Asia Beyond Climate Change Research Essay Assessment

Conduct academic research using course materials, library & (Asian Studies) database searches. Your research should include substantive, relevant academic and non-academic (news articles, websites, etc.) materials.

Reveal the links to the issues presented in the course (lectures, Course Reader) and derive from your further research using books and academic journals. Your topic and analysis must demonstrate relevance to the course.

The introduction must introduce the topic, provide relevant background/context to the topic, and be supported with references as necessary, explicitly signpost to the reader what the structure of the essay is, and also point towards or directly state your central argument/point.

The essay's main body should be structured – a paragraph or section per point/subtopic. Each paragraph should be well-balanced, opening with a ‘topic sentence’ that introduces or states the subject of the paragraph before getting into the main content (data, evidence, a key example, case study, issue, sociological theory, your reflections, etc.). The structure should be in a sensible order that helps you progress your argument and helps the reader follow you through it most efficiently. You can use section titles if you want.

The conclusion needs to reiterate key points and your argument (without introducing new substantial data or topics), though you can point to implications/next step considerations, etc.

You must present an argument. Presenting a list of facts is not enough – make sure you apply a relevant theory/framework/concept/perspective to analyse your chosen issue (in critical depth) and build a clear argument based on that evidence to answer your research question.

RESEARCH REQUIREMENT:

1. Use: at least 3 references from the Course Reader. References from “Required Reading” must be marked with ** (two asterisks) and references from “Further Reading” with * (one asterisk) in Bibliography.
2. Use at least 3 academic journal articles, book chapters, and/or books (in total) other than the above (the Course Reader) as sources of theory and explanations in particular.
3. Use at least 3 PowerPoint slides from the lecture as reference. Intext reference should be (Lecture Week X: slide number).
4. Use newspaper articles and relevant and credible web pages with due bibliographical details.
5. A full Bibliography – separated from the main text using page break.
6. The number of items in the Bibliography is around 12 to 20.
7. Use the Harvard referencing system.

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS

• State your Research Question or Title
• Use a standard size 12 font (Arial, Times New Roman, or Calibri)
• The text should be Single-spaced.
• Justified both left and right margins. Have a 2.5 cm margin on both sides.
• Pages should be numbered.
• Separate paragraphs with a blank line (i.e. no indentation at the beginning of a paragraph) o Author-date (Harvard) referencing system to be used instead of footnote style.
• Bibliography - separate pages using Insert Page Break
• Do not use headers and footers.
• Include the word count at the end of the essay.
• Italicise non-English words, E.g. otaku, xiaofenhong, etc.