explore handheld 3D scanning

Wednesday 18 March 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Let's create a high-quality digital twin of a 3D object. Starting with a chance to try out dedicated handheld 3D scanner, we'll then look at the considerations and challenges of trying to create a digital replica. We'll also share a whole host of ideas for how you could use 3D scans in your study, work or research; like animating them, or even 3D printing them. This session is open to anyone, including those who are interested in seeing how 3D models can help people engage with your work or area of study. If you have your own portable item you'd like to scan, bring it along!

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Finding academic literature - going beyond your reading list

Thursday 19 March 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

When you do a Google search or a search of the Library's resources, you will potentially be faced with a massive reading list. How do you choose which are the best texts? Who do you trust? Where do you get the most reliable data from? In this session you will learn some of the best places for finding academic information and how to select the most appropriate reading for the task you have to complete.

Being critical: Evaluating information Searching for information: Academic sources

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YorCreate: So you want to 3D print a D&D miniature?

Thursday 19 March 2026 5pm - 6.30pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/132 YorCreate (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Have you ever wanted to create your own custom miniature figurines for tabletop gaming? In this session we’ll look at how you can digitally design a 3D miniature for Dungeons & Dragons and similar games, and we’ll share our advice for how to most-effectively 3D print your miniatures. We’ll also consider what other peripheral items we could print, such as dice towers and dungeon tiles.

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UG Dissertation Writing 3: Discussion & Conclusion

Friday 20 March 2026 11am - 12.30pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Undergraduates

This final session explores how we discuss our results and bring everything together in a compelling way. How do we find meaning in our results and relate them to the literature? What questions do our results raise, and how can we acknowledge and account for unforeseen limitations of our research? Finally we will look at how we tie the discussion section back to our introduction, and how to write a compelling abstract.

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