Legal method skills include: • handling, applying and interpreting law reports; • handling, applying and interpreting UK legislation and delegated legislation; • handling, applying and interpreting European Community legislation, treaties generally, and human rights law; • argument construction and deconstruction; • answering legal questions, both problems and essays; • legal reading and writing skills; • oral argument skills. 1.3.1.4 Substantive legal knowledge skills (for example, criminal law and tort– which, of course, are dealt with in your discrete courses) So, as you can see, there are many skills to be acquired and these are set out in diagrammatic form in Figure 1.2, below, to give another way of seeing the interrelationships between the range of skills. Deficiency in one group of skills can affect performance in all areas. It is possible to divide sub-skills into even smaller constituent parts and the diagram does this merely to illustrate the complex nature of the undertaking of such studies. This complexity is not peculiar to the law either. If the course being undertaken was life sciences, again one would need similar generic skills of: • general study skills; • language usage skills (and perhaps foreign language skills); • scientific method skills; • understanding of substantive science subjects. Students who think that it is enough to memorise chunks of their substantive law subjects are unsuccessful. They do not understand the need for the skills required in the other main areas of general study skills: English language skills, method skills, critical thinking and the balance of expertise required among them. All of these skills need to be identified; students need to know which skills they have a basic competency in, which skills they are deficient in and which skills they are good at. Then, each skill needs to be developed to the student’s highest possible competency.