University life difference to college... what to expect

Hi, I’m currently in a gap year and I’m looking to study at university next year. The course is heavily coursework with a few exams (criminology). I was just wondering if anyone can give me advice of how university works. At college we would get assignments with a main objective that had criteria you had to meet. That's is similar to university; you'll be given learning outcomes for each module and marking criteria, an assignment (you may be given a specific title or be asked to propose your own), and then you refer to the learning outcomes and marking criteria in order to know the standards required for each classification (1st, 2:1, 2:2 etc.). They may not be too specific, so you need to make sure you have a clear understanding of the essay question/title.

We would also get the option to resubmit work if we hadn’t quite met criteria. I just want to know what I should expect from assignments and coursework at university. At university, you typically get one shot at submitting an essay. Some lecturers will allow you to informally email them a draft for them to give feedback on, but many won't do this. That's why it's important to go your lecturer's office hours if you are unsure of anything, and use your university's study skills department too. If you fail (i.e. get under 40%), you'll get asked to write another essay, but this one will be capped at 40% (so you can't achieve higher than the minimum pass mark). Ideally therefore you'd aim to pass first time around.

Also in terms of referencing I used to read a lot of books and online articles to get my information and referenced a fair bit. I was always unsure of whether the notes I took down from the tutor could be included without referencing? If the tutor isn't referencing an article or researcher or their own research (i.e. published works), then you can't reference a tutor's presentation.

How would this transfer to university say if I was to be in a lecture taking notes and wanted to use that for my work would I have to reference the lecturer or? You wouldn't reference the lecturer; you would have to find the original source they were referencing, or a source that says the same thing. Lecturers' presentations are only very brief summaries/overviews of a topic, so referencing them is inappropriate. You need to rely on your reading for references (or references found within your lecturers' slides).

Sorry if I sound completely dumb I just find that at my college I was never properly learned what to expect with how university work is carried out and it’s hindering my confidence not knowing how it would work. Thanks!

I’m currently doing an access course, so essentially fitting 2 years of a levels into one year. It’s intense but our tutors have advised that year one of uni will be a walk in the park compared to this. That’s mainly as year one is making sure everyone is working at the same level, you won’t all have done the exact same modules or subjects to gain entry onto your course.

Neils Toolbox is a great way to learn Harvard Ref. It’s an automated system that will set up references in the correct format for you.

Another student asked my tutor this exact question about quoting her. She replied, she’s not a published author, she hasn’t written a journal or article so you can’t quote her. What they say in lectures can’t be used as academic quotes for that reason. They can be perceived as a persons own opinion, when referencing is supposed to be factual, reliable sources of information.

See my answers in bold in the quote.

Thanks very much! Also in regards to referencing, at college I would read a piece of information that I would use in my assignment and then put it in there but I would never copy word for word I would incorporate it into the sentence I was writing rather than saying I got it from so and so. For example, I would write the reference in brackets at the end of the sentence with the information I got from the source... is this alright to do? I hated fully quoting sources and always preferred to incorporate the information within a sentence of my own and then reference if that makes sense. With my college tutors when they did lecture type lessons I would always take notes and get a rough idea of what they were teaching and then look it up online to find credible sources. Another question if you don’t mind me asking is, when you do a reference list/bibliography do you only include references for the sources you used or would you include sources you looked at but didn’t use as well as I got very confused with this at college. Thank you for the help I appreciate it lots, with the criteria’s I would always try to make sure I met every objective rather than just aiming low at a pass so I guess that’s good too.

Yes, that structure is fine to use. Two choices people use most often are: 1. Smith (1990) suggested that...[what they suggested], or 2. [What a researcher found] (Smith, 1990). Both choices of structure are equally valid. You're right in your feeling that direct quotes aren't great - these should be avoided where possible, and only used where a specific definition or non-reworded portion is required.

As to your second question, it depends on the university/department. Some will require a reference list (the sources you used) and a bibliography (sources you consulted but didn't use), and some will just require a reference list. They will tell you what to use when you're set your first assignment.

Okay thank you very very much. This has made me feel a lot more confident as in college the form of referencing I used was (Smith, 1980). When I could not find a date for a source I would always use (Smith, ND). And then when listing the full reference I would say No Date... I’m not sure if this is right? Also when I was unable to find the specific author of a source I would use the page it was published on... such as (GOV.UK, 2017). I hope these are right, I think it’s made me feel better having more knowledge of how university works now.

Each university (and even department) will subscribe to a particular referencing style e.g. Harvard style, APA style etc., so the conventions for no author/no date papers will differ. Don't worry too much about it, as your university/lecturer will let you know what style they expect and provide a referencing guide for you.