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Profile for: Kate Borthwick

New how to take good notes

by Kate Borthwick

The lectures that you attend on your course can provide important information for assignments, exam revision or simply help to extend your knowledge of your own subject. For this reason, it is important that you are able to take good notes while listening to a lecture.

Style in academic writing: using cautious language

by Kate Borthwick

It is good practice in academic writing, to show caution in the language that you use. This is true when reporting the results of experiments and when describing your findings or conclusions. Using cautious language means writing information in a way which shows you understand that you cannot be...

Style in academic writing

by Kate Borthwick

When you are writing Academic English, it is important to think about aspects of style: how you are using English. This will make your work more readable and professional. The use of good style in writing will reflect well on the quality of your work. Poor style suggests poor research and poor...

Using the passive voice in English

by Kate Borthwick

Academic writing in English makes common use of the 'passive voice.' This is a grammar construction which is often used in more formal writing. It allows your writing to sound more professional, scientific and impersonal. If you wish to write scientific English well, you need to learn about...

Using articles correctly (a/an/the)

by Kate Borthwick

Articles in English are the most common words: a, an, the. Their use is governed by a wide range of rules which can seem confusing and annoyingly changeable to learners of English! Understanding when to use 'a' or 'an' is more straightforward than knowing how to use 'the'...

Writing about processes in English

by Kate Borthwick

A common part of scientific writing in English involves writing about processes. There are two main types of process: consecutive and simultaneous. In consecutive processes, one action happens and finishes before the next action begins, so you might describe this kind of process using vocabulary...

Une femme très connue?

by Kate Borthwick

La statue de Marie Noël (image à gauche) se trouve dans une grande ville de France, mais savez-vous qui elle est et pourquoi elle est connue en France? Dans les activités ci dessous vous allez faire quelques exercices audio et de lecture pour en savoir plus.

A taste of Arabic

by Kate Borthwick

Arabic is spoken by more than half a billion native speakers across the Arab world, from North Africa to the countries of the Middle East and the Gulf states. This is in addition to 250 million non-native speakers. Arabic is also regarded as a universal language for Muslims worldwide. Muslims use...

Making effective online learning material

by Kate Borthwick

For classroom teachers or lecturers, developing online learning materials requires a change in the approach to how they might usually design teaching or learning materials. Paper-based lessons which work perfectly well in the classroom are likely to require considerable modification to transform...