Make notes, make notes! I'm not really a person who is naturally inclined to make notes. In English there's loads of people that have different coloured felt-tip pens and make these beautiful pages of notes and I'm the opposite of that as I often just don't make notes. But it's good to just start making notes in a lecture because once you've got into the habit, say if you've missed the first 20 minutes and you haven't made any notes you feel less and less inclined unless something is really important or interesting to put it down.
But making notes engages you with what's going on, it's like an activity to do that keeps you awake, keeps your mind active and things are often useful that you don't think are useful at the time when you go back to write an essay. I realise this actually in the third year looking back on my first and second years because by second year I wasn't really making that many notes and often there'd be an infuriating moment when I was writing an essay thinking, ‘What was it that person said in that lecture?' and I just couldn't remember. In fact, one of my friends records all the lectures he goes to so that was a god send, so that's another good thing to do.

Sue: So now tell me about the specifics of putting together that annotated bibliography once you'd found those sources. How did you find that?
Adam: Yeah. So what I would do is if I had a book say, for example, I would kind of go through each of the chapters, just have a brief look at the titles and make sure that I was going to a part within the book that was going to be relevant to what I wanted to discuss. Obviously, I couldn't read through the entire book so I had to be quite specific with that. And then it was just a case of kind of scanning quickly, reading through parts of the book to see if there were any particular dates, any particular sort of words or kind of things that kind of jumped out that seemed related to what I was looking into. And then I would kind of spend a little bit more time reading that section or going over that part.
Sue: And did you rely mostly on books? Or did you have articles, online sources? What did you have in the bibliography?
Adam: I had a couple of articles. Most of the sources were books. I don't know why it ended up like that. That was just the way that it ended up. I think it was just there was a lot more information it felt within the books. The articles were really good for covering off maybe reviews of a film or something like that. So looking at what people were saying maybe about the film, reviewing it, critiquing it or something like that. But in terms of historical context I found that going to books was a lot better.
Sue: So in a sense you were doing two things in tandem, weren't you? You were finding the historical context material, and then you were finding that critique and that argument that would accompany it. So when you're dealing with a whole book how easy is it to know which part will help you?
Adam: I mean with the title that we were given, you know we were specifically looking at Cold War, Britain, 1960s. It became very easy to sort of take out a book from the library about the Cold War, just quickly look through and find the bit that maybe was related to Britain or that period of time (the 1960s) or paranoia, so you could instantly kind of cut out a load of chapters and jump straight to the bits that you wanted.
Sue: So really you're linking this work with that earlier work that you did where you analyzed your title aren't you? So everything's sort of linking forward isn't it? Good. So thinking about the annotated bibliography once you've moved on now to thinking more about writing up a draft, how helpful, or not helpful, will that be?
Adam: Well I've just started writing my draft, and the annotated bibliography has been one of the most helpful things. I feel, as some parts of my essay are pretty much already written for me – you know I've found sort of different phrases or different sort of quotes that I'm going to take. I found specific experiences or incidents, and those are already adding to the word count of my essay.
Sue: So that evidence feels quite solid? So that when you make a point in your essay you feel that you can immediately draw on relevant evidence?
Adam: Exactly. And the structuring that was done in in the first stage of the OAWG, along with that annotated bibliography, has meant that I now know which bits can kind of go into which section. It makes it a lot easier to kind of piece that puzzle together.
Sue: So far have you been able to keep drawing/have you been able to keep linking together the various tasks that you've been involved in up to this point? Has it made some kind of logic? Some kind of sense to you?
Adam: Yeah. At times it maybe didn't seem like it was all connected, but as I've gone on, as long as I've worked through each step on the OAWG and looked carefully at the instructions and what's being asked it does all kind of build together and connect in the end. You don't always see the bigger picture at the beginning but once you get towards the end, and you have all the bits and start piecing it together then it makes a lot more sense.

In terms of developing my critical thinking I look at whatever it is the subject or topic matter is and then I try to understand the basic background of it first.
When I go to the reading I have to keep reminding myself whilst reading what the angle is of the author who has written this, why have they said this, what are they attempting to make us question while reading it.
Are they right and what they say? Are they wrong and what they say? And at the end of the reading you should be able to have kept those things at the back of your mind and have developed your own critical thinking which may agree with what the author has said or completely the opposite, but it really depends on looking at the angles of the text the subject matter and what the subject matter means to you.

What is Argumentation? Essentially, it’s a claim made in a discursive essay that’s in the form of a thesis statement. A thesis statement is one or two sentences that come at the end of your introduction. This claim needs to be well-supported with academic sources.

Hello, I'm Jackie Wills I've been RLF fellow at Sussex in September 2010.
I see up to six students a day with questions about their writing and I'm often asked, “how do I develop an argument” so here's a short guide.
You should be able to summarise your argument in three lines even if the idea’s you're dealing with are difficult. Use simple language a child could understand, you won’t use this language in your essay but write it on a post-it-note and stick it on your desk to keep you focused.
Sometimes an argument is a process of reasoning one thing happens and another, so they lead to this. Sometimes an argument is about understanding a range of opinions and how they relate. When you're faced with different critics or commentators how do you form an independent argument? Try and arrange these opinions in groups, maybe think about categories like the dominant thinkers, the Mavericks on the margins, the new and interesting thinkers, the establishment or the extremists, the moderates.
Remember how as a child you could identify different groups so quickly in the playground the ones you knew were the bullies, the popular kids the loners, the ones who were picked on. If you can summarise what each group stands for, you'll find it easier to arrive at an argument because you've mapped the critical landscape with your own who's who.

If you're asked to analyse an issue or theory critically you need to prove you're aware of its strengths and weaknesses, and that you've researched what other people have written about it. You don't have to express a personal opinion but you must show you understand the issues and can present the views of experts accurately.
If you want to express a personal opinion but are not allowed to use “I” you can still do this with phrases like “it's clear from the evidence” or “this suggests that”. Everything in the body of your essay should support your argument. Your argument is the driving force it's the essence of your research and ideas, it gives you the momentum you need, it feeds the body of your essay and decide what evidence you present.
Talk it through with friends and family if you feel unclear, ask them to ask you questions about it. Give yourself time to revise your argument until it feels right and time to question who you're quoting and how do they contribute to the argument, everything you include should be relevant. Finally an argument doesn't have to be an evenly weighted discussion with the same space given to both sides but you do have to be aware of any arguments against you and decide how to acknowledge them.
There are two RLF fellows at Sussex available to help students with essays dissertations or any other aspect of academic writing. You can book an appointment with them on Study Direct there's more support on writing study skills on S3 and the Royal Literary Fund website here are the addresses and there are live links on S3.