![bell hooks
‘The heart of education as a practice of
freedom is to promote growth. It's very much
an act of love in that sense of love as
something that promotes our spiritual and
mental growth.
When people frequently ask me, 'What
changed your life; what enabled you to come
from this working-class, segregated home
where [your] parents were not college-
educated people into being one of our
nation's well-known intellectuals?' [My
answer is,] 'It's there in that space where I
learned to be a reader and a critical thinker.'](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/pgacademicwriting-usingreadinginyourassignments-191030083419/85/Pg-academic-writing-using-reading-in-your-assignments-12-320.jpg)
![Mike Rustin
‘Opposition to the government's higher education
policy [of greater focus on employability skills] is
from people who has so far been expressed in very
traditionalist terms – with the idea that a university
has an intrinsic value and good. On the one hand,
you have the marketised view of universities as
equipping people to earn their living, and on the
other hand, a traditional view that universities are
about pure learning, but the students we have here
have always seen benefits beyond learning for its
own sake. We have really hard evidence to show
that students are fairly clear about why they want to
go to university – and for the vast majority, it is
about getting a better job and having a successful
career. A lot of people say what about learning for
learning's sake? I find that problematic. Everyone
has a purpose for why they want to learn.’](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/pgacademicwriting-usingreadinginyourassignments-191030083419/85/Pg-academic-writing-using-reading-in-your-assignments-13-320.jpg)
Pg academic writing using reading in your assignments
- 1. Academic Writing: using your reading in PG assignments Explain when and how to use academic reading in your writing Apply techniques of comparison and synthesis to a selection of readings Write an extended synthesis of a selection of readings Happy Diwali! Rhian Wyn-Williams Academic Skills Tutor Skills@ljmu.ac.uk
- 2. Where’s the reading? • Look at the extract taken from a student's essay on your handout. • Work together to identify where they have used reading in their writing. • How have they used the reading?
- 3. Over the past two decades, the issue of the ethical stance of businesses appears to have become more explicitly an area of public debate and consumer awareness. Two illustrations of this are the number of publications that give consumers information about the most ethical companies (for example the Ethispere and Good Shopping Guide sites), and the fact that many large organisations now have an ‘our ethics’ tab somewhere on their website. The UK ethical sales market is currently valued at over £38 billion, and has been expanding year on year over the past decade, with current growth at about 8.5% (Ethical Consumer Research Association and Triodos Bank 2017). This essay will briefly define business ethics and then consider whether it does and should have value as an aspect of both business activity and business theory and training. Defining what constitutes a business is contentious in itself, but for the purposes of this short essay it will be defined as any profit-making enterprise, including charities ,who make profits to invest back into the enterprise (Smith and Jones, 2014; Rogers, 2013 ; Appleton, 2011). Similarly, there are numerous, overlapping definitions of business ethics. Shaw and Barry define it as ‘what constitutes right and wrong (or good and bad) human conduct in a business context’ (p. 25). This is a broad definition that needs some refining in two areas. One distinction to make is that ethics is not the same thing as general morality. Crane and Matten (2016) explain that although morals are a basic premise of ethics, ethics and ethical theory go a step further because they focus on how morals can be applied to produce explicit standards and rules for particular contexts, of which business is one. Ferrell, Fraedrich and Ferrell’s definition of business ethics as the ‘principles and standards that guide behaviour in the world of business’ (Ferrell et al. 2002, p.6) is pertinent here, as it emphasises the application of morals to produce codes and guidelines. Codified ethical behaviour usually falls under what is called ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR), which in turn is usually seen as part of corporate governance, although there is overlap between the two areas of activity. The second aspect of defining business ethics which needs unpacking is that, as Crane and Matten point out, ethics is not synonymous with legality. They state that there is some overlap between law and ethics, but that legislation usually only regulates the lowest level of acceptable behaviour. In addition, as Trevino and Nelson (2010) state, the law is limited in what it can do to prevent unacceptable actions, because legislation follows rather than precedes trends in behaviour. Business ethics, then, according to Crane and Matten, is mainly concerned with areas of conduct that are not specifically covered by law, and that are therefore open to different interpretations, a fact that means a particular behaviour may be legal albeit viewed by many as unethical. Opening statement based on reading Specific examples to support Use of statistics to explain why this issues should be researched Thesis statement: what the essay will discuss Synthesised reference showing research Analysis of the research Specific selected research to support and extend Showing synthesis and depth of understanding Concluding based on research
- 4. Why is reading an essential for your writing? You are part of an academic community that values research and evidence: all of your work needs to be supported by that research and evidence. That community is connected through ideas, theories, concepts, evidence: sit at the table and join in. You don’t want to steal from that community: academic integrity. When working on your dissertation or thesis, you need to show how your research fits in.
- 5. Read with your module’s learning objectives or your research aims and objectives in mind. Choose your reading carefully so that you get a wide range of different perspectives. Keep asking yourself: Do I need this? How will I use it? Read abstracts, introductions and conclusions first before you decide whether to carry on reading. Your writing Your reading Reading for your post-graduate degree
- 6. This means you need to analyse, compare and contrast and synthesise your reading before you can use it in your writing. ‘Zoom in and zoom out’
- 7. Analysis and evaluation: zooming in Read critically: • Who is the author? • What is the central point or main argument? • What findings and conclusions are made? • What evidence is used? Effective? • What methodology has the author used? • Does the author make any assumptions? • What is not being said? • Is there any explicit or hidden bias? • What is its significance? • What are its limitations? • How can I use this?
- 8. Finding your academic voice Now you are sitting at the academic table, you need to join in. What do you think? What is your interpretation? What does the reading mean to you and for your assignment? Your analyse of the reading will help you do this. Keep asking questions: Why? How? What if? What next? So what?
- 9. Have a go... In your groups, you have a range of extracts about the role of education in society for the question ‘Discuss the role of Higher Education in the UK in the 21st Century’. Read and discuss them, using some of the critical reading questions.
- 10. Arthur H. Camins ‘Debate about the purposes of education never seems to end. Should young people become educated to get prepared to enter the workforce, or should the purpose of education be focused more on social, academic, cultural and intellectual development so that students can grow up to be engaged citizens? With each new workforce development or economic competitiveness demand on our…schools, there has been push-back from those who want greater emphasis on a broader view of education. But it doesn’t have to be either-or. Education should prepare young people for life, work and citizenship. Knowledge of the natural and engineered environments and how people live in the world is critical to all three purposes of education. Critical thinking, creativity, interpersonal skills and a sense of social responsibility all influence success in life, work and citizenship. For example, unhappy personal relationships often spill over into the work environment, while a stressful workplace or unemployment negatively impacts family life. Uninformed disengaged citizens lead to poor policy choices that impact life, work and citizenship. To paraphrase the verse in the old song, “You can’t have one without the others.”’
- 11. Paulo Friere The goals and purposes of adult education as societal transformation and contended that education is a consciousness-raising process. From his view, the aim of education is to help participants put knowledge into practice and that the outcome of education is societal transformation. Freire believed in human’s ability to re-create a social world and establish a dynamic society, and that the major aim of education is to help people put knowledge into action. Doing so, according to Freire, would enable people to change the world – to humanise it. Freire is clearly concerned with creating a better world and the development and liberation of people. As such, the goals and purposes within this learning context are oriented to societal as well as individual improvement.
- 12. bell hooks ‘The heart of education as a practice of freedom is to promote growth. It's very much an act of love in that sense of love as something that promotes our spiritual and mental growth. When people frequently ask me, 'What changed your life; what enabled you to come from this working-class, segregated home where [your] parents were not college- educated people into being one of our nation's well-known intellectuals?' [My answer is,] 'It's there in that space where I learned to be a reader and a critical thinker.'
- 13. Mike Rustin ‘Opposition to the government's higher education policy [of greater focus on employability skills] is from people who has so far been expressed in very traditionalist terms – with the idea that a university has an intrinsic value and good. On the one hand, you have the marketised view of universities as equipping people to earn their living, and on the other hand, a traditional view that universities are about pure learning, but the students we have here have always seen benefits beyond learning for its own sake. We have really hard evidence to show that students are fairly clear about why they want to go to university – and for the vast majority, it is about getting a better job and having a successful career. A lot of people say what about learning for learning's sake? I find that problematic. Everyone has a purpose for why they want to learn.’
- 14. Comparing and synthesising your reading: zooming out To synthesise your literature, you need to: Make comparisons and connections Position key points against each other Identify themes and trends Areas of agreement or disagreement This is where you can start to position yourself.
- 15. Jamie is evaluating the effects of undergraduate students’ study habits at LJMU. How could per improve this paragraph to show more synthesis? Hennessy (1968) believes that all first year university essays should only be written from lecture notes as students know so little of their subject. According to Choudrey (2015), academic essays should be well researched. This research should be done from books listed in the module handbook and using the online resources in the library. Beko (2013) says that assignments are written using information collected from the library and reliable online sources. Cottrell (2012) argues that students should use library resources and some academic websites.
- 16. According to Choudrey (2015) and Beko (2013) students should research for assignments using resources in the library and from online sources. They both stress that website based research should be done carefully. This is further supported in the work of Cottrell (2012). Choudrey (2015) also adds that book lists in Module Handbooks should also be used. These contemporary opinions are in contrast to Hennessy writing in 1968 who argued at least in first year students should only refer to lecture notes for research. Similarity Additional point ContrastThis is a simple example. How can you achieve this with the more advanced reading and evaluation you need to do?
- 17. Research into mega-events has highlighted their positive economic impact (Getz and Page, 2016), which Kasimati (2003) has demonstrated to be frequently used as justification for event bidding. However, economic gain is not restricted to sale generation but can also be found in the host’s tourism industry (Taylor, 2005; Djaballah et al, 2015) and job stimulation in the surrounding area (Djaballah et al, 2015; Yolal et al, 2016). This has been argued by both Kapalnidou (2013) and Chun Ma (2016) to positively affect the social needs of residents, thus reinforcing the notion that the economic impacts of hosting a mega-event can act as a basis for achieving wider social needs. Lee et al., (2017) have hypothesised that this is not only the case for individuals, through increased income, but also for wider communities. Indeed, in relation to job related impacts, wage has been found to be the largest multiplier and consequently can be viewed as being the most impactful effect (Lee et al, 2017). In turn, this repeatedly been shown to increase the amount of tax received in the area (Taylor, 2005; Ying-Wen et al, 2016; Kim et al, 2017), suggesting further positive economic benefits can be felt in the local area after the holding of a mega-event. Similarly, Lee et al., (2017) emphasise the impact of permanent jobs being created by the hosting of a mega-event and therefore the long term benefits they bring, but the figures they present are relatively modest. However, there is far more convincing research that has noted that most employment generated by hosting events is in fact not permanent due to the very nature of those events (Taylor, 2005; Mathurin et al, 2013; Dwyer et al, 2016; Kim et al, 2017). Ultimately then, despite the positive economic impact of hosting a mega-event, the research indicates that any economic boost experienced individually and by the wider community is only temporary. This project will consider whether small-scale hotel-based events offer similar economic impacts and whether any positive impact experienced is also short-term in nature. In pairs, read this example paragraph from a PG student, which is on your handout. How are they showing their synthesis? Think about their use of language to show synthesis and refer to their reading.
- 18. Research into mega-events has highlighted their positive economic impact (Getz and Page, 2016), which Kasimati (2003) has demonstrated to be frequently used as justification for event bidding. However, economic gain is not restricted to sale generation but can also be found in the host’s tourism industry (Taylor, 2005; Djaballah et al, 2015) and job stimulation in the surrounding area (Djaballah et al, 2015; Yolal et al, 2016). This has been argued by both Kapalnidou (2013) and Chun Ma (2016) to positively affect the social needs of residents, thus reinforcing the notion that the economic impacts of hosting a mega-event can act as a basis for achieving wider social needs. Lee et al., (2017) have hypothesised that this is not only the case for individuals, through increased income, but also for wider communities. Indeed, in relation to job related impacts, wage has been found to be the largest multiplier and consequently can be viewed as being the most impactful effect (Lee et al, 2017). In turn, this repeatedly been shown to increase the amount of tax received in the area (Taylor, 2005; Ying-Wen et al, 2016; Kim et al, 2017), suggesting further positive economic benefits can be felt in the local area after the holding of a mega-event. Similarly, Lee et al., (2017) emphasise the impact of permanent jobs being created by the hosting of a mega-event and therefore the long term benefits they bring, but the figures they present are relatively modest. However, there is far more convincing research that has noted that most employment generated by hosting events is in fact not permanent due to the very nature of those events (Taylor, 2005; Mathurin et al, 2013; Dwyer et al, 2016; Kim et al, 2017). Ultimately then, despite the positive economic impact of hosting a mega-event, the research indicates that any economic boost experienced individually and by the wider community is only temporary. This project will consider whether small-scale hotel-based events offer similar economic impacts and whether any positive impact experienced is also short-term in nature. Comparison, contrast and synthesis Reporting verbs Analysis of reading – the voice
- 19. A reading grid can help you. This is part of Jamie’s assignment evaluating effects of undergraduate students’ study habits at LJMU Author, title Topic Key idea/theme Strengths/ Weaknesses How to use Relate to project A. Rieder (2017) The First Year at University (LJMU Press) Effects of stress on university students during transition Chap 3: students need differences in study practices made clear at the outset: primarily the responsibility of the university Very small sample but longitudinal study – appropriate methods Rich data – see transcripts Compare to Jones (2001) and Ali (2002) -they emphasise the responsibility of the student in adapting Show agreement with Smith, 2013; Mohammad et al, 2015; Jackson, 2017 Jackson also uses longitudinal study Part of current growing concern with students’ mental health – chap 3 only e.g. so far relating it to study practices – lack of sustained research: I aim to fill! Will test with a bigger sample size Notice how some topics may not at first sight appear relevant. You make the connections. Breadth is essential.
- 20. Have a go…. • You have a copy of a basic reading grid. In your groups, complete it using the articles on the role of Higher Education in society, which you read earlier. • Once completed, write a short paragraph synthesising the information.
- 21. Reflection….. • What top tip you would you now pass on to another PG student about using their reading in assignments?
- 22. Next steps Next week: Academic Writing: Critical Analysis for PGs The following week: Academic Writing: summarising, paraphrasing and quoting for PGs and Academic Writing: Developing your Academic Language at PG Level