The business of academics is words. If you copy other people’s work then a marker can spot in a second that the writing style has changed and can quickly look up the source.

The main thing is to avoid putting yourself in the situation where you are even tempted to present someone else’s work as your own. This means giving yourself as much time as possible to start on your essay rather than leaving it to the last minute.

Below are the university notes on plagiarism.

You ARE told not to PLAGIARISE.  So what exactly is PLAGIARISM?

The act of plagiarism is to pass off as your own work, the ideas or thoughts of someone else, without giving credit to that other person by quoting the reference to the original. There is no standard definition and dictionaries will vary slightly, but put simply, it is a form of CHEATING and THEFT.

• Plagiarism is presenting another student`s course work or project as your own work.
• Plagiarism is putting into your own words commentary or ideas from another source without giving the reference(s).
• Plagiarism is quoting phrases, sentences, complete paragraphs or more, from an existing published source without using quotation marks and full references.
• Plagiarism is cutting and pasting from a website, electronic journal article etc. without indicating where your information has come from.
• Plagiarism is buying your course work essays from an internet service and hoping your tutor will not notice.

What you should be aware of:

• Intentional Plagiarism is the deliberate failure to reference anything. Lack of time is not an excuse.
• Unintentional Plagiarism can happen if you have correctly paraphrased the originals but not acknowledged the sources. It will NOT occur if you fully understand the rules of referencing. There is NO excuse for “unintentional plagiarism”. You are responsible for knowing what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it.
• If you have received considerable help from other people you should give credit to them for this and if you were in a group project make it clear which section each member contributed.
• This occurs if you knowingly plan with other students to gain an unfair advantage, e.g. by allowing your coursework to be copied, or by accepting a mark for a group project to which you did not actually contribute.

THE SOLUTION = CORRECT REFERENCING, or CITING

The method of referencing used by most, but not all, departments in the University is called the Harvard system.  Make sure you know which one your department uses.  Referencing using the Harvard system involves giving the name of the contributor(s) to any journal article, book (or chapter within) plus the date of publication, in the text of your work, and listing full details at the end of your essay or project.

You must list all the sources of information you use if they are not your own. Sources of “Information” in this context include: music, photos, DVD or video clips, computer programs, maps, cartoons etc., as well as written texts either from an original print source or any electronic source.  It covers anything produced as a result of someone’s creative and original work.

Full details are in the Help Sheet no. 30 – Referencing Using the Harvard System: Frequently Asked Questions and also Help Sheet no. 31 – Referencing Electronic Sources.  These are available in all the libraries and can be copied from blackboard.

(Help Sheets section of Services for Students)

Why is referencing so important?

In a university, you need to present your work in an acceptable academic style. This includes research which makes reference to the existing works of other people and knowing when you need to reference (or “cite”) your sources.  By following the recognised guidelines and respecting and building upon the existing work of other people you will get higher marks for attributing these ideas.

DO

• Always check what is required of you for each assignment, project, or dissertation. Ask the responsible member of staff – your tutor, Course Director, or Module Co-ordinator.
• Paraphrase the original work or summarise it in your OWN WORDS. Remember that you will still need to reference the original.
• Put any phrase or sentence which you have used word for word into “quotation marks”
• Use quotes sparingly – or the text may not be easy to read.
• Give yourself time to do all the references IN FULL
• Reference anything you are not sure about – just in case.
• Make a note of the full reference AT THE TIME of reading the original, especially if it is a chapter from a book or a document from the Internet.
• Try to read the ORIGINAL work you are using, rather than someone else’s comments on it. YOUR interpretations and additions are what your tutor wants to read.
• If you can’t find the original, make reference to it, AND to the source material in which you read about it.
• Evaluate carefully any information found from a random internet search where you have not linked from a reputable web page or database.

DON’T

• EVER CONSIDER using any of the essay writing or document purchasing services available on the internet. Credit your tutor with the ability to recognise a “cut and paste job”, especially if the bottom line says “from Essays-R-Us.com.” or similar.  This is “Cyberplagiarism”.
• Assume information on the Internet is exempt from the need to reference.
• Let your own work be used without getting credit for it. Plagiarism is by no means unique to LSBU and students elsewhere may be using YOUR work.

Where you don’t need to use references

• If you are writing up your own experiences, observations, fieldwork, etc.
• You are mentioning something which is “common knowledge”, i.e. well-known facts like historical dates, something well documented elsewhere.

Further measures to avoid plagiarism

• If English is not your first language and you are worried that your style is not good then consult LSBU’s Centre for Learning Development and Support.
• It is unwise to attempt a discussion of someone else’s ideas without fully understanding the argument they are making. If such material is not fully referenced your tutor will suspect that you have not read the original.
• Make time to develop skills in paraphrasing (putting into different words) not just to avoid obvious copying but to help clarify the meaning of your statement and to “add value” to your research.
• We KNOW it can take as long to do a correct reference as it does to write up the actual information researched. However, if you do run out of time, a poor mark is always better than a penalty for plagiarism.

This is an indication of how testing the essay can be. Make no mistake: this is a major step up from secondary education. However, should you persevere, you will find that all the talents that you put towards answering essay questions will have a transformative impact on how you understand the world and your chosen subject.

This brief guide should get you started in understanding what you are expected to do.

“1. How to be a successful student” covers the importance of motivation to your studies.
“2. An approach to essays” gives a brief argument about creativity in your writing.
“3. Just answer the question” attempts to explain why essay writing is so important.
“4. Academic writing” tries to summarize what academic writing is and gives some ideas about vocabulary.
“5. Getting started: the question” looks at how to understand the question.
“6. Getting started: writing exercises” gives you 5 ways to get writing.
“7. Getting started: research” works through the type of reading you will have to do.
“8. Structure” – provides a brief overview of structure and what introductions and conclusions do.
“9. Editing” looks at how you will spend more time editing than the initial writing.
“10. Note taking” looks at how your notes in class will help you get started on your essay.
“11. Common mistakes” looks at common feedback given to students.
“12. Plagiarism” explains what plagiarism is and how you must avoid it.
“13. Grammar: the sentence” gives a way of understanding sentences that should help your writing.
“14. Grammar: the comma” explains comma rules so that your work is crystal clear.
“15. Using referenced material” explains why and how to uses quotes etc (not yet finished)
“16. Referencing” gives a very short overview of referencing.
“17. Academic comparisons” explains how you might start comparing arguments and ideas
“18. An example essay” provides an example 3rd year essay that got a first – so that you know what you are aiming for.
“19. Resources”: a few important sources of further information

Often students don’t think this way about their essays. This is largely because your essay is not for public consumption. Most undergraduate essays are not published; meaning they are not made public (the clue is in the word). Most essays will have a double existence: first in the archives of the university and second in a pile of papers you put away thinking that one day you might come back to that. The university archive is just in case there is some future dispute; for academic misconduct or checking. Eventually they will be pulped. Your own personal archive may last may years. Eventually it is likely that you will clear your essays away as you are clearing house.

Of course this is not always the case. Hopefully, you will show it to friends and family to solicit their feedback. And if it is good enough you may well try to get it out there – though depending on where you want it shown you may want to edit it.

, but it is far from being a private or personal affair. However, to consider your essay as simply a private exercise is missing the point.

An essay should be no different. Before you start writing ask yourself this: “who are you writing this for?”

Should you write the essay for you?

It is practice to enable you to produce works worthy of public consumption in the future.

When a book, a magazine or a newspaper article is being created the author may be writing it for themselves.

Imagine It is not meant to go in a gallery, but it is meant to get you towards that goal – towards public exposure.

But they can be.

Cottrell, S. (1999) The Study Skills Handbook. London: Macmillan

Evans, H. (2000) Essential English: For Journalists, Editors and Writers. London: Pimlico

Mounsey, C. (2002), “Research” and “Structuring the essay” in Essays and Dissertations. London: Oxford University Press, pp.18-41

Orwell, G (1946) Politics and the English Language Available at http://iis.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Politics_%26_English_language.pdf [accessed 14 July 2013]

Trask, R.L. (1997) Penguin Guide to Punctuation. London: Penguin

Identify and analyse some of the roles television plays in the creation and reproduction of celebrity culture. Discuss with reference to one or two reality TV programmes.

There is considerable academic debate about what exactly constitutes celebrity, the reasons for celebrity and the social role of celebrity. However, it seems clear that celebrity concerns individuals with a presence in the public sphere and how their lives both public and private – with an emphasis on the personal attributes of the individual – are given public meaning, are culturally constructed, both by activity in cultural industries and by the reception of the public.

Three key writers serve to illustrate this. David Marshall, for example, describes celebrities as “overtly public individuals” (1997: ix) emphasizing celebrity as the “empowerment of the people to shape the public sphere symbolically” (1997: 7) and discusses the specific forms of celebrity relating to television and film. Chris Rojek calls celebrity the “attribution of glamorous or notorious status to an individual within the public sphere” (2001: 10) which takes place through the “cultural fabrication” of cultural intermediaries (agents, the media etc.) (2001: 10-11) which are “inflected, revised and recast by the direct circumstances and relations of life in which we are located” (2001: 16). Graeme Turner sees celebrity as a “genre of representation and a discursive effect” produced by the publicity and media industries (2004: 7) which is at least to a degree “productively consumed” (2004: 109).

It is also clear that both the public and the media have a heightened fascination and engagement with celebrity: celebrity today is ubiquitous (Rojek, 2001: 185). Celebrity is pervasive across today’s mass media and the role that celebrity plays has expanded through many areas of life (Turner, 2004: 4).  There is a strong sense that there is a significant and influential “celebrity culture” the importance and seeming public relevance of which has increased over the last decade at least.

Television has from its inception a track record of a relationship with celebrity, however, prior to television newspapers, magazines and film were involved with celebrity. For example, the “Hollywood system” created a publicity machine to promote individual actors into stars, whose lives became the subject of numerous magazines and were the subject of widespread newspaper reporting from the early part of the twentieth century (see Marshall, 1997: ch.4). Television did not originate celebrity culture, it already was part of the mass media. Television celebrity exists in a symbiotic relationship with celebrities created through other media – and today through the internet.

The particular form of celebrity culture created through television relates to its role of mediating the public sphere to the private sphere – responding to a society increasingly dispersed and physically mobile while at the same time centred on the family home, a home dependant for its upkeep, and thus required to attend to, the latest news and views from the outside world (Williams, 1990: 26). The two features of its location in a domestic context and its near universal saturation means television is “a feature of modern public life that has a place in nearly every private home” (Stokes, 1999: 1).

Television’s “domestic ubiquity” means it is part of ordinary, private and domestic life – an ever present household object, practice and occurrence. This creates the potential for individuals who appear on television to take on some of the attributes provided through the setting and repetitive – and so everyday – mass exposure. The construction of television celebrity operates through notions of familiarity and ordinariness; or as Marshall puts it “television celebrity is configured around conceptions of familiarity” (1997: 119).

A comparison with celebrities of cinema is appropriate here. Stars on the silver screen, have a distance, “star qualities” placed in the firmament far above us – “film celebrity plays with aura through the construction of distance” (Marshall, 1997: 119). This is not to say that stars’ personalities and private lives were not the subject of intense speculation and managed disclosure. However, top Hollywood stars were generally considered as being above everyday concerns both materially and spiritually: they became seen and are often still seen as American royalty (USA Today, 2008). Television celebrities in contrast can have a more workaday and accessible relationship with their audience; for example soap actors are hailed on the street, often by the names of the characters they play, in the same way one might shout to a friend.

As part of domestic everyday life television is also caught up with the politics of the family and morality. There is a sentiment that appearing on television, because the audience is encountered in their own home, is similar to being invited as a guest into people’s homes – whether that is for long-standing television actors, advertisers or for politicians (see for example Flint, 1990; Schmuhl, 2004). Especially when there were few television channels readily available and there was a strong emphasis on the defence of “family values” in politics, there was pressure to conform to conventional norms. There is still regulatory support for these ideas in the form of the 9pm watershed and regulation of balance and decency on television couched in terms of what is currently generally acceptable.

When celebrities break some of the conventions of behaviour on television, this can cause considerable controversy – television celebrities become the focus for a discussion on what is or is not acceptable behaviour. The Jonathan Ross / Russell Brand affair, where the performers caused outrage for behaving badly on radio (stoked by controversy about Ross’s performances on television) illustrates the continued influence of ideas of television’s responsibility to act as a guest in the familial home, but also the partial dissolution of these ideas by the many people who thought their behaviour was merely boyish hijinx (Guardian, 2008).

Increasing numbers of channels allow for a multiplicity of celebrities, the audience for each is smaller and so the celebrities are not perhaps as widely known as previously. Reactions and associations to other than a generic pleasant guest have become possible. Celebrities for all tastes – celebrities that are loved, hated or seen as irrelevant according to taste – have developed. The extent to which this is caused by the active segmented-marketing of cultural agencies or else prompted by varying tastes, associations or even perceived needs of the audience caused by wider social change is an object of academic dispute.

One area covered especially well by television is the creation of short-lived celebrities having in Andy Warhol’s expression their “fifteen minutes of fame”, what Rojek calls “celetoids” (2001:20-23). The sheer amount of airtime and the responsiveness of television to what is new in the world guarantee a churning of transitory individuals that are placed in the public eye for reasons ranging from winning the lottery to being bad at skiing, like Eddie the Eagle.

These celebrities are often cited as examples of the shallowness of celebrity culture. Momentary, accidental or trivial events propel individuals to centre stage rather than “real talent”, often earned over years of effort or else real social standing – even if earned as an accident of birth as with the Royal family. When such individuals do not return quickly to obscurity as, for example, in the case of Jade Goody this becomes further cause for consternation.

A specific television celebrity type is the news anchor. As a presenter this class of celebrity speaks directly to the audience and as interviewer works in front of us and for us to attain understanding. The anchor acts as an anchor, a stabilising presence, or a voice of authority against a backdrop of news – the relaying of events from the public world to the private – that can be unsettling or disturbing (Marshall, 1997: 124). Over time such figures can become icons of respectability, for example Dan Rather in the United States and Trevor McDonald in Britain. Presenters embody a reasoned, rational, controlled response to what can be seen as unwieldy events. This perceived and attributed public authority means that news presenters often have contractual limits put on their political activity.

Another common form of television celebrity is that of the chat show host – here the host often assumes celebrity through repeated association with celebrity guests. Television brings into the home a relaxed, informal discussion where often through humour celebrity guests can let slip elements of their private lives (Marshall, 1997: 125). The familiarity of the host, at once known to all of us and at the same time on a par with the celebrity – can recreate the informal relationship between friends or acquaintances that might naturally bring secrets, indiscretions and otherwise private moments to light. Occasionally a host will joke: “Just between us. No one is watching”. This humour is a way of negotiating the contradiction of a conversation that is at once extremely public and at the same time a private chat open for personal revelations. By sharing the joke with the studio audience (playing the part of the audience at home) we are invited further into the relationship between the host and guest: as friends listening to their conversation.

No contemporary discussion of television celebrity could be considered complete without reference to the development of “reality television” – which over the last decade has become a mainstay of both television output and celebrity culture.

Reality television occurs in a myriad of forms – new versions and hybrid forms of previous types of shows such as documentaries, game shows, talent competitions and makeover shows are innovated continuously. This has made the genre difficult to define and investigate, many dealing at length with the extent to which any claims of reality are justified. What is presented on television is inevitably editorially selected, heavily edited, and often heightened with mood music and set in a dramatic story arc (Brooker, 2007; Brooker, 2009).

However, running throughout reality television is the premise of deploying a number of inexpensive cameras to capture something of raw human responses to unfolding situations, and to have the television audience engage with these reactions. Reality television is about the “tension between performance and authenticity, asking contestants and viewers to look for the “moment of truth”” (Hill, 2002: 324)

Reality television plays a part in celebrity culture through public engagement with the behaviour of people on screen. This behaviour can propel “ordinary people” to celebrity status overnight; but existing celebrities also feature in many shows either hoping to reinvigorate careers or else showing themselves in situations where the audience can get to know more of the “real person”.

It is often the case that reality television is inexpensive compared to traditional forms of television. Compared to drama especially, there is a lack of the need to script, build sets and have actors paid to work through a dramatic narrative. Constant format innovation by television companies is premised on relatively low production costs. This is no doubt a factor in how widespread reality television has become in a multi-channel television environment.

Big Brother, aired from 2000, is an important show in the development of reality television and serves to illustrate some features of the genre. Individuals, plucked from obscurity, have their entire lives placed under the gaze of cameras filling a house isolated from outside influences or prompts. Posed initially as a unique anthropological experiment it featured expert psychologists to guide us through the personal interactions on screen.

Public engagement is heightened through voting for who should stay on the show. Strong audience attachments are often formed to the contestants and debate, both in the press and in the public at large, as to the behaviour and character of the participants is generated. Television’s ability to have both immediacy and show things “as they really happened” forms the basis for establishing a more intimate link with celebrity. The live character of television coupled with telephone voting enables a stronger engagement with the audience.

The British presenter of Big Brother has recently predicted that, after a run of ten years and falling ratings, the show will soon be axed. Over time more extreme measures have been taken to induce a reaction from contestants who now know what to expect – and people with borderline personality disorders introduced to spice things up. The “reality” of reactions has reduced, undermining the premise of the show – this year there will be no live streaming of video from the house to cut costs.

Continued demand for authenticity – for something real to relate to – can be seen in the ITV show Britain’s Got Talent. This follows a traditional talent show format, but with reality television modifications: reactions backstage, interactions with the audience and between the judges are edited in and later in the series television audience voting plays a part. The recent appearance of the dowdy 48-year-old Susan Boyle, a hitherto unknown, was not only praised for its ability, but for her lack of pretension and caring about “putting on a front.” The clip from the show has been viewed on YouTube 186 million times, the singer now internationally famous (Mail Online, 2009).

Television, then has become the location for the extended development of celebrity culture, creating a slew of celebrities – some specific to the medium – and further mediating society’s relationship with existing celebrities. Television, through its characteristics as a medium – familiar, domestic, ubiquitous, interactive and live – becomes the site for a deeper and broader engagement with celebrity and the “active construction of identity in the social world” that it represents (Marshall, 1997: ix).

(2197 words)

References

Brooker, C (2007) BBC Screenwipe ‘Reality TV Editing’, 26 February 2007, BBC [online] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI [accessed 11 May 2009]

Brooker, C (2009),  Screenwipe: ‘Mission Documentaries’, 9 January 2009, BBC [online] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdOh9n1ZgmM [accessed 11 May 2009]

Flint, P (1990) “Jack Gilford, Actor, Dead at 81; Veteran of Stage, Screen and TV”, 5 June 1990, New York Times [online] http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/05/obituaries/jack–gilford–actor–dead–at–81–veteran–of–stage–screen–and–tv.html [accessed 11 May 2009]

Guardian (2008) “Organ Grinder Blog: Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’s Radio 2 stunt: the reaction”, 29 October 2008 [online]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2008/oct/29/jonathan–ross–russell–brand  [accessed 11 May 2009]

Hill, A (2002) Big Brother: The Real Audience’ in Television & New Media Vol 3

Marshall, P. David (1997), Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture London : University of Minnesota Press

Mail Online (2009), “Susan Boyle tells Oprah: ‘I’ve got millions of new friends’ but U.S. TV chiefs run subtitles because of her Scottish accent”, 12 May 2009 [online] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1180621/Susan-Boyle-tells-Oprah-Ive-got-millions-new-friends-U-S-TV-chiefs-run-subtitles-Scottish-accent.html [accessed 12 May 2009]

Rojek, Chris (2001) Celebrity London: Reaktion

Schmuhl, R (2004) “Candidates must make themselves at (your) home”, 30 September 2004, Christian Science Monitor, [online] http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0930/p09s02–coop.html [accessed 11 May 2009]

Stokes, J (1999) On Screen Rivals: Cinema and Television in the United States and Britain. London: Macmillan

Turner, Graeme (2004) Understanding Celebrity, London: Sage

USA Today (2008) “Editorial: The Role of Movies”, 22 February 2008 [online] http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080222/edtwo22.art.htm [accessed 11 May 2009]

In academic writing you have to solve a similar problem. You must evaluate two (or more) different arguments or theories.

One way of comparing two things which seem very different is by comparing the properties that they share. For example if you are packing your bag for a long day out and so you want to minimise the weight of your bag, then you might choose either an apple or an orange because one is lighter than the other. In this case you are choosing the lightest on the basis that they have a common property, i.e. they both have a weight. This common property allows you to make a comparison. So through their properties – what they have in common – they can be compared.

In academic comparisons you perform a similar trick. However in this case you are not dealing with simple physical properties. Rather you are using abstract properties – in other words concepts. So two academic arguments can be understood in relationship to one another through how they understand or deal with common abstract ideas or theories

Let’s take the example of politics. One of the most frequent abstract properties of political arguments is that they have an explicit (or perhaps an implied) view of the state. By laying out the two views of the state that are found in the two arguments side by side we can really begin to compare the two. We are in effect using the concept of the state to get the two arguments to interact with one another

By using these concepts we are moving beyond first impressions or feelings about the arguments

Or take another example: literature. In this case we may not be comparing arguments simply put. Instead we may be comparing theories. For example, we might want to compare how two theories interpret a piece of literature, e.g. Marxism and feminism. We might discuss the meaning given by theory A to a scene followed by the meaning given by theory B to a scene (or just one aspect of a scene). Again by laying out the two interpretations side by side we are comparing their ability to explain what is going on and get at the underlying meanings (which is what theories are supposed to do). Here we might bring out the strengths and weaknesses of the two theories in their ability to explain – and also in how they overlap in their explanation.

Currently in UK secondary education it seems to be common practice to teach comparisons by listing the good and bad features of something, e.g. they have plus points and minus points, good points and bad points, positives and negatives. However, this is not good enough for how we analyse concepts at university. We are not looking for a list of simplistic points and, let’s face it, the world is not simply black and white.

Instead we must put two arguments (or theories) in a relationship with one another. This may well bring out the underlying meaning and it allows us to move beyond a simple idea of liking one argument or another. It is also practice in the use of abstract concepts – a vital part of academic study. The major concepts in an area of study are major concepts because they relate to so many arguments and often because their use provides us with the ability to get beyond surface appearances or impressions.

Let’s take a worked example. Below are two arguments about regulation of the media, based around a discussion of Page 3 – a page featuring a topless model in the popular Sun newspaper. First is a summary of an argument by Heeswijk in the Independent. Second is a summary of an article by Shiner, from the online magazine Spiked. After the summaries there is an attempt to compare the two arguments. To do this there is an academic comparison of both writers’ understanding of the state and of civil society. To make this comparison also required explaining how the writers understand the public sphere and the media.

Hopefully this comparison illustrates how it is possible to use theories to provide insights into the underlying arguments and their meanings.

1) Heeswijk argues that the portrayal of women in the press is “a form of discrimination”. Endemic sexist reporting undermines women’s self-esteem, thus limiting women’s participation in the public sphere, and encourages men to see women as unequal, potentially leading to violence against women. Rather than being a question of taste and decency on which people might have different views, for Heeswijk, this is discrimination in action and so a question of equality. To stop the discrimination that comes with negative stereotypes and the portrayal of women based on looks, requires regulation of the media. Heeswijk suggests that newspapers which portray women as sex objects should be made more difficult to obtain by being removed from ready access in newsagents and by stopping sales to minors. She also argues that the Leveson Inquiry should tackle the reporting of rape and the portrayal of women more generally through having such reports scrutinised for signs of sexism by future regulators. Heeswijk makes pains to argue that “this is not about censorship” rather it is about getting press that “serves the public interest” and, “at the very least, does no harm”. (187 words)

2) Shiner objects to groups such as “Turn Your Back on Page 3” campaigning against Page 3 and the sexist portrayal of women in the press. She argues they are falsely portraying themselves as representatives of women as a means to try to “force [their] views on the public” by calling for the regulation of the press. Rather than countering the negative portrayal of women, Shiner sees such campaigns themselves as presenting women as weak, pathetic and powerless needing “paternalistic” censorship by regulators to sort out sexism and protect them. Likewise she objects to the view of men by such groups as “uncontrollable beasts” merely reacting to female flesh. Any combatting of discrimination rather than being the “government’s responsibility”, for Shiner, must come from “society” i.e. it is a question of politics and culture rather than of regulation from above. Ultimately, Shiner sees no problem in women being photographed naked. Rather the problem is the attempt to curtail freedom even to the extent of not trusting women to judge for themselves what jobs they might want to take and how they might want to express their sexuality. (186 words)

Comparison

3A) The two authors differ strongly in how they see both the state and civil society. Heeswijk follows the media effects school in directly linking media portrayals to psychological attitudes (self-esteem in women and sexist attitudes in men). In reading public viewpoints from media representations, she sees the public sphere as the location of problems, of discrimination, and downplays the ability of individuals to act for themselves (or collectively through civil society groups orientated towards the public) to counter such discrimination. In discounting the public she sees it as the role of enlightened groups to call on the state to regulate public life and especially the media as powerful and destructive private interests. In this view the state sits above society and is the only powerful actor not captured by media concerns and so able to play a progressive role.

3B) Shiner by contrast prioritises freedom of expression both for those who might want to be glamour models and for those that might want to campaign for equality through public engagement – such as women who might want to “to speak up and prove the illegitimacy of sexist attitudes by themselves”. This unconstrained public sphere can then become both the place where individuals express the interests and concerns they have but also find others and act with them in civil society groups to try to further their interests (often by influencing the public i.e. for Shiner “society”). The media here is less important in the sense that it itself does not determine the public’s consciousness, but also more important as a key site where public discussions take place and where civil society groups might want to communicate their interests. Where the state limits freedom of expression this impoverishes the public sphere and with it civil society. State regulation to enforce particular moral standards or political viewpoints is understood by Shiner as an elite imposition on the public which undermines and demobilises the activities of civil society but also, in the end, fails to address any underlying problems. (334)

Perhaps the main reason that you are asked to use references is that academic work (and a great deal of modern knowledge) relies on the idea that you can build on the insights and research of others. In an essay, report or dissertation you are using the theories and writing of others as building blocks or scaffolding for your argument – as all academic writers do. These sources or references can allow you to assume or state ideas that experts have worked on for years and so potentially let you build powerful and insightful arguments of your own with their backing. Alternately some of your writing will engage with important ideas to critique them and some of your work will use logic and evidence to undermine ideas you oppose. This is something that academics do in ongoing debates on many subjects – you are being asked to take part. Either way (through support and/or critique) the idea is that by engaging with ideas from the best thinkers you will be able to develop your understanding of a subject and be able to apply that to develop insights of your own.

To put this in a slightly different way, one important reason to use academic reference material to support an argument is because in the process of being published it has had to go through some quite rigorous scrutiny. This does not mean that it is necessarily correct. However, because of this scrutiny it can to a greater or lesser extent be defended and is generally based on evidence and logical argument. It therefore puts your writing on much firmer foundations than simply stating your own view. However, such references must be used carefully. They can be defended because they are put in a particular and exact way. Understanding this exactness and getting your head around the particular point is required so that you can effectively use the quote or reference in your own work. This is a key element of grasping your subject.

Sometimes the demand to use references is interpreted as being a little dismissive of your own insights, thoughts and ideas. In a sense that is true. You have not been published in twelve languages and been invited to speak at conferences around the world because people are excited by your ideas. Your ideas have not been tested by experts critiquing them. However in another sense this is false. You are being taken seriously in the competition of ideas. You are being asked to apply your abilities and understanding in the most rigorous way possible, up against (and with) the best ideas mankind has to offer. The idea is that you will thoroughly test your own views and that of others and emerge with a much stronger and clearer understanding.

The view of connected knowledge also strongly influences how your work is assessed. You are being assessed in large part on your ability to interact with the best ideas. So you must let assessors know what ideas you are using in references. They need to check you have understood correctly, applied that understanding correctly, and they must see clearly what you are dealing with. Your work is understood as better, not worse, by taking into account what others have written. However, you are not simply copying what others say. Rather you are being asked to apply your own understanding aided by the insights of others to answer a particular enquiry or question. Thus, for example, listing a set of quotes with a little explanation could never be enough.

Make no mistake: this is not easy. Students struggle to understand many ideas precisely because the ideas themselves required a struggle to get to. Rarely are profound insights straightforward: they often require an unusual way of looking at things or are set out specifically in relation to particular sets of circumstances and evidence, and with qualifications about how they can be applied. This is then why such a dim view is taken of using the writing of others as if it were your own – of plagiarism. Plagiarism is a way of attempting to shortcut the struggle to understand. It is you taking credit for the work of others by presenting their worked-through-understanding as though it were your own.

So, are you being asked to be an intellectual? Some students will decide that this is the way to go. However at a base level you are being asked to develop a rounded appreciation of your subject. By getting to grips with the ideas that others have used to understand this subject you will be well placed to thoroughly engage with the subject and apply that understanding yourself. This is the “shortcut” that higher education gives you. And this is done through writing. Writing makes you actively apply yourself in a way that simply reading can never quite do.

What works should you reference?

The choice of sources you use, and the works that you reference, in many ways determines the quality of your written work. A useful analogy here is cooking. Even if you are a good chef if you use poor quality ingredients then your food will be of poor quality. Likewise if you choose poor sources (and by implication do limited research) then your written work will be of poor quality. To extend the analogy, of course some of the better ingredients/sources require skill to be used well but without the attempt you will never be an accomplished cook/student.

The first works you must consider referencing are those set out in the course reading. For any given topic there will be hundreds if not thousands of examples of writing that might be relevant for you to read and use. However a few of these will definitely be essential. You should expect that your lectures and the set reading for your course will provide a guide to some of the key authors and debates you need to engage with. Some the course reading will be background that helps you understand and you won’t reference it. However, as a rule of thumb you will be expected to directly reference some of the works on the reading list. This shows an engagement with the course.

Additionally you will are expected to engage with the relevant topics, discussions and authors discussed in the core reading. This raises the second source of works to look at, which are to be found in the references found in the course reading. The academic idea is that a work will have references to other works. You can branch out from the core texts to references found there or to the works of key writers found there. Using references in this way as places to go and look, as a way to broaden and deepen your research and understanding, is similar to the idea of following links from a web page. This intellectual exploration is a key aspect of your work and should be applied to all the research and reading that you do.

The third source of material is academic sources more generally. Primarily these will likely be discovered through a combination of using a library search and by using the Google Scholar search engine (more later). To find this material you must establish some search terms that will allow you to find relevant material. The idea is that you must strike a balance between search terms that are too general and too specific (again covered later). You should save these search terms and collect key material as you go along, either by saving PDF documents or else by saving links or references in a document. However a secondary way to find material is using the indexing of the Dewey-decimal system. Each library book you look at has a number on the spine, e.g. 031.231. These are subject groupings used in the library. Often a few hours will be well spent looking at surrounding books.

The last stop, unless you are conducting your own direct research of experimental data or perhaps of opinions, is with journalistic material. It should be noted here that despite being last on the list sometimes journalistic material can be more useful for your research than many academic sources. Sometimes, for example, you want to establish a factual point or need very current material. At other times you need to find material that is from a particular perspective not covered in straightforward academic material that perhaps has a particular attitude and vitality. Notably journalistic material covers an enormous variety of sources some of which is more valuable than others.

To use journalistic material properly you need to think about the source represents, the seriousness of the argument being put forward and why a particular point is being made. Generally the more serious and more representative the better. And thinking about why a point is being made (the intention of the writer) lets you decide how you will present an argument – sometimes explaining the background or interests involved will be necessary to explain for the reader and to construct your argument. While in some ways these criteria also apply to academic sources, you need to think quite carefully about this when it comes to journalistic sources. There are several resources you should consider. There are several specialist magazines (both offline and online) than can be useful. For example in current affairs, the Economist, the Spectator, and the New Statesman all cover important debates and contemporary events from particular perspectives. There are also the broadsheet newspapers – such as the Times, the Guardian and the Telegraph – all of which have important source material that works its way into many academic accounts. This source material can be useful both for facts and opinion.  There are also some important blogs that academic authors and some influential writers use to develop ideas not yet ready for institutional publication.

Essential to writing is the humble comma. Thought by many the creation of a sadist, the dot-curl combo can be the key to clarity. My comprehensive school education certainly skirted the issue. So, as a mature student, I looked into it myself. I found a few simple rules in a simple book and, in a few hundred words, here is most of what you need to know about the comma, but were afraid to ask.

Commas are not to be used to give readers a chance to breathe: they have had plenty of practice at that. No, there are four, and only four, distinct uses of the comma: listing, joining, gapping and bracketing.

The listing comma separates a lists and substitutes for the word “and” and sometimes the word “or”.
“The three musketeers were Porthos and Aramis and Athos” becomes
“The three musketeers were Porthos, Aramis and Athos”.

There are two extra rules for the listing comma. Listing comma rule one: use it only to separate a list of three sentences or more.

“I speak English, she speaks Italian and he speaks Russian” is correct, but
“I speak English, she speaks Italian” is wrong.
Think of this rule as that a list of two sentences is just a join between the sentences, not a list.

Listing comma rule two:  if, in your list, one of the items has an “and” put in a comma before this “and” for clarity.
“He liked listening to the Beatles, Status Quo, and Gilbert and Sullivan” is good, but
“He liked listening to the Beatles, Status Quo and Gilbert and Sullivan” is confusing.

The general test for a joining comma is whether you could substitute “and” or “or” and the sentence would still make sense. The exception is when you might need a comma before the “and” or “or” for clarity when an item in your list has an “and” or “or” itself.

The joining comma joins up two complete sentences, but must be followed by one of these joining words: “and”, “or”, “but”, “while” and “yet”.

“His shirt is blue, but her shirt is red” is correct, but
“His shirt is blue, her shirt is red” is wrong.

Note that the joining words “and”, “or”, “but”, “while” and “yet” follow this rule. However, other joining words should by proceeded by a semi-colon if the sentences are closely related or should start a new sentence. Examples of joining words that do not receive the comma treatment are: “however”, “therefore”, “hence”, “consequently” and “nevertheless”.

“His shirt is blue, however her shirt is red” is wrong.

The gapping comma shows that some words have been left out when those missing words would just repeat words used earlier in the same sentence.

For example:
“Churchill was famous for his cigars, Hitler, for his moustache, and John Wayne, for his walk”.
Here the words “was famous” have been substituted by a gapping comma. Sometimes this is not necessary if the meaning is clear anyway.

The most common, and difficult, use of the comma is the bracketing comma is a pair of commas used to isolate an interruption to the main thrust of the sentence. If the interruption is at the beginning or end of the sentence then, of course, only one bracketing comma is needed.

For example
“These findings, we would suggest, cast doubt upon the hypothesis” or
“These findings cast doubt upon the hypothesis, we would suggest”

The first test here is whether removing the interruption would leave a sentence that makes sense.
“She groped for her cigarettes and, finding them, hastily lit one” is good, but
“She groped for her cigarettes, and finding them, hastily lit one” is WRONG because removing the interruption leaves a sentence that makes no sense.

The second test is whether the interruption is just that, an interruption, not an essential part of the sentence. So:
“Note that in this example, the sentence remains clear” is wrong because the words “Note that”, as an instruction, are vital to the central thrust of the sentence.
“Note that, in this example, the sentence remains clear” is correct.

These concepts were taken from the Penguin Guide to Punctuation by R. L. Trask. I suggest you get one. If only they had taught me this at school!