Whatever your needs, wherever and whenever you are working, the University provides you with a range of services and tools to develop your academic writing. 

With new tools available to support your study, and following student feedback and usage of Studiosity, we have adapted the way students can access academic skills support going forward. 

All students now have access to TurnItIn Draft Coach. Draft Coach enhances and extends writing support available at the University by providing unlimited instant feedback, 24/7, 365 days a year. It is a self-study tool that students can use whenever and wherever to develop their academic writing and research skills.  

Draft Coach offers three areas of support: 

  1. Grammar Checker: highlights grammatical mistakes and provides explanation of issues. 
  1. Citation Checker: identifies potential missing citations and references. 
  1. Similarity Checker: allows students to check their work for similarity.  

Alongside, the Academic Skills team, Draft Coach forms part of a flexible and holistic package, which allows students to seek feedback and guidance on their academic writing in a range of ways.  

Draft Coach is a tool within Microsoft Word for the web and can be accessed by opening or creating an online Word document via the “One Drive” tile on Portal, or by logging in to office.com with your University of Chester details. 

Full guidance on how to use Draft Coach can be found here.

With the availability of Draft Coach and following the initial trial period of Studiosity, Studiosity will now only be available during the summer resit/resubmission period to provide an additional tool to support students undertaking resubmission assignments when other services may have reduced capacity. Access will be paused for all students for the remainder of this academic year and opened again to summer resitting students for academic years 23/24 and 24/25. 

All students can continue to make unlimited use of Academic Skills’ self-service tools and personalised feedback services, both online and on-campus.  

To receive formative feedback on your writing: 

  • The Academic Skills Team’s FeedForward service provides developmental advice on extracts of written work (approximately three paragraphs per assignment). To use FeedForward, send extracts of your work to ASk@chester.ac.uk. We aim to respond within 3 working days. You have unlimited access to FeedForward. 

To discuss your work in-person: 

For specific questions on academic writing and/or referencing: 

  • ASk@chester.ac.uk – you can ask for help on how to reference sources or general advice on what to include in an introduction, for example. 
  • CiteThemRight Online – CiteThemRight supports referencing. It has short tutorials to develop your understanding of referencing and academic integrity. It provides guidance and examples on how to reference a range of different sources. 

What do students say about Academic Skills?  

I was very impressed at how knowledgeable and friendly the ASk team were and the level of detail given via email after our session… I feel confident now to continue working on my assignment with greater understanding of what is required & how to achieve it. I wish I’d contacted ASk earlier as I believe I’d have understood my lectures more thoroughly which would’ve been reflected in my marks.  

Claire  

Being an international postgrad, I really struggled with critical writing. UK academic writing style was new to me. ASk helped me pass in terms of writing style, paraphrasing & referencing. 121s are great to get feedback and discuss your issues in detail.
 

Irsa

I’ve been using ASK since I started uni in September 2021. It’s the most amazing service, because the support and help I have received is invaluable. The booking system is easy to book appointments and it’s really good booking face to face sessions. I have booked my sessions with Anthony and Liz. I have built great relationships with both of them and they have both taught me about active and passive citation. Liz has explained about writing paragraphs academically and has also done colour coding techniques in the last session which was really useful. I have learnt about doing double citation and learning to write in level 5. Liz has been extremely supportive and really kind. She listens to my needs and demonstrates ideas that would work for my needs. I am really pleased that Chester has ASK, it’s a great service for helping build student confidence.

If you have any questions about using these services, please contact ASk@chester.ac.uk  

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