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A/P Tim Barnard | A/P Ian Gordon | History | NUS | Back to GEM2005/HY2243 |
GEM 2005 / HY2243
FILM AND HISTORY
1. Choose the question that you are most comfortable or familiar with. For the more adventurous ones, you may want to select a question that you find more difficult yet challenging or engaging. Remember, rewards come with risks.
2. Read the question you selected more carefully and identify the information required and issues you may need to be aware of. If in doubt, do not hesitate to approach your classmates or your tutors about the questions involved. Stick to your selected question once you have confirmed it for you do not have the luxury of time to keep changing your choice of questions.
3. Begin with the planning process with consideration to the stipulated deadline as well as your own general schedule. The University (and your future bosses and clients) has little tolerance for students who do not hand in their assignments punctually without any valid reasons.
Research
4. You are very fortunate that we have provided basic reading materials and issues to consider for your questions. So, please go through them at the very least. But, we do not expect you to stop there. A good student would not be satisfied with what is given to him but would dig further into the resource materials available in the library. Take a look into the indexes in LINC or take a walk around the open shelves of the Central Library. You will never know what you can find.
5. Research is not leisure reading although we may come across interesting stories occasionally. Note down the contents (ie author, title, page numbers, publisher, year of publication) if you think they could be potentially useful to your assignment. You may need to quote them for reference in your answers. Consult your tutors or your fellow classmates when you encountered any difficulties if the process of the research.
6. You may be distracted by all sorts of materials encountered in the process of your research. But, you have to plan for when you intend to stop your research and start writing.
7. Finally, organise the research materials that you have gathered either according to themes, dates or authors, depending on your approach to the question. Bind them together if possible for you do not want to be looking around for scattered pieces of paper.
Typing and completing the Essay
8. Writing an essay is different from a test or any casual email exchanges. We demand that your essay more coherently planned and presented. So, do not just start writing impulsively. Plan an outline (which serves like a content page) for your essay so that you will know exactly what to write. You can commence writing once you are confident with your outline.
9. We are not impressed with difficult words or complicated sentences, especially if you are unable to handle them. Write in plain simple English and prose that most people can understand easily (which is actually the most difficult thing to do).
10. As for the contents, once again, if you intend to merely re-produce a list of facts and data, please hand us the original documents or materials to instead. “The basic test of a work in history is not whether it is objective or biased, but whether arguments and interpretations are adequately supported by facts and whether all relevant materials/examples have been cited.” In history, there are no right or wrong answers. We would welcome even claims that the Sun sets in the north if you can substantiate it.
Amendments and Corrections
11. Please do not hand up your essay immediately after you have completed your last word. Read through them to check not only for grammatical errors, however minor they may seem, but for the contents as a whole. Are the various rules on word limits, citations, bibliography etc observed? Are the arguments, analysis and supporting facts concretely and logically presented? Please watch out for sweeping generalizations or unsubstantiated arguments sub-consciously mentioned in the process. Ask your friends to help proof read for you if possible.
12. Submit your final draft once you are satisfied with it (within the stipulated deadline of course)!
Submission
13. Please submit your essay punctually. Penalties will be given to late submissions. Exceptions would only be given on a case by case basis for late submissions. We do not entertain excuses like “I cannot finish on time because my computer hung up on me or I have problems with my girlfriend.”
14. You will notice that the world would look brighter if you could punctually submit an assignment done with much pride and effort. The next thing would just be to wait for the marked essays to be returned to you from your tutors.
GOOD LUCK!!!