This document provides feedback on essays and guidance for improvement. Key points include:
1) Students must thoroughly review comments and grading rubrics to understand where marks were lost.
2) Essays should be several pages long and include a variety of recent, global case studies from different sources to earn high marks.
3) Introductions need to clearly establish the purpose and include relevant context. Conclusions should thoroughly summarize case studies.
4) Analysis must discuss both positive and negative impacts on people and consider a range of perspectives, rather than simplistic statements.
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Unit 4 Essay feedback
1. Essay feedback
IT IS VITAL YOU LOOK THROUGH THE COMMENTS AND MARKING
GRID TO SEE WHERE YOU HAVE MISSED MARKS
3. Some of you need to speed up
Its very difficult to get really high grades if you write a small
amount!
In 1遜 hours you should be able to write several pages!
4. Particular issues:
Tectonics - intro
Almost no one mentioned why
management was needed/what is the
purpose, in the intro!
Haiti is an LDC, not an LEDC, you
should know this!
Several people spent too long on old
case studies need to be topical for
top marks, so not much after mid-90s
Cultural intro
Too few people mentioned anything
to do with different scales global/
national/regional diversity
Too often too few case studies or too
little variety
Dont get diversity and
multiculturalism mixed up!
5. Methodology
Too many people missing easy marks by not doing enough!
When you know what case studies youre doing create a table and
learn it off by heart. You can run it past me.
You must have variety videos, newspapers, journals, webpages,
etc. Please dont include Wikipedia, or at least only once!
You must say something about how you got reliable, fairly
unbiased data. Good terms to use are peer reviewed, widely
respected, cross referenced,
6. And with the Analysis
Lack of mention of people in general, pushed
many of you down the grid
Very sloppy on values and perspectives. You
cannot just say everything is good in MEDCs and
everything is bad in NICs/LDCs/LEDCs. Too few case
studies that show that sometimes things go right in
poor countries
The reason there was no tsunami warning system
in the Indian Ocean in 2004 was because there was
no knowledge that they were a threat in the region.
Little research had been done, and so no one was
expecting it. In hindsight it seems na誰ve (or did
USGS just not care?)
Too many points were simplistic, and imprecise
very few people mentioned individual charities
efforts at the relief stage, why ever not?
When a country/region/tribe maintains its
traditions, language, etc that is good for global
diversity.
Cultural homogeneity isnt a bad thing in itself,
only if its achieved through coercion or violence
(racism, ethnic cleansing, etc)
Hardly any mention of language, and yet weve
done some work about how important it is in
maintaining culture and passing knowledge down
the generations
Very few people mentioned anything to do with
preservation as a human factor in maintaining
culture. Surprised that there was so little mention
of UNESCO whose main job is to support diversity
across the globe!
Be topical. When you did mention separatists it
was usually somewhere other than the UK what
about the Scottish?
7. Conclusion and evaluation
At the end of most, if not all, sections do a little sum up this shows that .
is/isnt important etc
The conclusion must refer back to the major points in your essay bring
together your important or less important bits so the case studies of .
and . clearly show that . Is the most important factor, however .. suggests
that is also very important etc.
To get good marks it has to be based on content or even better thorough
recall of case studies, in other words it cant be done in 6 lines!
You must time yourself so youve got 15 minutes at the end to get it done
8. Dos and donts
Do
Use fairly recent examples
Make sure they are from different regions feeling
that theres a bit too much USA!
Have a mix of Volcanoes and Earthquakes
Recognise that scale matters Japan 2011 and Indian
Ocean Tsunami were mega events!
Dont
Get too caught up with the different responses to
primary and secondary hazards for the same event, it
makes it seem disjointed
Talk about good or bad response instead use
effective, successful, unhelpful, unsuccessful
etc.
Do
Think at large scale about some issues, like
globalisation, technological change, language, religion,
UNESCO, TNCs
Then bring them down to the local so loss of
language is bad because and this has impacted on
culture in .
Fine to recognise that globalisation can bring good
things like better healthcare, but at a price
Make sure you have a few with different physical
factors involved!
Dont
Say that everyone getting mixed up is a good thing
eg TNCs help diversity, they dont they destroy it!
9. What next?
Choose one of your case studies and do a
timeline of what happened before, during and
after the event. Who did what and whether it
was effective or not.
Then categorise the actions into the Parks
model pre, relief, rehab and reconstruction
Choose one of your case studies and do a
diagram which shows the factors affecting
culture:
How about this, like a Venn diagram (but
please dont all do Bhutan!)
Bhutan
Culture
Human factors
Physical factors
10. Next title! Hand in next week!
Assess the extent to which
preparation work undertaken
before the event is the most
effective means of managing
tectonic hazards
Assess the extent to which
human factors are most
important in determining levels
of cultural diversity