INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THEORIES AND CONCEPTS IN THE CREATIVE AND CULTURAL INDUSTRIES (CCI)

Title

What is the topic of my essay, how to I want to address the essay question?

What is the problem or issue?

What is the question that I want to address and why is that question relevant?

How do I want to answer that question, what methodology or approach do I want to use?

How is answering that question advancing our scientific knowledge?

Identifying a topic/perspective

Make sure that you have done some reading. Identifying a topic based on your personal interests is a good way to start, but you need to ensure that this topic is not already been researched elsewhere. In short, ensure that you research interest is well grounded through a basic literature review. Your abstract needs to identify an issue in existing research!

You may identify a topic by relying on essays that you have written in the past, in particular, essays where you have performed well. You may also consult publications by staff of this department and see if their research can inspire your research questions and you can to some extent rely on what they what they have already written.

Identifying a problem or issue

Ensure that you do not just summarise your literature review. A literature is a tool(!) to develop a question by identifying a research topic. Ensure that your approach is not too broad. Keep in mind that you have only a couple of months.

Identifying a question

Based on your basic literature review and research interest you need to formulate a clear strategy how you want to respond to the essay question or set of questions that you want to address. Make sure that the question is based on the literature review. Do not just present the question and strategy in a completely unrelated way to your literature review.

Identify a methodology or approach

Depending on your topic and research question, you need to think about a methodological to answer your question. If your topic is more empirical, then, you need to justify(!) type of analysis, case study, theoretical concept you want to you. If your work is theoretical, you need to justify(!) the selection of theoretical approaches. It is also important that you are very realistic about what you can do in the next two months. You cannot expect to read hundreds or article and do a meaningful analysis. Sometimes less is more.

How is your topic advancing scientific knowledge

You need to formulate an expectation about the scientific relevance of your topic. Why would other researchers be interested in your findings, why is your knowledge innovative, how will your findings help to reframe your topic and advance our knowledge in that field.

Timetable

Develop a clear and detailed timetable; divide the time into weeks and describe what you want to do in each week. Start to count backward from your submission date, consider how many pages you need to write, how long this will take you. Consider any public holidays that fall into that period. Include some extra time in your timetable.

Provide 10-15 key references

Provide key references that will guide and frame your work. Only include references that you have read and are of use to your essay. Use one sentence per reference to explain why you want to use them. Use the appropriate style guide (see handbook) for the listing them.