Dr Eva Giraud of the Department of Culture, Film and Media, explains how a new module has been designed to help students to develop their research and essay-writing abilities in preparation for their second year studies. She shows some examples of previous students' work to give an idea of the quality produced in the assessed task. Visit the University's Talking of Teaching blog for more articles from the staff perspective. http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/talkingofteaching/