Lecture 2

Finding resources
• Where can you find specific supporting details to support your ideas?
• For some assignments, you may be able to use examples from your
own personal experience, or you may be able to gather quotations
and statistics by performing an experiment, taking a survey, or
interviewing people.
• For other assignments, you may have to look for outside sources by
researching your topic in a library or on the Internet.
• Academic sources of information
• Your own opinions
• Conclusions or outcomes of discussions on the
issue with friends or relatives
• A celebrity’s opinion
• Articles in popular magazines
• Opinion columns and articles in newspapers
• The sources of information you document are typically those
from an authority (someone who has been the author of
published material)
• This material may come in the form of……
• Books
• Journal articles
• Published reports
• In such materials you may find -
• theoretical ideas,
• critical evaluations,
• research findings, and
• scholarly opinions
to back up the points you are making.
Steps in planning
• Analyse the question and the keywords. Note the
main topics that you are going to cover.
Consider the following titles and decide which
sections you will include in each essay.
1. Nursery education is better for children than staying
at home with parents – Discuss.
• Stats about the growth of nurseries in India since 1995
• A report on the development of children who remain
at home until five
• A discussion comparing speaking ability in the two
groups of children
• An outline of the increase of women in the labour
market since 1960
2. Compare studying in a library with using the internet. Will the former
become redundant?
• The benefits of using books
• The drawbacks of internet sources
• Predicted IT developments in the next 15 years
• An outline of developments in library services since 1945
(Source: Bailey, 2003)
Steps in Planning (contd…)
• Divide any notes and ideas you already have into separate topics
using a separate sheet for each topic relevant.
• These separate notes should lead to different paragraphs of your
write-up
• Rearrange your notes. Look at what you have and group related
information and arrange them in a logical order
• Write an outline plan using the topics you have arranged.
• Write your first plan before you have done any research and that will
help you to be more selective and constructive in taking notes.
• It will focus your reading and you can adapt your plan as you go
along.
• Do qualifications guarantee success in life?
A sample plan
u Introduction: variety of different
qualifications; different ways of assessing
and awarding degrees
u Why necessary: (i) international
requirements for professions, e.g. to be a
doctor one has to have an MBBS or a
similar qualification; (ii) students get a
chance to study latest theories/ interact
with experts and learn as part of their
courses; (iii) qualifications lead to better
salaries and promotion
• Drawbacks: (i) many professionally successful people don’t
have qualifications (e.g. Henry Ford, Steve Jobs); many
qualified people don’t have jobs
• Conclusion: qualifications are useful but do not guarantee
success in life

(Source: Bailey, 2003, p.6-7)