Skills Development: Negotiation, Argumentation and Presentation
Module leader: Dr Kostas Amiridis
This module will help you to acquire a number of transferable skills that will be very beneficial when you start out on your career. As the title suggests, key areas will include negotiation, argumentation and presentation skills. The aim is to provide some heuristic guidance and then actively develop these skills through a series of exercises.
Presentation skills – you will be given a detailed introduction to what constitutes good presentation practice. This includes advice in relation to preparation, rehearsal, introducing, formulating the body of the presentation, concluding the presentation and finally answering questions. All students are then filmed in Lancaster University Television Studio. You then watch the recording of your presentation and receive comments from your tutor and your peers.
Library skills – you will be introduced not just to the different ways of finding information electronically and non-electronically, but also to strategies adopted by researchers to find literature about a particular topic. Several examples of relevant topics will be provided. You are then required to search for information about a specified topic, and to report back on the difficulties and experiences you encountered with this exercise.
Writing and argumentation skills – a detailed series of lectures explore how academic arguments can be constructed. This includes an exposition of the theoretical principles and concepts within argumentation, as well as an exploration of the practicalities associated with argumentation. Your task will then be to develop an argument and presentation (including literature searching) advocating or critiquing a claim relating to a particular topic.
The module will be delivered via a combination of lectures and workshops focused around the module themes, including some student-led sessions.
Assessment
This module is not formally assessed.
