Recent Articles
7 Techniques from Creative Writing You Can Use to Improve Your Essays
You wouldn’t have thought that essays have much in common with creative writing. Creative writing, by definition, involves being ‘creative’: making things up, letting your imagination run wild. Essays are about being factual and objective, communicating ideas and arguments in the clearest way possible and attempting to enhance the reader’s knowledge, rather than their imagination...
8 Ways to Support Your Gifted Child
When you first start to realise that your child is brighter than their peers – whether it’s hitting developmental milestones early, or reaching for toys and games that you wouldn’t yet expect them to understand – it can feel like you’ve won the lottery of parenthood. But of course, it’s not so straightforward. Raising a ...
10 Ways to Represent Information and How to Make the Most of Them
At school, you don’t often get the opportunity to choose the format in which you answer a question. You’ll usually be told whether you should be answering a question in the form of an essay, a presentation, or more rarely something more creative like a poster. But that means on the rare occasions when you ...
8 Bad Habits Successful Students Don’t Have: And How to Avoid Them
About the Author Stephanie Allen read Classics and English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and is currently researching a PhD in Early Modern Academic Drama at the University of Fribourg. Top tips on how to be less like you and more like the brain-boxes whose grades we all envy. 1) Plan to work right up...
9 Classic Novels for Students of English as a Foreign Language
Getting to grips with the best of English-language literature can be hard for those learning English as a foreign language. We’ve provided a list of essential English novels that everyone should read in a previous article, but many of these are likely to prove daunting if you’re not a confident reader of English. George Eliot’s […]
8 British Stereotypes and Why They Are (Mostly) Inaccurate
As with any other country, we Brits are subject to our fair share of cultural stereotypes. While, to a greater or lesser degree, there’s an element of truth in some of them, you’ll soon discover that many are comically far from the truth! That’s not to say that we deny responsibility; many of the stereotypes...
Focus and Precision: How to Write Essays that Answer the Question
About the Author Stephanie Allen read Classics and English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and is currently researching a PhD in Early Modern Academic Drama at the University of Fribourg. We’ve all been there. You’ve handed in an essay and you think it’s pretty great: it shows off all your best ideas, and contains points ...
How to Tell Which University Subject You'll Love
About the Author Stephanie Allen read Classics and English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and is currently researching a PhD in Early Modern Academic Drama at the University of Fribourg. Deciding which subject to choose to study at university is no mean feat. Not only are there about a gazillion courses to choose from, many ...
8 Ways to Keep a Positive Mindset During Exams
For many people, exams are almost custom-designed to be unpleasant. You’re under heaps of pressure. You need to relax in order to focus on doing as well as you can. But being under pressure makes relaxing a challenge. Stress is making it hard to sleep, but sleeping well is vital if you’re going to succeed...