Engaging in the Humanities

Short Research Essay feedback

Student: Angelia Signorini Tutor: Jo Li Tay Mark: 47
Marking Criteria Fulfils the brief 1. Effectiveness of argument & structure & supporting research 2. Quality of analysis 3. Appropriateness of sources

Feedback
While you have given a thesis statement, you have not successfully supported it. This is largely because you embark on several other arguments throughout the essay, rather than sticking to the one you outlined in the introduction. You can find more on how to develop and structure an argument in the Communication Skills Toolkit in Chapter 9. While you have given a thesis statement, you have not successfully supported it. This is largely because you embark on several other arguments throughout the essay, rather than sticking to the one you outlined in the introduction. You can find more on how to develop and structure an argument in the Communication Skills Toolkit in Chapter 9. You have quoted from the two scholarly texts, but where is your discussion of the main ideas in these texts? This is an important part of the task and critical to you developing some of the skills required for this unit. Ensure you follow all task directions and complete all parts of the assignment. While you have met the task requirements in terms of including enough scholarly texts in your reference list, the appropriateness of some of the texts is questionable for your topic. You need to look beyond the title to determine relevance (read Chapter 4 in the Communication Skills Toolkit). Start doing this now and you will save yourself considerable time throughout the remainder of your studies. Look at the contents page and scan the chapter/section headings to determine if the choice of text really is relevant to your topic. It is not appropriate to cite Wikipedia as an authoritative academic text (although it may be valuable in the early stages of your research to help you understand terms). Chapter 4 in the Communication Skills Toolkit give great advice on how to best assess the usefulness of websites. Look at Interactive Library Tutorial 6 at http://libguides.library.curtin.edu.au/content.php?pid=142343 for more help with evaluation. While you have made an effort to reference, you have not correctly cited all the ideas youve discussed. This is borderline plagiarism. See the section in Chapter 5 on paraphrasing and quoting in your Communication Skills Toolkit, including the part on bookending references. Come and see me if you need more guidance. In the next essay, you will be marked more harshly on this. You have included texts in your reference list that you have not used in-text. Texts you have read but not cited in-text should be in a separate list, under Bibliography. Also, your reference list contains many errors. Print out the Chicago Referencing Guide 16th edition http://libguides.library.curtin.edu.au/content.php?pid=141214), and keep it in front of you as you write. Follow it step by step every capital letter, punctuation mark and space is significant. You will also find Interactive Library Tutorial 7 at http://libguides.library.curtin.edu.au/content.php?pid=142343 useful - but remember that you are required to use the Chicago referencing system (several different systems are explained in this tutorial). Please include page numbers. This is a professional expectation for documents, and helps readers give you feedback. You need to work on developing a consistent style. At the moment your writing is erratic in style and structure, which makes it hard to understand. A simple way to try and overcome this is to concentrate on writing structured paragraphs. (Read Chapter 9 of the Communications Skills Toolkit). Make sure that each paragraph has a topic sentence, at least one developing sentence (that expands on the main idea of the paragraph), a supporting sentence (that may include an example) and a concluding or linking sentence. Writing these types of four sentence paragraphs will improve the clarity of your work. Once you are more confident, you can experiment with structure.

4. Accuracy and completeness of referencing

5. Clarity; grammar and spelling; formatting