The approach Richard Burns adopts for each student is individualised and non-mechanistic. 

From his recent experience, he believes that explicit focus on writing and study skills can be immensely helpful for students, and that it needs to become more widespread, especially at a time when literacy skills in schools are generally in decline throughout the UK.

He considers that tuition in these areas should no longer be relgated by the educational establishment to the ‘remedial’ category, but should be embraced, positively, as a constructive opportunity for students to enhance and refine specific sets of skills which are, demonstrably, both learnable and communicable.

Students who have worked with Richard Burns usually report increased confidence and motivation, while their supervisors notice a richer attentiveness and fuller grasp of the subject. Examination results nearly always improve, often with a jump upwards in grade.

Here are some areas in which students' skills are developed:

Writing and study skills for undergraduates

• Note-taking

• Gathering and collating ideas

• Techniques of planning essays.

• Conceptual organisation and presentation in academic writing

• Development of argument, connectivity and linking

• Grammar and punctuation: sentence construction and borders

• Style, register and appropriateness of diction

• Elegance, flair and originality: the dance of ideas

Exams

• Revision techniques

• Planning and choosing questions: safety and risk-taking

• Writing and time-management in exams

Writing skills for EL2 Students

All the above points, plus

Strategies in source and target languages.