This is a photo I took on the way home from work recently. I could see that there was potential to emphasise the graphic boldness of the crow shape by using a 'sillouette effect' However, I would need to reduce a lot of the detail (trees in the background) and maybe push the contrast.
Here, I have cropped down the image to remove all the background detail and enlarge the crow. Not quite the 'rule of thirds' but still has a sense of visual balance. I have done some colour work (largely de-saturating the blue of the sky). To my mind, however there is still too much 'busy' detail in the tree. Incidentally, the small oblong object is a crow dropping in mid flight.
Using the 'clone stamp tool' in photoshop, I have removed quite a few branches - particularly around the crow to emphasise and simplify the shapes in the image. A bonus of the 'flat' sky colour is that the clone stamp process is fairly easy. However, this stage does take a few hours of working on the detail.
Primary research
Primary research refers to information gathering that you conduct yourself. Primary research can take the form of conducting an experiment, designing and deploying a questionnaire, conducting some interviews or reporting on direct observations that you make.
Often primary research produces numerical or statistical data that can be presented in the form of graphs, charts or tables - so it would be useful for you to develop skills in the use of spreadsheets and the graphical capabilities of your word processor. It also helps to 'know the basics' about presenting statistics. Whilst it is beyond the scope of this report to provide guidance on collecting, collating and presenting statistical data there are some basic tips that you should be aware of:
In general, primary research is highly valued by academic tutors. Well-conducted research demonstrates that a student has developed skills in designing research and has put in the effort in order to carry it out.
Secondary research
Secondary research refers to information gathering from sources such as books, journals and web pages. It involves gathering facts and information as well as reporting on the research findings of other people.
Including information from other sources is good academic practice and enhances the believability and trustworthiness of your report. Consider the following two sentences:
1. "almost everybody has access to the internet these days"
2. "UNESCO (www.unesco.org), using statistics gathered from governmental and telecommunication sources, report that whilst internet access in developed countries is as high as 80% - access to the internet in developing countries is much lower. In fact, access to a telephone may be as low as one person in a hundred in parts of Africa and Asia"
Question: Which of the two sentences above do you consider to be more accurate?
The first sentence is an opinion – whereas the second sentence provides evidence. Tutors will expect that any reports you write will provide evidence, in the form of secondary research sources, to support the points that you make.
There are very strict rules about how you report on secondary sources. You must not copy information from other sources without clearly stating where the information came from. Failing to identify your sources (in the citations and references for your report) may result in accusation that you have copied (plagiarised) your work.
Another important issue in the use of secondary sources is triangulation. Triangulation simply refers to the practice of using more than one source of information to provide evidence for your report. Only using one source of information to back up any point you make is tantamount to "believing the first thing you read" and suggests gullibility. Take the following case:
In one assignment students are asked to evaluate whether global warming is a reality. One report reads:
"Global warming is a reality. In a report found on the Greenpeace website (www.greenpeace.org), figures for annual carbon dioxide emissions show an 11% increase over the past eight years. Carbon Dioxide is the primary cause of global warming".
Let's think about this. Greenpeace is a well respected organisation but it has a particular perspective on environmental matters – other sources should also be consulted. A well-triangulated answer might read:
"Greenpeace report an 11% increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the past eight years. Other sources (Kimble 2002, US office of statistics 2000) suggest a figure closer to 6%. The UK department of the environment report that the link between carbon dioxide and 'the greenhouse effect' is a highly debated scientific issue. It is clear that the facts surrounding global warming are controversial…."
This second answer is better because it acknowledges that the reality of any situation is always complex. Someone once said that the mark of a graduate is their ability to recognise that uncertainty and complexity are part of reality and that definitive answers are rare things indeed.
One final point about secondary research sources, whilst the internet is an invaluable source of information there is a major problem with it – we can never be really sure about the trustworthiness of information found there. It is often difficult to tell whether information that seems "accurate" may not have been provided by a commercial organisation with an interest in portraying facts favourable to themselves. Similarly, because information about authors is often hard to find on a website, we cannot always be sure whether the convincing information we are reading has been written by a 'respected professor' or is a term paper by 13 year old Dwayne.
This uncertainty and unreliability extends to collaboratively written 'community' websites, such as Wikipedia. They provide a useful starting point for your research but should never be relied upon as your only source of information. For this reason academic tutors highly value research sources that come from published books and journals. Why? Because information included in books and journals has usually been edited and reviewed for accuracy (a system called peer review). The tip to take from this is that you should always refer to a variety of sources of information, not just the internet, in order to convince your marker that your work is accurate.
Academics have a particular perspective on the status of TRUTH
Academics tend to only accept, as ‘fact’, information that has been investigated by more than one person or group of people. They have self-imposed rules about which information to value highly and which to ignore. They try to ignore opinion; they try to ignore information from sources that have a vested interest in ‘painting the facts’ in a certain way, for example, by providing partial information that ‘covers up’ the truth.
One of the VERY WORST types of ‘proof’, and one which academics try to avoid at all costs, is called anecdotal evidence – that is evidence that ‘plays on’ the human tendency to generalise truth from isolated incidents. For example, evaluate the following statement: “I knew a guy who always played beat ‘em ups on his Xbox and he ended up assaulting some kids at his school, this proves that computer games cause violence”. Does it?
Another type of poor proof is equating the number of people who believe something with its status as truth. The popularity of an idea does not necessarily make it true.
Sources that academics treat with suspicion include: Wikipedia (a good starting place, but completely unverifiable regarding authorship or veracity), some types of journalism, personal blogs (where are you reading this primer?), information provided by political or pressure groups, opinion pieces, etc.
LESSON: Cutting and pasting unverified information, from untrusted sources on the back of a poorly conducted Google or Wikipedia search is probably the worst thing you can do if you hope to get high marks in a written assignment.
The difference between fact and opinion.
One of the key problems for academics is determining true information from opinion. Opinions are subjective but very often can be presented as if they are ‘fact’ through a variety of techniques, such as using persuasive language and argument, or visual evidence such as photographs and graphs, that only support one opinion, whilst suppressing or ignoring other evidence. Another technique involves asking high status individuals to support the opinion in order to gain popular support. Sometimes academics support or promote a position which the academic community (their peers) has not yet fully agreed. (If you wish to explore this further examine ‘the global warming debate’ or ‘MMR vaccine linked with autism’)
In order to determine whether an academic might be acting outside the academic community’s remit you very often have to look for clues, such as; who is funding their research? Are they working for a political or commercial organisation that may have an interest in portraying facts in a certain light?
For examples of these strategies see, for example, Ben Goldacre’s excellent (and funny) book Bad Science [fourth estate, 2008].What does this all mean for your grades?
For the next three years your written work will be marked by academics, not business people, journalists or family members. Academics look for certain things in a report that allows them to properly grade your academic capability, central amongst these will be your ability to do high quality academic research and to take a considered and balanced view on the status of the evidence.
Conducting poor secondary research, and failing to evaluate the validity of your sources, WILL EFFECT YOUR MARKS. During your first year an academic marker may subtract a few marks for reports that fail to use trusted, peer reviewed and verifiable sources and which do not use the Harvard system for referencing these. Penalties at level 2 and 3 are usually much harsher.
IMPORTANT: In order to get a first class mark it is a necessary pre-condition that your research be triangulated (comes from more than one source), uses a selection of peer reviewed content (journal articles, textbooks, conference papers) from trusted sources.
This does not mean that you shouldn’t use Google. It DOES MEAN that you should use it wisely, and that you should ALSO verify your search’s content by other means.
A suggested exercise for personal tutors
Ask your students to consider the following statement:
“Playing violent video games makes children more likely to be violent in everyday life"
Hints for the exercise
This debate started in the 1950's about the effects of TV violence on children. A great deal of academic research has been conducted to decide whether media can directly affect individual behaviour and beliefs. The academic discipline that has probably the most research on the question above is SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, however you will also find the question examined in disciplines such as sociology, cultural studies, and computer game studies.
Useful search terms (yes Google!):
In your argument, be mindful of, and comment on, the source of your information (is it opinion? is it statistical? Who funded the research? Who funded the website where you found the information?). Using only one source of information is tantamount to “believing the first thing you read” – so avoid doing this!
References
Goldacre, Ben (2008) Bad Science fourth edition. Fourth Estate.
Graham, Leah and Takis Metaxas, Panagiotis (2003) “Of course it's true; I saw it on the internet!” Critical Thinking in the Internet Era in Communications of the ACM Vol. 46, No. 5
