10 Steps Scaffold

Not meant to be rigid but may guide you. The steps are in recommended order. Use your electronic copy of this scaffold and fill it in as you go. You can then rewrite and elaborate in your process diary.

It’s only the beginning.

 

The London School of Economics and Political Sciences has an excellent page "30 Tips for academic writing" - check it out:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/11/28/lupton-30-tips-writing/

                             

Avoid the passive voice e.g - "Mistakes were made" - avoids naming who made the mistake and what the nature of the mistake was - which is why you should say "XXX is considered to be a mistake". More here: 

 

STEP 1 - All about reading! Enjoy it! Don't rush. You'll love this but if you've really found a good topic.

 

Area of Interest:

Research question:

Key concepts:

 

Secondary research (at least 6 articles: books, newspaper, journals, blog excerpts, films etc)

Better to do this at the start! Bad researchers do this at the end or half way through – and it shows! (P132 in textbook has more on resource lists.)

1.

Title:

Author:

Publisher: (Name, City, Country

Date published/posted:                  Accessed:

Brief abstract:

Key words from the article:

Author’s argument/account for bias:

Your opinion/response:

Useful quotes:

 

 

STEP 2

Now break your topic/research question into parts and scrutinize each part for possibilities. Here I want you to break the “big question” into smaller questions – like you’d see in a text book!

 

Research question:

Sub question1:

Sub question 2:

Sub question 3:

(add more if necessary)

 

Now break each question down further… what other questions do they raise?

Sub question 1          -

                                    -

                                    -

Sub question 2          -

                                    -

                                    -

Sub question 3          -

                                    -

                                    -

 

These will guide you in the central material. Each sub question can form a chapter.

Now you should be ready to write your introduction.

 

STEP 3

 

Introduction:

Introductory paragraph on the topic – capture the readers’ attention! Why is it relevant? Who cares? Why now? Why you? Where in the world…? Prepare the reader by giving a sense of you as a researcher. What buttons are you trying to push? What’s the controversy? Got any hot quotes or statistics (short ones) to kick off with?

Brief background of the topic. What have other people contributed in terms of research? Who's been writing about this? Is this a big issue at the moment? With who?

Cross cultural component – continuity and change (how it relates to your topic) and _ _ _ _ (one other cross cultural component e.g. gender, ethnicity, class/socio-economic, environmental, national etc)

Specific concepts and terminology. (E.g. you might explain EXPLICITLY that the reason you refer to young females as “women” rather than “girls” is because your project is interrogating the infantalisation of women…. Or you might mention that you have chosen to use the word “class” in discussing socio-economic status because you are interested in the consciousness of socio-economic status… etc.) THESE CAN BE STATED EXPLICITY as well as INTEGRATED THROUGH THE INTRODUCTION.

Outline and JUSTIFY choice of methodology (4-7 methods including secondary research- remember content analysis is PRIMARY not SECONDARY!)

(survey, case study, participant observation, content analysis, focus group, action research, questionnaire, interview, observation, statistical analysis, ethnographic study, personal reflection, secondary research… more on methodology  see p.110 in textbook)

Potential social and cultural value of the research (This should be implicit in the 1st paragraph but should be stated explicitly somewhere in your introduction.

List subtopics. (See above – step 2)

 

STEP 4

Primary Research:

Organise a schedule.

Methodology

Subject (Who)

When/Where

Materials prepared

(tick boxes)

Collation of results/reflection

(This can be included in your appendix and must be INTEGRATED through central chapters!)

(tick boxes)

Method 1: Interview

Dr Leslie Sherman, professor of media studies at Sydney Uni. Good because she was quoted in the paper the other day talking about…

Wednesday 3rd Feb, Level 3 Fisher Library Sydney Uni.

-Interview questions

YEP

-background reading…

YEP – and I wrote it up in my annotated bibliography and reflected on it in my diary…

 

Method 2: etc

 

*Remember to report and reflect in your process diary!

 

STEP 5

Great! You’ve got heaps of primary and secondary research done; analysed and collated.

 

A few things to do to help you synthesize what you’ve got…

This is how I’d do it:   

-Open up a word document.

-Cut and paste all your sub questions and space them out. (From Step 2)

-STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS! – You’ve got a lot of ideas in your head (from your research experience) so you need to at get them down on paper without worrying whether they are well written. Give yourself 10mins or so on each sub question. Write what comes to mind.

-Now go back and see if you can find evidence from your primary and secondary research to back up what you’ve written. (Quotes, statistics, debates etc)

-Read over your “stream of consciousness” and raw slabs of evidence. Are there concepts you could integrate? …Relevant terminology?

-Rewrite your ideas on a new word document. This time pay attention to your writing style and structure. Keep your writing organised in chapters. You should now be on the way to some beautifully SYNTHESIZED central chapter drafts.

-Look at your chapter drafts. Can you draw conclusions from any of the chapters? How can you link this conclusion with the next chapter? How do these sub conclusions lead up to a more holistic conclusion? This will be the next step.

 

*You may also want to try writing a feature article (see the writing page) about your topic at this point. Give yourself an hour and imagine you are writing foryour favourite magazine (Frankie, Overland, Oyster, Vice... whatever!) This will free you up to use your own "voice" to get your ideas flowing. You can formalise the language later.

 

STEP 6

Most people will do their evaluating at the end. Really we should be evaluating the whole time. So lets take some time to do it properly now.

Respond to the following:

What have I learned from the PIP so far?

What logical conclusions can I make from my research?

Outline any gaps in my research – what questions have not been answered? Where can I find this information? Do I need to add a methodology or another secondary research item?

How did my topic evolve/change/grow/shrink over time? (E.g. Were there cross cultural aspects I had not expected to encounter?)

What have I gained personally from the process?

*You can rewrite or cut and paste some of this into your process diary.

 

STEP 7

The Log

You need to write “the story of how you made your pip”. (Max 500 words)

Go over your diary. Pick 5-8 defining moments and rewrite them, keeping in mind that pip markers want to see how you have been active, creative, serious and original.

 

STEP 8

Conclusion (max 500 words)

Respond to the following:

How has undertaking this project and your new understanding contributed to you level of social and cultural literacy? How have you grown? Are you more empathetic? Talk about interacting with perspectives other than your own.

What have you learned about the process or research?

How effective was your process (you can be totally self-critical here – but don’t put yourself down!)

Rewrite the best things you came up with for Steps 6 and 7. Basically you need to say what you’ve learned in relation to the Society and Culture principles (E.g., understanding societies and cultures other than your own for the greater good of the world, inter-relating the fundamental concepts to make sense of the social world)

 

STEP 9

Annotated Bibliography (resource list)

You’ve got most of it done. Add reference to any people/groups you interviewed. Your annotations should not include “the book was not useful.” If it wasn’t useful it shouldn’t be listed at all. You could say “This article had great statistics and have given me a general picture of the issue in a macro sense. To find out more about the issue on a local scale I will need to find something more narrow…” etc.

 

STEP 10

The fun bit!

Refining. Can you rename chapters to make them sound more enticing? Are there images/tables you should include? Is it well structured?

Sit down with someone whose opinion you respect and have them read it with you and discuss with them where they think the strengths and weaknesses are. You’ll be able to tell if they yawn in one chapter and they smile and nod their heads in another chapter which bit needs refining! WELL DONE!!!