Undergraduate tutors for each stage of your degree

These are possible starting points, not a fixed timetable for every degree. Use your own module handbook, assessment brief and university advice to decide what matters now. A skill first encountered in one module may also help with another; identify that connection before booking separate lessons for each deadline.

Consider this invented planning example. A student has a reading discussion next week, a methods exercise after that and an essay later in the month. They can summarise a source but struggle to explain what its evidence supports. More time copying notes would leave that difficulty untouched.

A possible first tuition goal is to distinguish a source’s finding from the conclusion a writer draws. Practise on an unassessed extract: identify the claim, the evidence and a limitation. Then try a different extract independently. This supports a skill the student can bring to later reading and writing; it does not produce the assessed essay for them.

Keep the methods exercise on the plan as well. If its difficulty is a separate calculation, give it its own practice task or seek the relevant subject expertise. Review the next deadline after the first independent attempt rather than booking the same sequence regardless of what the student now understands.

Newcastle’s guidance on using evidence in an argument explains how to connect evidence with a claim and recognise its limits.

Suppose a practice dataset gives five students’ weekly independent-study hours as 2, 3, 3, 4 and 18. These are invented figures for learning, not a guide to how long you should study.

The total is 30 hours, so the mean is 30 ÷ 5 = 6 hours. The middle value is 3 hours, the median. Describing 6 hours as typical without looking at the data hides the influence of the 18-hour observation.

A clearer report is: “For these five observations, the mean was 6 hours and the median was 3 hours. The high observation raises the mean, so the median better describes the middle of this particular dataset.” Check whether 18 was recorded correctly and refers to the same period; an unusual value is not automatically an error to delete.

For a methods module, the follow-up goes beyond arithmetic: justify the statistic you chose, explain how the students were selected and state the limits of any conclusion about a wider population. Practise with a separate dataset until you can explain those choices yourself.

The definitions follow Newcastle’s Data Summaries notes, Chapter 3 (PDF); Edinburgh’s data-science notes, pages 18 and 37–38 (PDF) explain unusual observations and causal limits.

A project plan needs more than a submission date. List the decisions your course requires: a workable question, an appropriate method, access to evidence, analysis and a writing timetable. Confirm the order and any approval requirements with your supervisor before collecting data.

For an illustrative planning exercise, a question about how commuting students describe their experience may call for a different method from a question about how many hours they travel. Interviews, measurable data and a literature-based investigation answer different kinds of questions. Use a tuition session to practise explaining that choice on separate material, then take your own proposal through the university’s process.

Leave time to understand the analysis before committing to a method you cannot yet use independently. If the plan depends on recruiting participants or obtaining data, discuss feasibility and ethics with your supervisor. A private tutor does not replace that supervision or approve the project.

Leeds’ guide to researching a project explains the method choices and their relationship to the question.

Check your university and module rules before using private tuition in connection with assessed work. The rules can go beyond proofreading: for example, Leeds’ academic integrity and assistance policy prohibits using paid services to prepare assessed coursework, with a specific exception for disabled students accessing services recommended by its Disability Services. An authorised university supervisor has a different role from a private tutor.

Use separate practice material to learn the underlying skills. Keep submitted arguments, calculations, data analysis, code and conclusions your own; any university-authorised assistance must stay within its permissions. Ask your module leader what support is permitted before booking if you are unsure. Keep a record of sources as you read, and follow your course’s referencing guidance. Newcastle’s guide to working with a proofreader explains the boundary between identifying surface errors and changing the substance of work.

Latimer tutors offer a free introductory meeting to discuss goals, teaching approach and arrangements; it is not normally a full teaching lesson. Use that conversation to check the tutor’s familiarity with your topic and agree a realistic first priority. Newcastle’s revision guide (PDF) supports the self-testing and spaced practice used in the suggested plan below.