Study skills
If you have written essays before you will have your own ideas about how to approach answering this question. You are also taking this module, so should get more than a few ideas as you go through it as well! However, if you’re stuck with where to start what follows is a little guidance (nb// you may not always get guidance like this for every essay, but we realise it is your first one at this level!).
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Initial preparation and planning
To begin with you’ll need to work out what you think the question is getting at. If you break down the question into its individual parts you might want to consider: How might you use Google in preparing an essay? What makes essay writing effective? What is new about this at University level? To organise your thoughts consider going over the lecture materials, looking at textbooks, and exploring other sources of information.
Once you have worked out the basic building blocks above, you will now need to work out what your argument will be. In writing an argument is not simply two people yelling at each other. Rather it is a persuasive writing style that attempts to convince the reader that they should agree with the writer’s thesis/position. This is done by giving the essay a logical structure, which is supported by evidence and leads to a sound conclusion. This is what we mean by your ‘argument’.
Notice it asks you to ‘Discuss the impact…’. In constructing your arguments you will need to consider: Are the impacts largely positive? Or largely negative? And in what ways. The question is intentionally broad to allow you to make an argument you believe in – there is no way you could cover every possible aspect in such a short essay! You will therefore need to work out what aspects your argument will focus on. For example:
Plagiarism;
Searching for information;
Reading off the internet;
…etc.
The topics we cover on this module are a good clue to the kind of things you could include. So, think about the topics you
===
Initial preparation and planning
To begin with you’ll need to work out what you think the question is getting at. If you break down the question into its individual parts you might want to consider: How might you use Google in preparing an essay? What makes essay writing effective? What is new about this at University level? To organise your thoughts consider going over the lecture materials, looking at textbooks, and exploring other sources of information.
Once you have worked out the basic building blocks above, you will now need to work out what your argument will be. In writing an argument is not simply two people yelling at each other. Rather it is a persuasive writing style that attempts to convince the reader that they should agree with the writer’s thesis/position. This is done by giving the essay a logical structure, which is supported by evidence and leads to a sound conclusion. This is what we mean by your ‘argument’.
Notice it asks you to ‘Discuss the impact…’. In constructing your arguments you will need to consider: Are the impacts largely positive? Or largely negative? And in what ways. The question is intentionally broad to allow you to make an argument you believe in – there is no way you could cover every possible aspect in such a short essay! You will therefore need to work out what aspects your argument will focus on. For example:
Plagiarism;
Searching for information;
Reading off the internet;
…etc.
The topics we cover on this module are a good clue to the kind of things you could include. So, think about the topics you