This course offers you a fundamental skill for study and your career. It will help you clarify and organise your thoughts into a form you can use. You can use the thematic method for writing essays and reports, to outline a presentation, or to develop your CV. It is a highly flexible approach that you can adapt and reuse across all sorts of tasks. I’m developing this as my first module because so much of my other training depends on these skills! And I’ve made it really affordable because everyone needs the ability to organise their thoughts.
The training covers the following micro-skills:
- Brainstorming to identify all your relevant knowledge
- Grouping the items you have identified in your brainstorm
- Thinking about relationships within and between groups
- Developing an argument about the items and relationships
- Outlining and presenting your argument to an audience
You might be thinking ‘but my CV doesn’t have an argument.’
But here’s a secret I’ll tell you for free: everything has an argument.
- Your CV is arguing ‘I have the relevant skills and you should hire me.’
- Your report at work is arguing ‘This report answers the question that was put to me.’
- A financial report is an argument ‘We can pay our bills when they fall due.’
- Even your shopping list has an argument! (‘You need these items to make that dish.’)
An argument is a statement with reasons and evidence about how relevant things fit together. Often it includes (or implies) another statement about what should be done. The thematic method is a simple and easy way to develop an argument. It ensures that your end product, whatever that might be, covers all the relevant material in a clear and thoughtful way.
