OUGD601: Context of Practice 3 - Resolving Your Research Project (Academic Conventions) Lecture

Introduction

• What you want to address
• How you are going to address it

COP3 - Thinking more dynamically

• Academic Conventions are like an institutional framework for your work
• They structure and standardise
• They aspire to academic honestly

At this level you are expected to be able to:

• Demonstrate a critical knowledge of practice
• Apply theory to practice
• Analyse relevant material
• Evaluate theory and evidence within the context of study
• Reflect - critiquing and critically reflecting on your learning and using this to improve practice 

Deep engagement with the subject

New Bloom's (Anderson and Pohl) 1900ish-2000

Hierarchy of knowledge 

• Creating
• Evaluating 
• Analyzing
• Applying
• Understanding
• Remembering

Doing something with the knowledge

Avoid - A Surface Approach 

• Concentration on Learning Outcomes
• Passive acceptance of ideas
• Routine memorisation of facts
• Sees small chunks
• Ignore guiding patterns and principles
• Lack of reflection about, or ignorance of, underlying patterns and theories 
• Little attempt to understand 
• Minimal preparation and research

A Deep Approach

• Independent engagement with material
• Critical and thoughtful about ideas and information
• Relates ideas to own previous experience and knowledge
• Sees the big picture
• Relates evidence to conclusions
• Examines logic of arguments
• Interested in wider reading and thinking
• Ongoing preparation and reflection
• Academic writing is formal and follows some standard conventions

• Each academic discipline has its own specialist vocabulary which you will be expected to learn and use in your own writing
• The substance of academic writing must be based on solid evidence and logical analysis and presented as a concise accurate argument
• Academic writing can allow you to present your argument and analysis accurately and concisely.

Not conversational - Don't use first person

Aim for precision. Don't use unnecessary words or waffle. Get straight to the point. Make every word count.

If there is any uncertainty about a particular pony, use cautious language 

• Avoid abbreviations and contractions
• Avoid slang words and phrases
• Avoid conversational terms
• Avoid vague terms

First person sentences use the pronous 'I' and 'We'. 

The suggestion here is that

It has been observed

Preliminaries - Title / Acknowledgements / Contents / List of Illustrations

Introduction - The Abstract / Statement of the Problem / Methodological Approach

Main body - Review of the literature / Logically developed argument / Chapters / Results of Investigation / Case Study

Conclusion - Discussion and Conclusion / Summary of Conclusions

Extras - Bibliography / Appendices

Mandatories

• 1.5 lined spaced
• Quotes which are more than two lines long are single lined spaced, separated and indented 

Deadline: 15th January by 4.00 pm, Seven Weeks Away

Project Self Assessment

Write down major aims of the project

Give a brief summary of the work so far

Comment on your time management

Do you know what the final project will look like?

What steps will you take to ensure it gets there?

What areas of the project are you worried about?

What 'risk management' plans do you have?

How are you going to use the remaining tutorials?

eStudio - Dissertation Submission Details 

• Hand in two hard copies, thermal bound to student administration 
• Hand in one copy via electronic submission to the COP3 Dissertation Electronic Dropbox - One document

Harvard Referencing - Section on eStudio

• Author (Date) Title Place Publisher
• Make sure you are consistent 
• 'quote quote' (surname, year, page)
• Alphabetised by surname and separated out into books, websites etc.
• Illustrations - Author (Date) Title in Author of book (Date) Title of of book or URL
• List of FIG 1 etc. in order of appearance