SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

SUB-HONOURS ESSAY WRITING GUIDE

SCOPE AND PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE

Welcome to the School of International Relations. Whether you are with us for one semester, one year,
two years, or four years, essays will be one of the primary ways in which you are assessed. Many of
you will have written essays at school, but few, if any of you, will have experience writing university-
level essays. This guide is intended to introduce you to some of the key aspects of researching and
writing essays at sub-honours level, and to help you to develop a solid foundation in the research and
writing skills that you will need as you progress through your degree.

This guide has been prepared specifically to address some of the key issues that have been
encountered over the years with sub-honours essays in the School of International Relations, but it is
neither extensive nor a check list that will ensure a good grade.

This guide complements the School’s “Academic Skills Workshop” programme, run in partnership
with CAPOD, and we would like to encourage you to attend these workshops to build on the
foundations provided by this guide.

TOPICS ADDRESSED IN THIS GUIDE:

- Researching Effectively
o Locating appropriate sources and avoiding inappropriate sources
o Planning your research
o Using your research effectively
- Writing the Essay
o Essay and argument structure
o Thesis statements
o Components of the essay
o Plagiarism and academic misconduct
- Referencing
o Footnotes/endnotes
o In-Text citations
o Reference Lists
- Frequently Asked Questions

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1.

RESEARCHING EFFECTIVELY
A good quality essay begins with what you read. It makes effective use of academic sources – books
(single author and edited volumes), and peer reviewed journal articles. A poor-quality essay will rely
on any, or all, of the following: textbooks (including multiple textbooks), news sources, blogs, online
encyclopaedias and obscure Internet sources. As researchers it is your job to locate and use the best
sources, not simply the first ones you come across. This takes time; there are no shortcuts, and so you
should expect to devote at least one week to doing research for each 2,000-word essay and another
week to writing it.

Researching widely is important because research does not tell you what to think; it provokes your
own thinking: it teaches you how to think.

i. Appropriate and Inappropriate Sources

You are all learning to research properly, using resources that you will not likely have used at school,
and so while you are learning it is better to be safe than sorry. There are certain places to locate
sources that will have met the appropriate standards of academic rigour:

➢ Module Reading Lists – believe it or not, they are there for a reason.
➢ Search the Library – the search function on the University Library homepage. Keyword and
subject searches of the database can locate potentially useful sources.
➢ SCOPUS – an extremely useful electronic database of peer-reviewed published work
(infinitely superior to Google Scholar). You can use SCOPUS with your University log-in.
➢ JSTOR – an online academic journal database. Keyword and subject searches can provide
potentially useful sources, all of which have been peer-reviewed.
➢ Google Scholar – helpful, but to be used with caution. Just because a source pops up on
Google Scholar does not necessarily mean it has been peer-reviewed – you need to double
check this.
➢ The reference list of academic sources that you find useful.

One of the most important rules you can learn when developing your research skills is:

Posted online ≠ published.

Just because you find a source online it does not necessarily mean that it has been peer-reviewed and
published – anyone can post anything online and make it look “legitimate”, this does not mean that it
is. Things to avoid using in your essay include:

➢ Blogs – anything with “blogspot”, “wordpress”, etc., in the URL. Blogs contain anything from
conspiracy theories, to reasoned opinion, to rants, and should be avoided.
➢ Online encyclopaedias – especially Wikipedia, About.com, etc. The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy is a good source, but you should get into the habit now of consulting the
bibliography of useful entries and reading those sources instead.

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 ➢ “IR” websites – these will often contain some derivative of “IR” or “international relations”
in the URL and are often little more than textbooks in electronic form and should be avoided.
➢ Unpublished conference papers – these often look like journal articles or chapters from
books, but are works in progress. You do not have access to the informal peer review that
happens at conferences where these papers are presented and so you have no way of knowing
whether the claims being referenced are accurate.
➢ Lecture notes – the purpose of the lectures is to give you an introduction to the topic. The
lecture slides are not there to be used as sources in your essay.

There are some clues that you can look out for to help you figure out if an online source is appropriate:

➢ Publisher information – if it’s a published, peer reviewed academic source it will have a
publisher: SAGE, Palgrave, Routledge, Oxford (or other) University Press, Polity, etc., are all
established academic publishers.
➢ Publication name – if you think that a source you have found is a journal article, look for the
name of a journal on the publication (these will usually be in italics, e.g.: European Journal of
International Relations). If you think a source is a chapter from a book, look for the title of the
book on the publication.
➢ Page numbers – if the page number of the source you are looking at starts at “1” pay
particular attention for publisher/journal information to make doubly sure that the work is not
in draft form.
➢ Journal websites – if you think a source is published in a journal, go to that journal’s website
and use its “search” function to find the article.

If in doubt, ask your tutor. Your tutor would much rather spend 2 minutes checking a source and
advising you if it’s appropriate, than dealing with the use of inappropriate sources after you’ve
submitted your essay.

Textbooks: these can be useful to give you a broad overview of a topic or debate, but textbooks tend
to be descriptive rather than analytical. They also tend to reproduce the same material and so there is
certainly no need to use multiple textbooks for an essay. Textbooks are there for you own general
understanding, rather than as a source for your essays.

Newspapers and news websites: reputable news sources, such as the BBC, CNN, The New York
Times, The Guardian, etc., can be useful for basic information such as dates, names, timelines of
events, and so on. But, remember what you are reading: in depth analysis and academic commentary
will not be found in news articles, and so these should not form a substantial body of your research.

NGO and Government Reports: primary sources such as these can be useful sources, but you need
to be aware of bias. Rather than taking what is written as gospel truth, always be critical and ask
yourself what purpose/agenda/ideology might be being served by such a piece.

Remember, it is your job to locate and use the best sources, not just the first ones you find.
Do not try to take shortcuts – they do not exist and will harm your grade. Devote sufficient time to
your research. This requires planning.

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 ii. Planning your Research

Your essay will only be effective if you have done sufficient research and if this research is relevant to
the question itself, and to your answer to the question – your argument. Restrictive research leads to
restricted argument and analysis. But too much can result in a confused argument and incoherent
structure. So, before you delve into sustained research, you need to be sure what information you need,
so that you know where best to look for it.

Your research has two major guides:

➢ Primary research guide = the essay question itself.
o The question will tell you what the key terms/ideas/theories/claims/debates etc., are
that you need to know about in order to formulate your answer/argument.
➢ Secondary research guide = your own argument
o Break your argument down into component parts and devote research and research
time to each component.

You can think of your essay research in terms of a trajectory:

1. Initial 2. Tentative 3. Further

Research Argument Research

1. Initial Research: Look over lecture and tutorial notes and the required readings and read a
couple of general sources from the Recommended list.
a. This should help you come up with a tentative answer/argument.

2. Tentative Argument: Write your initial argument in one or two sentences – be as concise as
possible.
a. Break it down in to 2 or 3 component parts – tip: this could give you a possible
structure for the essay.

3. Further Research: Continue with in-depth research targeted at each component to ensure
your argument is as strong as it can be.
a. This will also help you to isolate weak areas in your argument and structure.
b. Don’t just seek out sources that make the same argument as you. This risks
confirmation bias. If you come across a source that disagrees with you, you need to
engage with it, not ignore it. This may involve adjusting your argument.

Research is a process, not a one-time thing.

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 iii. Using your Research

Equally as important as the range and quality of sources you consult is how you use them. Sources are
not quote-banks and you should not use them merely to demonstrate how much you have read. The
works you consult are not there to tell you what to think, but to provoke your own thinking. Reading a
wide range of sources will help you to develop your own thoughts and arguments provided you
engage critically with them.

Critical analysis is an important but difficult skill to develop, and a common complaint from tutors is
that an essay is too descriptive. But what does it mean to engage in critical analysis? It begins when
you do your research. Simply put, you need to consider and evaluate the claims made in the sources
you read, and ask yourself whether they are sound, applicable and/or relevant to the question you are
attempting to answer. For example, the basic premise of an argument may be valid or true, but perhaps
the consequences or claims that an author derives from it are false, or only partially true, or irrelevant
for what you are examining or arguing. Drawing attention to this is engaging in critical analysis of the
sources. Some questions to ask yourself as you read and take notes are:

➢ What evidence has the author offered for his/her claims?

➢ Is this evidence relevant and effective?
➢ Based on your understanding of the subject matter, are there other conclusions that can be
drawn from this same evidence?
➢ Is the work of another author, or another approach, more useful and why?
➢ If we do not take the initial assumptions of the author as true, what happens to the claims (s)he
makes?
➢ What might this same issue look like from another perspective?

Asking yourself these questions as you read and including these insights in the development of your
argument, is at the heart of critical analysis and will help you to avoid an essay that is overly
descriptive.

When it is time to draft your essay, you need to be sure that you use your research effectively. Do not
quote for the sake of quoting, and do not leave quotes or examples unexplained. Your tutor is not a
mind reader. It is your responsibility to make clear why a particular example or quote is relevant to
your argument. You also need to select the appropriate source for the point you are trying to make. If
you are making an analytical point, a newspaper article would be the wrong source to turn to.

These are difficult skills to master, and we do not expect you to be great at it yet, but the sooner you
begin, the better.

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2.

WRITING THE ESSAY

Now that you have done your research and formulated your argument – your answer to the essay
question – you need to draft your essay. We recommend that you write at least one draft prior to
submission. Drafting an essay, reading it through, and editing it will allow you to identify any
potential flaws in your argument, use of evidence, and referencing, to see whether the structure you
chose works, and locate any mistakes with spelling and grammar, and fix them prior to submission.

Two of the most important components of your essay are your thesis statement and your structure.

i. Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement is your argument; your answer to the question. It should be no more than 1 or 2
sentences and should be stated in the introduction to your essay. In academic writing we do not like
surprises. Your argument should be stated at the beginning, not at the end.

The thesis statement tells the reader – your tutor – exactly what your answer to the question is, what
you will argue in the following paragraphs, and how you will do this. As such, a thesis statement is
different from simply reiterating the prompt. For example:

Essay question: Assess the contemporary relevance of the Just War Tradition.

Reiterating the prompt: “This essay will assess the contemporary relevance of the Just War Tradition.”

➢ This tells your reader absolutely nothing about the substance of your essay.

Thesis statement: “This essay will argue that certain changes in contemporary warfare, namely the use
of drones and an increase in the role of non-state actors, pose challenges for the Just War Tradition,
but that the tradition has the ability to adapt to such changes, allowing it to remain a relevant tradition
of ethical reflection on warfare.”

➢ This tells your reader what to expect, and what your argument is, allowing him/her to evaluate
the claims that you make and the evidence you offer as the essay progresses.

Your tutor should not have to read your essay more than once in order to understand why you are
writing what you are writing. And so, you need to make it clear from the beginning what the reader
should expect.

ii. Structure

Having a well-structured essay is vital. Poor structure will hinder the flow of your argument and could
confuse your reader, leading to a poor grade. But structure is about much more than simply having
paragraphs.

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As a general rule, the structure of the main body of your essay should be guided by the structure
of your argument. If you break your argument down into component parts, then you can structure
your essay around those components. Using the example above:

Argument: the use of drones and an increase in the role of non-state actors pose challenges to the Just
War Tradition. However, the tradition has the flexibility to adapt to such changes, allowing it to
remain relevant.

Component parts of the argument:

➢ What are these challenges to the JWT posed by drones and non-state actors?
➢ What is it about the JWT that makes it flexible?
➢ How does this flexibility allow it to incorporate changes in warfare, and thus allowing it to
remain a relevant tradition of ethical reflection?

In this example, the 3 main sections of your essay would deal with these 3 components of your
argument, each leading on from the previous one. Each section should address one of the three
components of your argument, and should explain its purpose, offer evidence for the claim made,
evaluate the relevance of this evidence, and link the point being made back to your overall argument.
Each section will be broken down into individual paragraphs, each addressing one component of the
overall argument of that section: e.g. in section one, you might have one paragraph explaining what
drones are and how they are used in warfare, one paragraph explaining key non-state actors and their
role in warfare, and a final paragraph explaining how these challenge the JWT.

iii. Essay Components

The body of your essay should be guided by the structure of your argument. But you also need to have
an introduction and a conclusion to your essay.

➢ Introduction: a relatively short paragraph where you outline your argument for the reader and
let him/her know how the essay is structured. Avoid excessive “scene-setting” and phrases
such as “For as long as people have x, y has been a concern of scholars.” or “Since the
beginning of time, the state has been concerned with violence”. There is no need for
superlatives like these.

➢ Body paragraphs: these sections are where you will actually make your argument and should
be guided by the advice in the section above.

➢ Conclusion: your essay needs a concise concluding paragraph where you summarise the
points you have made to make your argument, and why this argument has been made. You
should not introduce any new information in the conclusion.

➢ Reference List: your essay must include a list of the works you have referenced, listed in
alphabetical order by surname.

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 iv. Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct

In order to matriculate as a student at the University of St Andrews you will have taken the Training in
Good Academic Practice course on Moodle, so there is no excuse for plagiarism or academic
misconduct in your written work.

All of your written work, when uploaded to MMS as an electronic copy, is run through plagiarism
detection software. This software cross-references your text with tens of thousands of sources online
and in the University database looking for matches. Your tutor will be able to see the report on your
essay after it has been run through the software, flagging up potential text matches. If information that
you have included in your essay is taken in moderation from other sources and is referenced properly,
then there is no need to worry. So, it is vitally important to reference properly, and to only use the
words of others in moderation and reference them properly.

As a student it is your responsibility to familiarise yourself with the Academic Misconduct policy –
ignorance of the policy is not considered to be a defence if you are suspected of violating the policy.

Some common traps to avoid (and how to avoid them):

➢ Claiming to have consulted sources you have not in fact consulted.
o It is very easy for your tutor to notice when you have referenced a source you haven’t
used – such as lifting a citation from another work without consulting that piece of
work: citing Hobbes’ Leviathan when you haven’t read it.
o Always cite the source that you actually got the information from.
➢ Not providing a citation for direct quotes or any other information taken from a source
o All information taken from another source, including direct quotes must be cited.
o If you didn’t come up with it yourself, you must cite it.
➢ Recycling previous work
o This is self-plagiarism and will be detected by the software.
o Do not copy and paste work that you have already submitted.

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3.

REFERENCING

Proper citations are a vital part of good academic practice. Providing full and clear references ensures
that you give appropriate credit to the originators of ideas that inform your analysis, and demonstrates
that you have conducted suitable research. Citations, in other words, are about intellectual integrity
and must be taken seriously.

The School of International Relations does not insist upon a single “house style” for references: you
may utilise any of the common styles provided you follow that structure consistently throughout your
essay. There are many citation styles with pros and cons for each. A key distinction is between “in-text”
(sometimes called “author-date”) citation styles and those that provide a full bibliographic entry in a
footnote or endnote. Either is acceptable, but you should be aware that your essay word count includes
material in footnotes/endnotes, but excludes the bibliography. Hence, an in-text citation style (e.g.,
Tickner 2008, 1) will save a great many words of what is essentially redundant bibliographic material
that you can instead dedicate to substantive analysis. You therefore need to be conscious of the
citation style you are using, and the implications of this choice. To aide in this process we require that
you list your citation style on the Essay Cover Sheet.

“Chicago” is a referencing style that you can use for either in-text citations or footnotes. The examples
below all conform to the Chicago Manual of Style. A ‘Quick Guide’ is available online at:
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. The University also has access to the
compete Manual via SAULCAT. You will need your username and password to access the complete
guide. You do not have to use this style. It is included here as a recommendation, not as a requirement.

It is vitally important that you not only reference quotes, but all information that you take from a
source.

Chicago Footnotes

These are full notes inserted at the bottom of the page – note the use and place of punctuation.

(a) Books – single author: First name and surname, Title edition (if other than the first) (place of
publication: publisher, year of publication): specific page(s) of the citation or the material relied upon.

For example:
Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State, and War: a theoretical analysis, 3rd edition. (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2001), 14.

Each subsequent reference to the same work can then take an abbreviated form:
Waltz, Man, the State and War, 17.

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(b) Chapter in edited book: First name and surname, “Title of chapter,” Title of book it appears in,
editor’s name, (place of publication: name of publisher, year of publication): specific page(s) of the
citation or the material relied upon.

For example:
Charles Tripp, “The Foreign Policy of Iraq,” in The Foreign Policies of Middle East States, eds. Ray
Hinnebusch and Anoush Ehteshami (Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002): 170-171.

Each subsequent reference to the same work can then take an abbreviated form:
Tripp, “The Foreign Policy of Iraq,” 172

(c) Journal Article: First name and surname, “Title of article,” Journal title volume, no. (year):
specific page(s) of the citation or the material relied upon.

For example:
Jeffrey Isaac, “Oases in the Desert: Hannah Arendt on Democratic Politics,” The American Political
Science Review 88, no.1 (1994): 160.

Each subsequent reference to the same piece can then take an abbreviated form:
Issac, “Oases in the Desert,” 162

Chicago In-Text Citations

This system does not use numbers for references to literature, but instead inserts, in parentheses, the
name of the author, the year of publication and the specific page reference into the text itself. Our
examples above would then become:

(Waltz 2001, 14)

(Tripp 2002, 170-171)
(Isaac 1994, 160)

When using this system you must put specific pages where they are available when referring to
specific quotes, information or ideas taken from a specific place in the text. The only time it is
acceptable not to include a page number is when there are no page numbers, or when you are referring
to the overall idea or argument of a text, that is not taken from a specific page. This is how these
citations might look in your text:

The so-called “first image” of international relations locates the cause of war in “the nature
and behaviour of man” (Waltz 2001, 14).

Or

Waltz (2001) explains that, according to the “first image” of IR, it is in man’s nature and
behaviour that we must locate the cause of war (14).

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Where a source has more than one author, you list each of them within the parentheses. Where there
are more than 4, you would list the first author’s surname followed by “et al.” to indicate the others.

Whichever referencing system you use, you must list the full publication details of all the sources you
use in your bibliography at the end of your essay.

Chicago Reference Lists:

The reference list includes the full details of each of the sources you used in your essay. You should
only be including the sources you actually use. To include other sources might be considered “padding”
– trying to appear as if you have done more research than you have. When you come to write much
longer pieces of work it is common to list references that have influenced your thought as well as
those you have directly used, but for a 2,000-word essay this is not necessary.

The reference list entries will differ slightly from your footnote/endnote references, and substantially
from your in-text references, and will also slightly differ depending on whether you used in-text
citations or footnotes.

Chicago Footnoted Essay Reference List

➢ Specific page numbers are substituted for the entire page range of the journal article or chapter
in an edited volume.
➢ Page numbers are removed entirely from single author books
➢ The order of the author’s names is reversed (i.e. surname first)
➢ The placement of the page numbers for chapters in edited volumes moves to before the
publisher information.
➢ Publisher information no longer appears in parentheses

The sources we used above would appear in the bibliography as follows:

Isaac, Jeffrey. “Oases in the Desert: Hannah Arendt on Democratic Politics.” The American Political
Science Review 88, no.1 (1994): 156-168.

Tripp, Charles. “The Foreign Policy of Iraq.” In The Foreign Policies of Middle East States, edited by
Ray Hinnebusch and Anoush Ehteshami, 167-192. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002.

Waltz, Kenneth. Man, the State, and War: a theoretical analysis. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2001.

Chicago In-Text Essay Reference List

➢ The entries are very similar to those on a reference list for an essay using footnotes, but the
year of publication moves to immediately after the author’s name.

The sources we used above would appear in the reference list as follows:

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Isaac, Jeffrey. 1994. “Oases in the Desert: Hannah Arendt on Democratic Politics.” The American
Political Science Review 88 (1): 156-168.

Tripp, Charles. 2002. “The Foreign Policy of Iraq.” In The Foreign Policies of Middle East States,
edited by Ray Hinnebusch and Anoush Ehteshami, 167-192. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Waltz, Kenneth. 2001. Man, the State, and War: a theoretical analysis. New York: Columbia
University Press.

Note: the reference list should be arranged in alphabetical order by surname.

If in doubt, ask your tutor!

The library has numerous guides available that explain various referencing styles, but these can
sometimes be confusing as different styles are often differentiated by punctuation used, or where the
date appears in the reference. The guide above contains all the basics you need, but if you are unsure
about how to cite a specific source, send it to your tutor and ask for their guidance. We would much
rather help you than see you on the wrong end of an Academic Misconduct allegation.

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4.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q. My previous tutor liked/disliked/preferred ‘x’. What do you prefer?

A. Your tutor’s personal style preferences should have no bearing on the preparation or
marking of your essay. One of the reasons this guide was produced was to bring some measure of
uniformity to the process and calm some of the anxiety that students often experience preparing essays
for a new tutor. While your tutor may change, the basic essay writing skills outlined in this guide
do not, and these are skills that all tutors will expect you to be able to demonstrate and develop as you
progress.

Q. I have seen sub-headings used in journal articles. Should I use them in my essay?

A. Using sub-headings in longer pieces of work is often useful to the writer and the reader to guide
them through what can be long and complex arguments. You should not need to use them for a 2,000-
word essay. You need to develop your ability to link your points together using prose rather than
headings.

Q. How many sources/references/quotes should I use?

A. There is no concrete answer to this, as it will depend on the type of question asked. It is important
to understand that sources are not quote-banks and you should not confuse the quantity of sources with
the quality of sources. However, as a general rule, in your first year, you should be aiming to hit
double figures (around 10 sources), for a 2,000-word essay. In your second year, you should aim to
increase this number for a 2,000-word essay to help you to transition into longer pieces of work and
the greater research expected of you in Honours. But the more important issue is the quality of the
sources you use, so pay careful attention to the advice given above regarding appropriate and
inappropriate sources.

Q. How much should I assume my tutor knows about a topic?

A. How familiar your tutor is with the topic you will address in your essay is not a relevant concern.
The essay is your opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the topic and to
demonstrate your ability to research and write effectively. No matter what level you are writing at
(sub-honours, honours, and beyond) you will always need to define your key terms, clarify the
parameters of your argument, and explain and support the claims that you make. You should not be
relying upon the knowledge of your tutor to interpret or decipher the claims that you make. It is up to
you to demonstrate your knowledge, your understanding and your abilities.

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Q. When will I get my essay back?

A. The School has a 3-week turnaround policy – you should receive your essay back no later than 3
weeks after you submitted it. This may seem like a long time to you, but reading and grading essays,
and writing feedback, takes a lot of time (if you want it done properly), and the essays also need to be
moderated to ensure consistency in marking. This takes time. We are busy people, but we also want to
do our job properly, and we take essay marking very seriously. So please be patient.

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5.

FURTHER INFORMATION AND GUIDANCE

Your tutor is there to help you. We want you to succeed, and so we encourage you to come to office
hours and discuss your ideas and ask for help. We also want you to remember that essay grades are not
a comment on your intelligence. Essay writing is a skill that it takes time and effort to develop. If you
find that your essay grade is not what you had hoped, read the feedback closely and make an
appointment to talk through it with your tutor and get some advice.

CAPOD have skills tutors and dedicated drop-in sessions at the library where you can take your work
and get some advice.

The School runs an “Academic Skills Workshop” programme that offers dedicated IR workshops on
essay writing skills. Keep an eye on your email for information about this year’s schedule and sign up
to attend.

We hope you find this guide useful. Good luck, and do not panic!

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