Description
Assignment: Discussion Paper
Assignment: Discussion Paper
Here are some resources that you might find useful in regards to the Discussion Paper.
- Discussion paper
Assignment 3: Discussion Paper
2500 words
The Planning Institute of Australia states that “social planning involves planning for the needs and aspirations of people and communities”. As such, it is important that planners can effectively identify and analyse diverse communities, including social issues that affect such communities.
For the assignment you need to pick an Australian community to identify and analyse. You also need to select a social issue that might affect your chosen community.
Your discussion paper needs to be critically analytical as opposed to descriptive.
Your discussion paper needs to be well developed and structured. The paper should have an introduction, main discussion/body and a conclusion.
As per the marking criteria, your paper will be assessed, in part, based on structure and readability.
Please avoid the use of dot points.
You may use headings and sub-headings but please offer a narrative to enhance readability.
You need to be concise with your expression and language.
The paper should have an introduction, main discussion/body and a conclusion.
You also need to include a reference list, which is not included in the prescribe word limit.
The paper needs to be well formatted (i.e. 1.5 line spacing and appropriate font and font size, perhaps Calibri size 11 font).
You are welcome to include picture, graphs, tables etc. in your assignment. However, only do so if these contribute to the quality of your argument. In addition, these need to be well labelled and discussed.
This paper needs to be based on academic sources and referenced appropriately, as per Harvard referencing conventions.
The course text book is a useful place to start researching for this assignment; however, you need to engage with the broader published academic literature to develop and support your paper. Please do not rely on the course text book.
Your paper should be structured as follows:
1. Introduction (approximately 150 words).
2. Description of your chosen the community and its people, including socio-demographic characteristics (for example, ethnicity, class, age, gender, education attainment levels, health, employment, dis/ability etc.) and geographical location(s). Compare this community to the broader South Australian and/or Australian community. (approximately 800 words).
3. Identify and briefly discuss/outline one social issue that confronts your chosen community. The social issue should be one which might be of concern to planners and/or planning. You may like to pick a social issue discussed in the course; however you cannot replicate any of the student-led tutorial presentations. (approximately 400 words).
- Critical analysis of your chosen social issue. You need to analyse and make sense of your discussion of the social issue, and you need to adapt a sociological or social perspective or theory (for example, feminist, post-structural, Marxist etc.) through which to ‘view’ your argument. You need to explicitly state and describe which sociological or social perspective or theory you have chosen, including the key authors. (approximately 1,000 words).
5. Conclusion (approximately 150 words).
Marking Criteria for the Discussion Paper:
-clear structure; readability; sentence and paragraph structure; grammar; spelling 10%
-in-text referencing and reference list construction as per Harvard referencing conventions 10%
-identification and description of the community and comparison to broader SA/Australian community 25%
-analytical/critical understanding of the social issue 25%
-description of and effective use of the sociological perspective/theory to ‘view’ your argument 30%