In this lecture we learnt how to structure a critical report or thesis, what type of language do we use, referencing and citations. We also approached the process to follow when developing the investigation of our topic and we analysed the different methods used in academic writing such as paraphrasing.
When researching information for our critical report, we will need to use trusted sources like peer reviewed texts (books or scholarly articles) or recognised academic material online (like academic journal articles on UAL Library or Google Scholar).
If we need to use any short sentence from these texts, this will need to be referenced. When quoting or paraphrasing we will use the Harvard referencing system to provide a list of citations and references at the end of our critical report or thesis. Citations can be in-text (adding quote marks to the cite) or, if longer than 40 words, separated around 1 cm from text main body and on each side. We will use formal language and we will avoid to use personal language (like ‘I’, ‘my opinion’, ‘I think’, etc).
In order to develop our argument, we can use our own point of view but it needs to have evidence that supports it. This argument will be structure with an introduction, main body, and the conclusion and in longer texts, such as thesis, we could structure the sections adding headings.
The steps to follow to develop an academic argument are:
- State the main point and argument to prove (topic) in the introduction.
- Analyse important reasons of your argument (evidence that supports the main point or contention).
- Identify the possible objections (evidence against main point).
- Research and gather evidence that supports main argument.
- Structure and connect paragraphs so they follow a logic lead to conclusion.
- State clear conclusion putting together statement and supporting points.
When paraphrasing, we need to reword the author’s idea using our own voice. We use paraphrasing to avoid plagiarism, to avoid overuse of quotes, to avoid problematic language, and to shorten long quotes. Summarising is often confused with paraphrasing, however, this is used when we want to state the overall or relevant points of an idea using our own words.
To practise paraphrasing, we were told to paraphrase the following passage in our own words:
The authenticity of a documentary is ‘deeply linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images are linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images bear evidence of events that actually happened, by virtue of the indexical relationship between image and reality’
Horness Roe. A. (2013) Animated Documentary. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
In my own words, this text would sound like this:
According to Honess Roe (2013, Animated Documentary), the authenticity of a documentary is connected to what we understand as ‘reality’ and the fact that the images in a documentary are connected to this ‘reality’ since they show events exactly how they happened.