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Business 101 & 102 Business 101 & 102 Online Support Modules - ARCHIVED Business 101 & 102 Business 101 & 102 Online Support Modules - ARCHIVED |
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Researching your essay
Introduction
This module provides general advice to get you started and thinking about how to approach an essay.
What is the purpose of essays?
The word essay comes from a Latin word exigere which means to examine, test, or literally to drive out. This explains the essence of an essay, which is to encourage students to test or examine their ideas on a topic. Essays will help you
- develop questioning and critical skills
- develop skills that allow you to order and evaluate ideas, and formulate questions as you read
- develop a coherent viewpoint or opinion, which is substantiated or supported through evidence, such as the ideas or research of others
- learn writing skills in order to express your views with clarity, precision and persuasion.
Researching for your essay
Start with the Library.
You will need to use Library resources to locate quality information for your essay.
1. The Library catalogue
The Library catalogue contains information about books, reports, theses and other published material relating to New Zealand lifestyles. The best way to locate information in the catalogue is by carrying out a subject search. For example seeking information about wine in New Zealand, relevant subject headings would be:
- Wine industry New Zealand
- Wine industry
- Wine & wine making
2. Topic Pages for New Zealand Information
There are excellent library resource pages created by the business librarians for research, particularly New Zealand Company Information and the guide to the New Zealand economy.
Marketing databases are useful as many of these contain New Zealand lifestyle trends and statistical information.
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3. Key Library Databases for your Assignment
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It is often useful to include data and statistics in your essay to validate your conclusions and opinions. These two library resources will help you locate statistical data.NZSTATS databaseLibrary guide: Statistics and numeric data
Striking the balance
Use the slider on the see-saw below to view the consequences of the two extremes; what happens when you do not back up any of your ideas with any authoritative sources, and what happens when you use other people's ideas too much.
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Taken from the OIL (Online Information Literacy) modules developed in a collaborative project between the University of Otago, Dunedin College of Education and Otago Polytechnic with funding from the Tertiary Education Commission's e-Learning Collaborative Development Fund. |
Draft and redraft
You are ready to write a first draft when you :
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In writing the first draft expand your notes into paragraphs, making sure that you get your ideas down on paper rather than at this stage attending to mistakes and sentence construction.
 | Tip: What you write at this stage will not necessarily be what the readers see. Very few of us can write a flawless first draft! You should expect to do at least a second draft. It's good to allow time between drafts for reflection. The more drafts the better. |
Editing involves checking the content of your writing.There are four key areas to think about: |  |
Proofread and check
Proofreading is the stage of your writing where you are happy with the content and now just need to check for errors. This involves looking at:
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Things to look for might include:
Spelling and grammar
| Punctuation
| Referencing
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 | Check One more final check. For more information on grammar and style, see here (popup window).
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Test yourself
