How to write essay and assignments for a UK university?

Hello everyone. I am not English native speaker and I am dong Master degree in London. Our teachers gave us a long list of boxes to read through our course which is one year started already from Sep 2006 and we'll be finishing hopefully by November 2007.

The title of our Master course is Public Communication and Public Relation. We have some students from United States and when I ask them why don't you do this Master in the States. They said it is easier to do it in the UK because it takes only a year whereas it takes two years there. I envy those who speak English as a mother tongue because they can read books easily and can follow up what the lecturers say during the class.

When I read books related to our course, I spend long time in one page, because I'm looking words up while reading. So, since ten days I'm still in the middle of the first book. Most of my colleagues are singles which is good for them to have free time to read and concentrate and I came to London with my family three cute kids and my wife.

I couldn't come without them because they cheer me up and inspire me every single minute. BUT the kids drive me crazy they don't let me have time to read and go to the library to make some researches and I hardly manage. They want to go to the park to play, to the pet shop to buy food for the hamster, to the library to read boos, to their friends birthdays or parties etc etc etc … I enjoy going with them so much but it is not fair is it? It's only a year they should give me break.



Anyway, this is not the issue, my question is:

What is the best way to write an essay or assignment about any topic? I'm not say what is the structure of the essay because I know it from my experience and from this website.

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My question is we've been asked to write about this topic for instance:

ESSAY OF 2000 WORDS ON LEGAL, REGULATORY AND POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS ON PC/PR Public Communication and Public Relation.
They gave us four topics and we have to choose one of them. For example,


What is the purpose of professional codes in the field of public relation and how effective are they? Discuss with reference to any set(s) of codes (such as those of the IPR, PRSA, IPRA)


Another question says:

Examine the argument for constraints on the ways in which government practice communication. Should constraints and controls exist-and if so, why?


What is the best way to learn and stick to it whenever I want to write any essay or argument with mentioning the references of course?

I thought I should search online about this topic and go to the library of the university and pick up 3 or 4 books about the topic? Then what? Do I have to read the whole books? Or just scan them and high lighted the main ideas and write them in a separate paper as outlining the essay before writing the first draft?


I really do not know how to follow the best and practical way to achieve this task perfectly?

Do you have any suggestions? Please help me out or give me plan to stick to it whenever I want to write essays, arguments, assignment and presentations about any issue.

Thank you very much in advanced.

Yours,
PCandPR