Third assignment: Investigation of an argument To get a printable version of this chapter, click here. 30% of marks 800-1500 words Due Tuesday 23 May 2014 For this assignment you will investigate whether or not an argument relevant to POL1000 (a proposition) is true or not (or how true it is). You will do research to find evidence on the proposition to try and determine its validity. This is called testing the proposition. This is your major assignment for POL1000. You should spend around 30 hours in total on it. Choose one of the following arguments to investigate 1. Business (in Australia/in your country) has too much power over government and society 2. Business (in Australia/in your country) is over-regulated 3. Strong unions are necessary to protect the wages and working conditions of employees 4. Corporate social responsibility is a largely meaningless slogan, because it has not led corporations in general to behave ethically or responsibly 5. The differences between the major political parties (in Australia/in your country) are greater and more fundamental than the politics which they have in common What you need to do  Do research to investigate the validity of the argument you’ve chosen  When you’ve done that research, evaluate whether or not the argument is valid (true) or not; or how valid  Write up your assignment and reference all your material Do research to investigate the validity of the argument The aim here is to find out how true the argument is. Elected politicians, NGOs, public servants and businesses are constantly confronted by people trying to influence their actions. How do they respond to the arguments they face? Instinctively? Gut reaction? Or by analysing whether or not the arguments have any validity? The aim of this assignment is to equip you with some of the skills to analyse and evaluate arguments. NOTE: This is not an essay. We are not interested in your personal opinion of the argument (no disrespect intended). It is an investigation. You need to think like a detective, not an advocate. We are interested in what your research shows about the argument. What kind of material are you looking for in your research?  The conclusions of authors, based on their research. Academics and others do research into all kinds of issues. If you find articles or books that summarise research that addresses the argument you’re investigating, summarise the conclusions and some of the evidence that leads to those conclusions. Also take notes of how they did their research and the limits of their research.  Concrete evidence: This is ‘factual’ material that tells us something about the validity of the argument, ie whether or not the argument is true (or how true it might be). See box below. Concrete evidence can include facts, statistics and events. This should be at least half of the evidence you present. Concrete evidence is particularly important because it is comes from the real world. It isn’t just someone’s opinion. Of course the strength of concrete evidence is also its weakness: it only measures one situation. So you have to ask: is the situation it measures typical or unique? Can we draw conclusions from it about the argument, or not? You should present all this material in 700-1300 words. How do you find the kind of evidence you need?  Look at the readings supplied as part of POL1000, especially the optional readings. We expect that about half of your assignment will summarise concrete evidence and research from the readings supplied for POL1000.  Search the internet. There’s a video guide to searching the internet in the sub-chapter: Resources for to help with the third assignment. Try using some of the words and phrases in the argument as search terms.  Search academic journal articles available in online databases. There’s a video guide to doing this in the sub-chapter: Resources for to help with the third assignment. Academic journal articles have high credibility because they are checked by other academics before they are published.  There is a video guide to testing an argument (proposition-testing) in the sub-chapter Resources for to help with the third assignment.  Look at Reading 0.3: Samuels, DJ 2013, ‘Extracts on hypothesis testing’, Comparative politics, Pearson Education, pp. 10-13, 48-50, 81-83. This is a general guide to one kind of proposition-testing. It should be useful for this assignment because we are testing the validity of a proposition (ie the criticism of the corporation we’re researching).  We have also supplied an example of argument testing from another subject, to give you an idea of what’s involved. This was a shorter assignment than yours. If you need help, contact the staff in the USQ Library or the Learning Centre. Details in the chapter on How to get help with your assignments. How much evidence do you need?  Concrete evidence: very roughly, between 10 and 20 separate items of concrete evidence, but the quality of your evidence is more important than the quantity.  Conclusions: from at least five authors or research projects. Take notes as you do your research  Summarise the evidence you find  Take down full details of concrete evidence (facts and figures) that seems valuable  Summarise the conclusions that your authors have drawn  Make a note on where the evidence came from, and how credible you think it is  Make a note at the time on how the material relates to the argument you are testing  Always record a reference before you make each note Taking notes forces you to think about everything you read, and the evidence you find. It improves your understanding of the material, and helps organise your thoughts. It makes the essay easier to write. Here’s a great example… If you would like to see what this kind of research can lead to, see Reading 9.3, Oreskes & Conway 2010. It is a brilliant account of how the tobacco industry systematically tried to foster doubt about the scientific evidence on smoking. It shows how scientists pieced together elements of the truth, using many techniques, including proposition-testing. NOTE: You are not being asked to either prove or disprove one of these arguments. Your job is to investigate the truth or otherwise of the argument you have chosen. You might end up concluding that it is largely right or largely wrong, and that is fine. Evaluate the argument The task here is to work out whether or not the argument is valid — how true or untrue it is — and tell us why.  Think about all the concrete evidence and the general research conclusions you found.  Does all this tend to confirm the argument? Why?  Or does it tend to contradict the argument? Why?  Or…is there evidence both ways?  If so, why do you think that some of the material you found leads to a different conclusion? What does this say about the argument? This is where all your skills of critical thinking and methodical analysis are needed. If you find this hard, discuss your efforts in the forum on StudyDesk. How to do a good evaluation Evaluation involves analysing the material you found (concrete evidence, conclusions of research) and asking some questions, such as…  What circumstances does the material apply to? What circumstances does it not apply to? What are its limitations?  In exactly what circumstances does the material confirm, or contradict, the argument you’re investigating? A good evaluation will tell us whether or not the argument is true (and why). It will tell us the situations (eg countries, time periods, industries, other circumstances) where the argument applies and those where it doesn’t apply (and why) or where you can’t be sure it applies. It will also tell us how strongly the argument applies (and why). A good evaluation also comments on the material you found A good evaluation will also tell us about the nature, quality and credibility of the material you found. Here are some questions to ask yourself:  Was the concrete evidence a product of research? Or just someone’s impressions (eg in a newspaper article or blog)?  What kind of research produced the concrete evidence, or the author’s conclusions? How substantial was it?  Who paid for the evidence to be produced? A university? An NGO? A government agency? A corporation? A pro-business think-tank?) Reading 0.2 (ven den Brink-Budgen 2000) introduces you to some of the issues involved in assessing the credibility of evidence. There is also a simple Evidence analysis table in the sub-chapter on Resources to help with your third assignment that might help. Write up your assignment Your assignment should have this structure. It should be written as continuous text (like an essay, but not using an essay structure), and not as dot points, a table, etc.  An informal cover page, with your name, student number, name of the course (POL1000 etc), name of the assignment, details of the argument you are investigating, and the word count for your assignment.  You should then present the concrete evidence and your summaries of the results of other people’s research in an orderly manner. In other words, group the concrete evidence and the summaries of research so that material on each particular topic is grouped together (700- 1300 words).  Evaluation of the argument (100–200 words).  List of references, starting on a new page. Use your own words Your assignment must be written in your own words. You should not directly copy, or quote, material from your sources unless absolutely essential — and in no case should this be more than 5% of your assignment. Details are in the section, ‘Writing in your own words’. Reference your assignment  Reference every idea or piece of evidence that you use. This allows readers to check your sources for themselves, and see whether your use of them is accurate.  Referencing must be in Harvard AGPS style (ie in-text referencing). There is information about referencing and guides to referencing in the chapter on Developing your academic skills, including a guide to referencing websites.  All references must include page numbers (except where unnecessary, eg a webpage, which is just one page). Do not follow the advice of the Communication Skills Handbook on this issue.  Finish with a proper List of References in Harvard AGPS style. This list should only include publications you have cited in your assignment.  Students who fail to reference or fail to give a List of References will be asked to add these to their assignments before they are marked. Submit your assignment Give your assignment a file name that includes your name, asst 3, and the number of the argument you’ve chosen. For example: stanford_jane_asst3_argt4.docx. You must submit your assignment to both EASE and Turnitin. See the chapter, How to submit your written assignments, for details. If you want to do this assignment at an advanced level… You should consider investigating the validity of both the argument, and some of the contributing arguments that support it. In other words, you are separately investigating the validity of a number of different arguments (ie a number of contributing arguments). Of course, this involves a lot more work, but it can produce assignments with great depth. If you do this, you’ll find you end up with a vast amount of material from other people’s research, and their concrete evidence. You then carefully choose the conclusions and evidence that are the best for this assignment. That selection process can produce an extremely high-quality assignment. There is no requirement for anyone to do this; it’s simply an option for students who want to try something more challenging. How your assignment will be assessed  Quantity and quality of the concrete evidence you found to test the argument and the quality of your presentation of that material  Quantity and quality of the other research you did to test the argument and the quality of your presentation of that material  Quality of your evaluation of the argument chosen in light of the concrete evidence and other research found  Clarity of your writing  Quality of your referencing