CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)

CAES1000 Core University English

Writing Task 2 Essay – Topic and Question

Task 2: Writing a Well-structured and Well-argued Essay

(Assessed – Writing 25%; Annotations 5%)

The aim of this task is to give you practice of the academic writing skills learnt so far in the
course. These skills include: (i) expressing a clearly argued and critical stance and (ii)
using the ideas of others to support your stance through citation and referencing.

Submission Deadline:
10 March, 2021 (Wednesday 5:00pm)
(Upload your work to Turnitin by 5:00pm)
Submission Guidelines:
• You must submit a soft copy to Turnitin by 5:00pm on the due date of the
assignment. Your teacher may require a hard copy of your submission. Please check
with your class teacher.
• Following CAES rules, assignments which are handed in up to 4 days late will have
one full letter grade deducted each day. If your assignment is more than 4 days late,
it will be treated as a non-submission (N – 0 marks) and will not be marked.
• If you are sick and unable to hand in an assignment, you must contact your teacher
immediately to work out possible solutions. No work after the deadline will be accepted
without a legitimate reason.

Note:
The four reading texts provided have been adapted for assessment purposes. Their
information has been substantially modified. It is advised that students should not refer to the
original texts and make any comparisons.

Instructions:
1. You should write 800-1000 words for this assignment (including all in-text citations).
Anything beyond 1000 words will not be read. Write the number of words for your
essay at the end of the text. This does not include the words in the reference list and the
words in annotations.
2. You should cite and reference the reading texts given to you (4 in total) in your essay and
you have to also find at least ONE or a maximum of TWO sources of your own
choice to support your stance. Your reference list should include a maximum of 6
entries only. All extra or additional entries will be ignored.

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
3. Include a reference list at the end of your writing which conforms to the CUE Citation
and Referencing Style Guide. You can find it at the end of this task paper.
4. Complete the Turnitin Independent Learning Task (videos on how to use Turnitin and
how to check for plagiarism) on the Central Course Moodle using the essay you have just
written. Keep on doing the task until the document is plagiarism free.
5. Once the text is plagiarism free, make 8-12 annotations on your text using insert
comments. These annotations should highlight where you have applied your learning
from this course. Each annotation must relate to a different feature of academic writing.
You have to provide clear and enough details for each annotation.
6. Upload your work to Turnitin before the deadline.

Notes about creating your Turnitin account:

• Please use your HKU email address and create an account. Using any personal/non-
HKU email addresses is not allowed.
• Make sure you only have ONE Turnitin account using your HKU email address
(multiple accounts may lead to self-plagiarism).
• If Turnitin indicates that your HKU Email ID is already being used for another
account, please reset your password (click "Login" and “Forgot your password?
Click here”).
• If you have any Turnitin problems, please contact HKU Turnitin Support Service
(Tel: 3917-2203; Email: turnitin@hku.hk).

Assessment Criteria:
You will be assessed on the quality of your essay which is worth 25% of your final grade.
The assessment criteria are on the Central Course Moodle.

You will also be assessed on the quality of your annotations. This will be worth 5% of
your final grade. The assessment criteria for this are as follows:

Standard Expectations of student performance

The majority of your annotations show a good understanding of the
Satisfactory
academic writing skills being practised in the course. You have provided
(5%)
clear and enough details for each annotation.
You will be given an unsatisfactory grade if one or more of the following is
true:
§ Only a few or none of your annotations show a good understanding of
Unsatisfactory the academic writing skills being practised in the course.
(1.5%) § You have made fewer than 8 annotations.
§ Each of your annotations is not related to separate aspects of
academic writing.
§ Most of your annotations are unclear and without enough details.
§ You have copied your annotations from another student.
Non-submission You did not annotate your Task 2 Essay.
(0%)

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
Academic Honesty

Plagiarism and Self-plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as “the use of another person’s work (including but not limited to any
materials, creations, ideas and data) as if one’s own without due acknowledgement, whether
or not such work has been published and regardless of the intent to deceive” in the Policy on
Student Plagiarism in Undergraduate and Taught Postgraduate Curricular (116/1080). Some
common types of plagiarism include:

• paraphrasing and/or quoting without acknowledgement;

• inappropriate paraphrasing and/or quotation of sourced content, and
• inaccurate citation and/or reference list that mislead the readers/listeners as to
the accuracy of the source materials.

This is not an exhaustive list but it gives you an idea of some common types of plagiarism
cases in students’ work.

Self-plagiarism
Self-plagiarism is defined as “the reuse of one’s own work without acknowledging that such
work has been submitted elsewhere” in the Policy on Student Plagiarism in Undergraduate
and Taught Postgraduate Curricula (116/1080). Students should not submit the same piece of
work for different courses (except for adjunct English-in-the-Discipline courses and with
teachers’ permission). They should always check with the teacher if they are unsure.

Consequences of Plagiarism
In the University of Hong Kong, plagiarism is a disciplinary offence. If a submission contains
plagiarism, only the unplagiarised parts will be marked. This may result in the work being
considered as incomplete, unstructured, lacking content and organization.

The link below contains information about consequences and disciplinary procedures
concerning students who have committed plagiarism:
https://tl.hku.hk/plagiarism/consequences-of-plagiarism/

You are strongly advised to visit the following links about the University’s Policy on
Plagiarism:

Examples of plagiarism:
https://tl.hku.hk/plagiarism/how-to-avoid-plagiarism/

Learning resources to help you avoid plagiarism:

https://tl.hku.hk/plagiarism/learning-resources/

Other forms of cheating include, but is not limited to hiring someone to

complete the work (i.e. ghostwriting), borrowing or stealing the work from
another person and using it as one’s own.

Any form of cheating may result in a FAIL.

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)

Topic: Shadow education

WRITE AN ESSAY

TASK DESCRIPTION

Write an academic essay to evaluate the extent to which shadow education has a positive or
negative impact on secondary school students. Identify arguments and evidence from your
own readings and the source texts below to support your position.

Note:
The four reading texts provided have been adapted for assessment purposes. Their
information has been substantially modified. It is advised that students should not refer to the
original texts and make any comparisons.

Text 1– Authored by K. W. H. Yung / From an article in a journal titled Asia Pacific

Journal of Education / 2020 / Volume 40 / Issue 3 / Pages 1-15 / DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2020.1727855

Shadow education as a form of oppression: Conceptualizing experiences and

reflections of secondary students in Hong Kong

Introduction

Around the globe, a significant number of students receive private tutoring (PT). In many
Asian countries such as Bangladesh, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand,
over half of secondary school students receive some type of private tutoring. Other non-
Asian countries such as those in Africa, Australasia, North America and Europe have also
witnessed a rapid growth in students’ tutoring participation (Buchmann et al., 2010).
Private tutoring can be defined as the fee-paying services students access outside regular
school hours to supplement their formal school learning of academic subjects. It carries the
metaphor of ‘shadow education’ because it mimics and changes its shape according to the
mainstream school curriculum (Stevenson & Baker, 1992). Private tutoring can be operated
via one-to-one, small group and online modes. The most prominent in many Asian contexts
is lecture-type tutoring in so-called cram schools run by large tutorial companies (Chung,
2013). Tutors often promote themselves and their courses through advertisements and
tutorial websites, making private tutoring more visible and widespread.

From a critical perspective, this study investigated the role of private tutoring in a context
of high-stakes testing. It explored 18 Secondary Six (Grade 12) students’ reflections on
their learning experiences in private tutoring in Hong Kong for one year. Conceptualized
with Freire’s Pedagogy of the oppressed, the findings reveal that while students are being
oppressed in the washback of high-stakes testing under neoliberalism, shadow education
further oppresses the students by (1) intensifying the ‘banking’ concept of education, (2)
teaching as the ‘authority’, (3) emphasizing performativity and (4) offering ‘false
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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
generosity’. The findings provide implications for potential educational change in contexts
where education systems increasingly rely on accountability and selection through high-
stakes testing.
p. 1
< Text taken out>

Conceptual framework of shadow education

< Text taken out>

Although private tutoring is a relatively new phenomenon compared to the long history of
high stakes testing, Mori and Baker (2010, p. 37) argued that “shadow education is
transformed by a ‘global culture of education’, even in the nations where the practice has
long existed, and therefore is found worldwide with similar intent and increasingly
common forms”. This situation can be conceptualized as a modern form of oppression
since students are oppressed by a narrow sense of success, which is to secure a university
degree, get a well-paid job and eventually reach top positions in their career. PT is
therefore a commodity students can purchase to increase their chance of ‘success’.

p. 2

High-stakes tests are oppressive in that they undermine quality teaching and learning and
make students vulnerable in the classroom to a narrowly focused curriculum. With the
demand for performativity, teachers tend to prescribe, or “bank” in Freire’s (1972, p. 73)
term, students with surface learning and rote-memorization of facts and model answers.
These practices are widely offered by tutorial companies which teach tutees “one-size-fits-
all” examination techniques and provide them with abundant practice papers and resources
to drill for the test. Such provision can be seen as a form of “false generosity” (Freire,
1972, p. 74) because teaching and learning are compartmentalized by the standards
required in high-stakes tests without genuinely improving the quality of education. Under
this mode of teaching, both teachers and tutors can be characterized as oppressors who
teach like “the authority of knowledge”, while the students are the oppressed being taught
passively, with their creative power minimized or cancelled (Freire, 1972, p. 73). The
authoritative figure of tutors may even be reinforced by tutorial companies’ advertisements,
upholding tutors as celebrities who can transmit knowledge, as defined by the standards in
high-stakes tests, to the students. Overall, high-stakes testing can be seen as a source of
oppression in the education system.

Results and discussion

Intensifying the “banking” concept of education

According to the participants, despite the “learning to learn” reform initiative in the
mainstream curriculum, many schools in Hong Kong still adopt a teacher-centred approach
in which teachers prescribe their students with textbook knowledge. Such “banking”
education is intensified in PT, where tutors fill students with examination-related content.
In cram schools, teaching is unidirectional (i.e. the tutor teaches and the tutees are taught)
and there is limited interaction between the tutor and the tutees. Tutors derive examination
skills through analysing questions from past examination papers and schemes and impart
these skills to the tutees.
<Text taken out>
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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)

Participants tended to feel that they could save more time in locating where the answers
were. This is a characteristic of oppression resulted from “banking” since students tend to
merely record, memorize, and repeat what they are taught without perceiving what those
skills really mean to their learning (Freire, 1972, p. 73). This narrowing of teaching and
learning content to the tested items is a negative washback of high-stakes testing (Au,
2009), and is reinforced and legitimized in PT.

p. 7
<Text taken out>

Teaching as the “authority”

Under the “learning to learn” initiative, students should regulate their own learning and
teachers are facilitators (Curriculum Development Council, 2001), but in PT, tutors, on the
contrary, present themselves as the “authority” whom students need to trust and rely on.
Freire (1972) argued that in an oppressive system, “the teachers confuse the authority of
knowledge with their professional authority, which they set in opposition to the freedom of
the students” (p. 73). Based on their reflections, the participants had limited agency in
choosing what they wanted to learn, since they perceived a need to follow a standard way
of learning supported by tutors’ authoritative sources such as high-grade exemplars. This
situation echoes Freire’s (1972) concept of “self-depreciation” being a characteristic of the
oppressed. The oppressed tend to internalize the opinions of the oppressors, whom they
believe are the authority. In turn, they distrust themselves as they often hear “they are good
for nothing, know nothing and are incapable of learning anything” (p. 63).
p. 8

Offering “false generosity”

The participants’ reflections reveal that their learning converged to the examination drilling
driven by performativity. Almost all the participants seemed to be convinced that the
examination strategies were useful, but the actual effectiveness was not known. At least,
psychologically, these strategies made the participants feel securer and increased their
confidence to tackle the examination. While PT seems to be helpful in this aspect, in
reality, it is exerting oppression by legitimizing distorted learning needs for the purpose of
offering “false generosity” (Freire, 1972, p. 43).

p.10
<Text taken out>

Text 2 – Authored by M. Bray / In a book titled Making sense of education in post-

handover Hong Kong: Achievements and challenges / 2017 / Edited by T. K. C. Tse &
M. Lee / Pages 95-111 / Published by Routledge

Shadow education: Features, expansion and implications

<Text taken out>

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
Implications of the expansion of shadow education
Domestic support and tutors’ advice

In addition to its educational function, tutoring has a child-minding function for some
families. Especially in families in which both parents are in formal employment, tutoring
provides a structure for children to be supervised after the end of the school day until a
parent or other adult is available to collect them. Secondary students are less in need of
adult supervision of this sort, but tutoring nevertheless provides a structured occupation
which relieves the anxieties of parents who feel that the youths might not otherwise be so
gainfully occupied.
p. 104
<Text taken out>

Tutors may also provide advice to both parents and students. Ho (2010) found that parents
tend to listen to private tutors’ advice because they consider tutors having narrower
generation gap with their children and more experienced with teenage issues such as dating
and self-esteem. On the other hand, students tend to share their personal issues with private
tutors rather than their parents or siblings. They may seek the tutors’ advice in different
areas such as relationships, academic difficulties, time management and personal growth.

<Text taken out>

Social stratification

Less positively, shadow education maintains and exacerbates social stratification. The
expansion of shadow education, some of which (especially in the mass tutorial schools) at
a relatively modest price, has made private supplementary tutoring accessible not only to
rich families but also to middle-class and low-income families. Nevertheless, rich families
can obviously afford more and better tutoring than low-income ones. In many settings,
rich, middle-income and poor households have all come to view shadow education as a
necessity (Chugh, 2011). When the majority of students are receiving tutoring, those who
cannot afford it are disadvantaged, at least psychologically. Perceptions of the need to
receive shadow education may lead to financial burden for families. The 2011/12 Hong
Kong survey led by Bray and colleagues found that half of the respondents receiving
tutoring either agreed (34.1 per cent) or strongly agreed (17.3 per cent) that the costs were
a burden to their families (Bray, 2013).
p. 105
<Text taken out>

Backwash on regular schooling

Shadow education has also impacted on the dynamics of teaching and learning in
mainstream schools. Tutoring can help slow learners to keep up with their peers, which
decreases disparities within the classroom, but it can increase disparities when the high
achievers receive more tutoring than others. Other backwash effects relate to teachers’
attitudes. In some countries, much tutoring is provided by teachers on a part-time basis.
These teachers may put more effort into their private than their public classes, and perhaps
even cut the content of regular class time in order to promote demand for supplementary
lessons from their own students (Dawson, 2010).

Students’ attitudes towards schooling are another concern. Since students or their families
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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
are paying money to their tutors, they may pay more attention to their tutors than to
mainstream schooling which is free of charge (Fung, 2003). This dimension is also related
to students’ choice. As students can choose their tutors but not their school teachers, they
tend to appreciate their tutors more. This phenomenon may be especially prevalent in star
tutoring, where tutors are advertised as celebrities. Shadow education has been criticised as
eroding students’ creativity and encouraging them to depend on passive learning, but
students may find tutors more helpful than teachers in meeting pragmatic needs for
examination techniques.
p. 106

The extra time and effort needed for tutorial classes may also have a negative backwash.
Tutorial centres in Hong Kong typically operate after school hours until 10:00 p.m., and
from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. during weekends. This means that students can attend lessons
till late at night on top of their regular schooling. Such routines may lead to inefficiencies
in school lessons if students are fatigued during the daytime. The intensive academic
schedule may also deprive students of time for sports, socialisation and hobbies, which are
important for all-round education.
p. 107
<Text taken out>

Text 3 – Authored by J. H. Jung / From a book titled Shadow education as worldwide

curriculum studies / published by Palgrave Macmillan / 2019 / DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03982-0

Shadow education as worldwide curriculum studies

Introduction

This book celebrates the unruliness of curriculum by focusing on a new type of curriculum:
shadow curriculum, which is an individually based supplementary or enrichment
curriculum provided to encourage academic success. Importantly, we consider shadow
education not as a mere product of the ‘education fever’ affecting schooling in many
countries, which drives parents and students to seek any means to improve achievement.
But rather, we consider shadow education to be an important educational space where
students—as independent agents, rather than passive individuals who merely consume
existing culture of education—participate in, understand, and co-produce their learning
culture.
p. 2
<Text taken out>

Advantages of shadow education

Effective materials design

Shadow education provides various curricula and materials to enrich or supplement

schooling (Ozaki, 2015). While most public education provides single-level curriculum and
learning materials with limited usefulness for supplemental and accelerated learning,
shadow education has developed materials such as workbooks, reference books, textbooks,
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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
and other teaching and learning materials that are welcomed by many students (Aurini &
Davies, 2004). Major franchised companies such as Kumon and Sylvan offer much more
systematic and subdivided programs than those used in public education e.g. reading
comprehension, speed reading, study skills, note-taking, test-taking strategies, and public
speaking, with the goal of promoting self-esteem among students and helping them
develop talents and sometimes even find their career path. These materials are not designed
merely for rote learning based on repetition; they are systematically and meticulously
designed to guide learning (Kim, 2008).

p. 11
<Text taken out>

Maintaining or improving high school students’ grades

Despite the universal pervasiveness of shadow education, few academic efforts have
focused on how shadow education contributes to academic success. Our qualitative
analysis of data from our fieldwork and recent research on shadow education revealed that
there is a positive relation between student achievement and shadow education. Byun and
Park (2012) found that shadow education was related to the high SAT scores among East
Asian American students in the USA.

p. 89
<Text taken out>

Shadow education exposes students to the content of school subjects in addition to their
learning at school. This provides multiple opportunities for being taught, rather than
studying alone. Getting additional help benefits good students and those who are falling
behind. For example, one-on-one private tutoring, which is a prevailing form of shadow
education in North America and Europe, plays a crucial role in meeting the needs of
remedial students (Mori, 2015). Research has shown that among students who cannot
master the content taught in school classrooms, shadow education provides a more student-
centered atmosphere where students feel more free to ask questions about content they do
not understand (Brian, 2004).
p. 92
<Text taken out>

Oriented toward personalized learning

Personalized learning is another characteristic of shadow curriculum (Mawer, 2015). The

idea of personalized learning is not new: public schooling and school curricula throughout
the twentieth century have used personalized approaches called tracking or streaming.
However, personalized learning is more effectively actualized and actively pursued in
shadow curriculum, and this is related to the first two characteristics of shadow curriculum:
student academic need and student academic success.

Generally, because shadow curriculum is consumer-oriented and need-based, personalized

learning is better actualized in shadow curriculum. One-on-one tutoring is the best example
of personalized learning (Bray, 2009) because it focuses on the needs, learning styles, and
academic levels and goals of individual students. One example is ability grouping, which
usually involves grouping 8-15 students with similar individual abilities and academic
levels, providing them with tailored curriculum and counselling including portfolios,
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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
learning diaries, university exam preparation schedules, and accumulative evaluations.
p. 155
<Text taken out>

Text 4 - Authored by Y. C. Kim / From a book titled shadow education and the
curriculum and culture of schooling in South Korea / Published by Palgrave Macmillan
/ 2016 / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51324-3

Shadow education and the curriculum and culture of schooling in South Korea

Preface

<Text taken out>

This book came out of my long observation of Korean schools based on my postcolonial
identity. I found that hakwon education, sometimes called “Shadow Education,” is one
critical characteristic of Korean schooling and educational culture. I use the term hakwon to
signify a private educational institute where Korean students study after school to supplement
or advance their learning. Funded by students’ families and privately owned, hakwons are
both educational and commercial enterprises. It is sometimes called a social evil and
sometimes seen as another way to advance our child’s potentiality, which can hardly be taken
care of by school teachers alone.

p. vii
<Text taken out>

Good and bad effects of hakwon education

This chapter discusses the effects of hakwon education on students, parents, and Korean
society. In relation to this topic, Bray (2003) first noted its roles and impact in three
dimensions: mainstream schools, students, and society. Based on data from many nations, he
showed that it has positive and negative impacts on these three dimensions. In this chapter,
the positive effects are as follows: Students’ favourable attitudes, systemized education for
high school by grade and individualized instruction for top students. On the other hand, the
negative effects are as follows: economic burden, fierce competition and excessive anxiety,
and demanding workload causing student’s fatigue and boredom at school.

p. 153
<Text taken out>

Positive effects of hakwon education

Students’ favourable attitudes towards hakwon education

High school students in Korea believe that hakwons teach school subjects better than schools
in terms of academic achievement. They evaluated hakwon education higher than school
education in four areas in a survey conducted by Choi (2009). The survey was implemented
through a questionnaire, with 12,180 high school students participating nationwide. As shown
in Table 6.1, hakwon institutes are more positively assessed than schools.

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
Table 6.1 Korean high school students’ attitudes toward school teachers and hakwon
teachers (Likert Scale: Maximum of 5.00 points)

Systemized education for high school by grade

Hakwon education in Korea has a trait of offering specialized and systemized education for
each grade. The structural flow in the hakwon education field is quite closely related to the
traits of the admission system. One of the survival strategies of hakwon education is to
develop learning methods adapted to the changes in the admission system and education
policies more quickly than public education does.

p. 159
<Text taken out>

Individualized instruction for top students

Hakwon education also functions as a special institution to maximize the potential of talented
and top students, another educational function not implemented by public education.
Hakwons offer education for top students in various ways. They provide advanced study
targeting top students. That is, hakwon education organizes the classes through strict
assessment of study levels and then offers a class for each level. Through these hakwon
classes, they enjoy a sense of freedom, of being away from public education, which is boring.

p. 161
<Text taken out>

Negative effects of hakwon education

Economic burden

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
One of the negative effects of hakwon education is related to the economic burden on parents.
Many Korean parents give the largest portion of their income to pay for their children’s
private education. The hakwon fee burden has created a new social status, the “edupoor”—
the families that are in debt because of educational expenses.

p. 164
<Text taken out>

Fierce competition and excessive anxiety

Hakwon education can promote excessive competition and workload. Also, it can boost
rivalry between peers, increase anxiety and tension about academic performance, and
decrease the time for a hobby or free time. Students are assigned to various levels of classes
based on the outcome of monthly or quarterly tests. While the students moving to a higher
level feel a sense of achievement, those who fail to proceed to the next level feel a sense of
defeat.

p. 166
<Text taken out>

Demanding workload causing physical fatigue

Hakwon education puts a heavy burden of study on students. High school students in Korea
go to school at dawn, finish at night, hang around the night hakwon, and finally return home
after 12 a.m. Sometimes Korean students are depicted as children in the nineteenth century
who suffered from long hours of heavy labor. One of the problems with excessive study
workloads is that hakwon education just repeats public schooling. That is, repetition of the
content from public school in the hakwon wastes time and resources, causing students’
physical fatigue and boredom at school.

p. 167
<Text taken out>

-End of Reading Texts-

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)

CAES1000 – Citation and Referencing Style Guide (APA format) [Version August 2020]
In CAES1000, you will be introduced to the APA (American Psychological Association) style of citation and referencing which you can use in all your
CAES1000 assignments.

You should note that different faculties use different citation and referencing styles. CAES1000 students come from all 10 faculties in the university
and we do not aim to teach all different styles within one course. To ensure standardization in assessment and marking in CAES1000, you should
follow the APA style which is commonly used in the Common Core curriculum. In your second year or beyond, you will take an English-in-the-
Discipline course with CAES and in that course you will be introduced to a specific style which can be used in your major. Please ask your faculty and
your Common Core course teachers which style you should use in the assignments you write for their courses.

CITATIONS

Citation Type Example

Single author (Format 1: Integral citation)
Author’s surname (year of publication)
e.g. Smith (2007) found that air pollution levels have risen.
Joint authors (Format 1: Integral citation for two authors)
Author A’s surname and Author B’s surname (year of
publication)
e.g. Biber and Cortes (2004) define…
One source
(Integral citation for three or more authors)
(Author A’ surname followed by et al., year of publication)
e.g. Chan et al. (2009) argue…
Single author (Format 2: Non-integral citation)
(Author’s surname, year of publication)
e.g. Statistics show that air pollution levels have risen sharply (Smith, 2007).
Joint authors (Format 2: Non-integral citation for two authors)
(Author A’s surname & Author B’s surname, year of publication)
e.g. Rapid population growth has worsened the water quality in Victoria Harbour
(Tong & Lee, 2014).
(Non-integral citation for three or more authors)
(Author A’s surname followed by et al., year of publication)
e.g. Air pollution levels have risen drastically (Wong et al., 2011).

• Use the word "and" between the authors' surnames
within the text in a work by two authors.
• In a work by multiple authors (three or above), use the
first author's surname followed by “et al.” in the text
right from the first citation.
• Use the ampersand (&) in the parentheses in a work by two authors.
• In a work by multiple authors (three or above), use the first author's surname
followed by “et al.” in the parentheses right from the first citation.

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
Citation Type Example
• If the author is an organization, replace the author’s surname with the full name (not the abbreviation) of the organization. If the
organization has a well-known abbreviation, include the abbreviation in brackets the first time the source is cited and then use only the
abbreviation in later citations. e.g. First citation: “The World Health Organization (WHO, 2008) issued…” in integral citation and “… (World
Health Organization [WHO], 2008)” in non-integral citation. Subsequent citations: (WHO, 2008).
• If the author is unknown, replace the author’s surname with the first few words of the article title enclosed in double quotation marks
e.g. ”The Global Credit Squeeze” (2008) in integral citation and (“The Global Credit Squeeze”, 2008) in non-integral citation.
More than one source (Author A’s surname, year of publication; Author B’s surname, year of publication)
This is when you e.g. Recent studies (Adams, 2011; Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department, 2012; Smith & Brown, 2007) show that air pollution levels
synthesize information have risen dramatically in most developed countries.
from multiple sources. • Inside the citation brackets, arrange the author’s surnames in alphabetical order (Not by the order of the year of publication).
With a direct Author’s surname (year of publication) (page number when available at the end of the sentence)
quotation e.g. As Baxter and Baker (2007) note, the birth rate has been in "rapid decline" (p. 20).

(Author’s surname, year of publication, page number when available)

e.g. …the birth rate has been in “rapid decline” (Baxter & Baker, 2007, p. 20).
• Put double quotation marks around the direct quotation.
A secondary citation Author referred to in text (year of publication, as cited in Author’s surname [of the text you read], year of publication)
This is when you cite a e.g. Johnson (1997, as cited in Smith, 2000) argues that…
source that was • If you use a secondary citation, you should only write a reference for the source that you read.
mentioned in another • In the example above, Smith cited Johnson’s work. You have read Smith but you have not read Johnson. You want to cite Johnson’s ideas. In the
source. reference list, Smith, not Johnson, should be referenced.

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
REFERENCES
List references in alphabetical order according to author (i.e. according to the first author’s surname, or the name of the authoring
organization, or the article title if author is unknown). The reference list should be labelled as “References”. It should be capitalized, in bold, and
placed in the centre. All entries on the reference list should be double-spaced. Use a hanging indent for all references.

Type Example
Book Author’s surname, Author’s initials. (Year of publication). Title of book. Publisher. DOI1 (if available)
e.g. Stewart, B., Kwok, A., & Chan, J. (2016). Handbook of psychology. John Wiley.
• If a source has more than one author, then reference it as follows: Author A’s surname, Author A’s initials., Author B’s
surname, Author B’s initials., & Author C’s surname, Author C’s initials. (Year of publication)…etc.
e.g. Smith, C., Jones, T., & Chan, W. (2012). China’s strategic role in Asia. HKU Press.
• List the authors in the original order from the book or journal article (NOT in alphabetical order).
• List surnames and initials for up to 20 authors.
• Italicize the book titles.
• “et al.” is not used in references but in in-text citations only.
• Include a DOI if available.
Edited book chapter Author’s surname, Author’s initials. (Year of publication). Title of chapter. In Editor’s initials. Editor’s surname (Ed.), Title of
book (page numbers). Publisher. DOI (if available)
e.g. Ma, K. (2000). Is genetic engineering ethical? In H. Brown (Ed.), Ethics in science (pp. 82-96). Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/12.1087/983-90-382-2
• Write (Ed.) for ONE editor and (Eds.) for TWO or MORE editors.
• Include page numbers for edited books and journal articles.
• Include (pp.) before the page numbers for edited books only. Place the editor’s initials before the editor’s surname.
• Italicize the book titles.
• Include a DOI if available.

1 DOI refers to Digital Object Identifier.

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)

Journal article Author’s surname, Author’s initials. (Year of publication). Title of article. Title of Journal, Volume Number (Issue Number)
when available, Page numbers. DOI (if available)
e.g. Wong, S. (2009). Public housing: The case for and against. Hong Kong Journal of Real Estate, 71(3), 145-176.
e.g. Rayson, F., & Frost, J. (2000). A study of digital literacies in pre-school children in Vietnam. Educational Technology Journal,
22(1), 1-9.
• Include page numbers for journal articles.
• Do NOT add (pp.) for page range of journal articles in the reference list [but p. or pp. is included anyway for in-text citation].
• Italicize the name of the journal and the volume number (NOT the issue number).
• For journal titles, follow the capitalisation as they are published.
• Include a DOI if available.
Report Author’s surname, Author’s initials. (Year of publication). Title of report. Publisher. DOI or URL (if available)
e.g. Hong Kong Department of Housing. (2011). Public housing for the needy. Hong Kong Department of Housing.
• If the author is an organization, replace the author’s surname and initials with the full name (not the abbreviation) of the
organization.
• Italicize the report titles.
• Include a DOI or URL if available.
Web page Author’s surname, Author’s initials. (Year, Date of publication). Title of web page. Website URL
(excluding online e.g. American Heart Association. (2009, October 29). Learn your levels. http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.html
news/ magazine e.g. World Health Organization. (2018, March). 5 keys to a healthy diet.
articles) https://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/5keys_healthydiet/en/
• Italicize the webpage titles.
Web page which is Online dictionaries: Author’s surname, Author’s initials. (n.d). Title of web page. Retrieved DATE, from website URL
designed to be e.g. Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved May 5, 2019, from
updated https://www.merriamwebster.com/
(excluding online
news/ Social media pages: Author’s surname, Author’s initials. (n.d.). Title of web page [Description of media type]. Title of
magazine articles) platform. Retrieved DATE, from website URL
e.g. Centre for Applied English Studies. (n.d.). Home [Facebook page]. Facebook. Retrieved July 22, 2019, from
https://www.facebook.com/hku.caes/
• 'Retrieved …, from' is required for web pages that are likely to be updated or changed, such as online dictionary entries
or social media pages.
• For such pages, it is common that the exact publication date is unknown. For works with no known publication date,
write “n.d.” (“no date”) in brackets.
• The date also appears as “n.d.” in the corresponding in-text citation.
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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)

e.g. (Centre for Applied English Studies, n.d.) or Centre for Applied English Studies (n.d.)
News/magazine Author’s surname, Author’s initials. (Year, Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Newspaper/Magazine. Article URL
article (ONLINE e.g. Brown, S. (2011, March 2). Snow brings European airports to a standstill. The New York Times.
version with known http://www.nytimes.com/20110302
author)

News/magazine Author’s surname, Author’s initials. (Year, Date of publication). Title of article. Title of Newspaper/Magazine, Page numbers
article (PRINT when available.
version with known e.g. Lamb, J. (2010, October 30). HKMA data shows hard times are ahead. South China Morning Post, p. 3.
author)

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CAES1000 Task 2 Essay (Semester Two, 2020-2021)
Important Notes:
• When referring to books, chapters, or webpages, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon
or a dash in the title, and proper nouns. Do NOT capitalise the first letter of all the words in the book or article title.
e.g. Law, K. (2016). Peer assessment in second language learning: Challenges and opportunities. Bloomsbury.

• Do not include publisher location.

• Include a DOI if available.
• If the author is unknown, replace the author’s surname with the first few words of the article title in the references e.g. The Global Credit Squeeze,
(2008).
• If you have to cite the same source multiple times in your text, note the following rules:
All non-integral citations should include the year, regardless of how often they appear in a paragraph.

e.g. It is expected that 50% of the ice in the arctic regions will melt within 30 years (Black & White, 2017). The rise in sea level because
of this will threaten many coastal cities (Black & White, 2017).
For integral citations, after the first citation in each paragraph, you need not include the year in subsequent integral citations as long as the
study will not be confused with other studies in the article.
e.g. Black and White (2017) forecast that 50% of the ice in the arctic regions will melt within 30 years. Black and White further
predicted that the rise in sea level because of this will threaten many coastal cities.

For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, (7th ed.) or the APA
webpage https://apastyle.apa.org/.

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