Exam Overview Academic writing and (re) presentation
Lecture 1: Introduction to the course
This course is part of the overall arc of academic skills. It is for research skills and a critical approach.
The assignments are more about being reflexive on your own field. But not so much about
remembering everything told in lectures.
The exercises between the lecture will not be graded.
Some exercises build up for the first assignments. (e.g. library tutorial)
Assignments:
1. Plagiarism test (pass/fail)
2. At-home reflective written assignments (50%)
3. Have-you-read-it test on Evicted (pass/fail)
4. On campus ANS exam (50%) = a web-based assessment
(2) Reading a journal article critically. You will pick up your own article.
Those reflexions will be used in these assignments.
Write a research account.
Part in it, we analyse chat GPT. Write a critical account on this.
(3) You need to have read the whole book by Friday 22 November.
Goal: navigate a text that is long.
You need 20/20 to pass.
This is possible if you read the book. You are able to search.
You navigate the book, to search the resources that are ask for in the test
Don’t look at specific things while you read it.
Pay attention to the paral text. The appendix, the conclusions, titles etc. (this is the most important
part). The book is a completely different story if you don’t pay attention to this.
(4) Content questions +
Go in dept in analysis of Evicted.
You may bring the Evicted book! Electronic devices are forbidden.
They will tell us which chapters are relevant!
Think of a syllabus as an academic text.
There are three different syllabuses on Brightspace. They differ in length and practically.
1
,Lecture 2: Starting points, or how to navigate academic documents
Reading strategies are important anthropology to find the narrative (story-telling) and the argument
in the text. Every text is written in a political and theoretical framework. So, it is important to research
who the author is and their background, etc.
What is an academic document?
1. Usually based on scientific research
2. Usually written by professionals in a given field
3. Usually peer reviewed
Peer reviewed = critics are reading your article: judge and making a comment about it.
But there are problems:
o It is time-consuming. Academics don’t get paid for this, and have to do this in their free time.
So, it is hard for journals to find scholars who are willing to do this.
o People are more often just mean, without substantive feedback
This makes the standard of peer feedback going down.
An alternative is pre-printed
Pre-print = a version of a research paper that is shared publicly before it has undergone formal peer
review and publication in a scientific journal. This is done transparently (instead of anonymous peer-
feedback)
This has advantages but also disadvantages:
Pre-printing allows researchers to share findings quickly, receive early feedback, and establish
visibility and priority in their field. However, since preprints aren’t peer-reviewed, they may contain
unverified information
So as an academia you have to work in this framework, but you also need to be critical of it.
4. Usually published by scholarly platforms
If you want to publish your article in a journal, you have to pay. (this can build up to thousands of
euros). If you are a staff member of university, mostly university will pay for you. This can lead to
significant delays between writing and publishing.
If an article is free accessibly, the author paid for this. If you have to pay to read something, the
author did not pay to publish.
Academia feels pressure to publish articles because it is in the job requirement. If you don’t do it,
their job is in danger or you won’t get a job.
There is a lot of money going on in publication, which is not always good for profession.
2
, 5. Usually written with an academic audience in mind
Sometimes this makes it inaccessible for the people who the research is about.
Dominant modes of Anthro/social publications
(Gordon Mathews - Anthropological Knowledge and Styles of Publication (2018))
- Monographs (books)
- Journal article
- Edited volume books
- Book chapter
But this is changing: a movement to make knowledge more democratically available
- Podcast
- Videos (not new, but the early videos had orientalist bias and colonial ideas)
- Comics
- Etc.
But in every article, book, etc. is an academic conversation happening! It is part of a larger debate.
Politics of publications
Explosion in the number of journals, is that a good thing? Diversification is positive. More
language formats available, although sometimes this can mean you get like-minded people
having like-minded debates in publications; there is also value in a wider debate.
Whose knowledge? Whose language? Some major journals previously publishing in English
are opening up to publishing in other languages. Also, some language translators available.
Published for whom?
Citing matters
(On your google-search you can see how many times your book or article is cited)
Do blogs, zines and YouTube videos count?
Academia also have to be aware of predatory journals. A lot of new academia fall into this trap. Also
because of the pressure for publication.
Predatory journals = fake academic journals that charge authors to publish their work without proper
review or quality checks. They prioritize making money over research quality, leading to unreliable
publications that can damage a researcher’s reputation.
3
Lecture 1: Introduction to the course
This course is part of the overall arc of academic skills. It is for research skills and a critical approach.
The assignments are more about being reflexive on your own field. But not so much about
remembering everything told in lectures.
The exercises between the lecture will not be graded.
Some exercises build up for the first assignments. (e.g. library tutorial)
Assignments:
1. Plagiarism test (pass/fail)
2. At-home reflective written assignments (50%)
3. Have-you-read-it test on Evicted (pass/fail)
4. On campus ANS exam (50%) = a web-based assessment
(2) Reading a journal article critically. You will pick up your own article.
Those reflexions will be used in these assignments.
Write a research account.
Part in it, we analyse chat GPT. Write a critical account on this.
(3) You need to have read the whole book by Friday 22 November.
Goal: navigate a text that is long.
You need 20/20 to pass.
This is possible if you read the book. You are able to search.
You navigate the book, to search the resources that are ask for in the test
Don’t look at specific things while you read it.
Pay attention to the paral text. The appendix, the conclusions, titles etc. (this is the most important
part). The book is a completely different story if you don’t pay attention to this.
(4) Content questions +
Go in dept in analysis of Evicted.
You may bring the Evicted book! Electronic devices are forbidden.
They will tell us which chapters are relevant!
Think of a syllabus as an academic text.
There are three different syllabuses on Brightspace. They differ in length and practically.
1
,Lecture 2: Starting points, or how to navigate academic documents
Reading strategies are important anthropology to find the narrative (story-telling) and the argument
in the text. Every text is written in a political and theoretical framework. So, it is important to research
who the author is and their background, etc.
What is an academic document?
1. Usually based on scientific research
2. Usually written by professionals in a given field
3. Usually peer reviewed
Peer reviewed = critics are reading your article: judge and making a comment about it.
But there are problems:
o It is time-consuming. Academics don’t get paid for this, and have to do this in their free time.
So, it is hard for journals to find scholars who are willing to do this.
o People are more often just mean, without substantive feedback
This makes the standard of peer feedback going down.
An alternative is pre-printed
Pre-print = a version of a research paper that is shared publicly before it has undergone formal peer
review and publication in a scientific journal. This is done transparently (instead of anonymous peer-
feedback)
This has advantages but also disadvantages:
Pre-printing allows researchers to share findings quickly, receive early feedback, and establish
visibility and priority in their field. However, since preprints aren’t peer-reviewed, they may contain
unverified information
So as an academia you have to work in this framework, but you also need to be critical of it.
4. Usually published by scholarly platforms
If you want to publish your article in a journal, you have to pay. (this can build up to thousands of
euros). If you are a staff member of university, mostly university will pay for you. This can lead to
significant delays between writing and publishing.
If an article is free accessibly, the author paid for this. If you have to pay to read something, the
author did not pay to publish.
Academia feels pressure to publish articles because it is in the job requirement. If you don’t do it,
their job is in danger or you won’t get a job.
There is a lot of money going on in publication, which is not always good for profession.
2
, 5. Usually written with an academic audience in mind
Sometimes this makes it inaccessible for the people who the research is about.
Dominant modes of Anthro/social publications
(Gordon Mathews - Anthropological Knowledge and Styles of Publication (2018))
- Monographs (books)
- Journal article
- Edited volume books
- Book chapter
But this is changing: a movement to make knowledge more democratically available
- Podcast
- Videos (not new, but the early videos had orientalist bias and colonial ideas)
- Comics
- Etc.
But in every article, book, etc. is an academic conversation happening! It is part of a larger debate.
Politics of publications
Explosion in the number of journals, is that a good thing? Diversification is positive. More
language formats available, although sometimes this can mean you get like-minded people
having like-minded debates in publications; there is also value in a wider debate.
Whose knowledge? Whose language? Some major journals previously publishing in English
are opening up to publishing in other languages. Also, some language translators available.
Published for whom?
Citing matters
(On your google-search you can see how many times your book or article is cited)
Do blogs, zines and YouTube videos count?
Academia also have to be aware of predatory journals. A lot of new academia fall into this trap. Also
because of the pressure for publication.
Predatory journals = fake academic journals that charge authors to publish their work without proper
review or quality checks. They prioritize making money over research quality, leading to unreliable
publications that can damage a researcher’s reputation.
3
