ARTD6114 Professional and Academic Skills 2 Assessment Brief 2024-25 | UoS

ARTD6114 Assessment Brief Details: 

This assignment requires you to produce a research proposal for your final project. 

Looking ahead to your final project, this will involve you conducting research and writing it up as a 'critical paper'. During your final project, you will be expected to put into practice the research and analytical skills that you have learned on the programme. The 'critical paper' will focus on a contemporary advertising and/or branding issue, investigating this issue thoroughly by collating, critically analysing and commenting on the ideas and viewpoints of others, together with those of your own. This way, the emphasis will easily be on secondary research provided that you design and plan it carefully. For your secondary research, you will be using only published scholarship and materials that do not require ethical clearance. 

This also means that, to avoid being subject to ethical clearance, you should NOT: 

• Conduct primary research, including doing interviews, focus groups and questionnaires in any form (conducted via email, social media (e.g. WeChat), in person or via any other means)
• Use unpublished raw data unless it is aggregated and has clear permission for usage(aggregated data refers to the data gathered into one cohesive whole, such as summary statistics. It is high-level data that is obtained by combining and summarising individual-level data to reach an overall result. Therefore, respondents are not identified and cannot be identifiable in any way.)
• Quote or paraphrase any individual's comments from social media or blogs (e.g., people's comments under a post on Instagram or TikTok)
• Reveal data containing personal identifying information (including usernames) from social media or blogs
• Source, use or reproduce any individual's visual content, such as photos, videos or images from social media. This includes bloggers and influencers. However, publicly available self-promotional and advertising material/videos, etc., from companies can be used for analysis in your project. (e.g the official social media page of a company or brand). Please note that you can only mention the number of likes and the number of comments on a particular company's post. However, you should not discuss the content of any comments, whether through paraphrasing, summarising, or quoting them.) 

The keywords for your assignment are 'design' and 'planning'; this is why you will first produce a research proposal as the assignment on this module. The research proposal is your plan. If you plan your research carefully and you stick to your plan, then producing a good final project should be relatively straightforward. 

The Research Proposal 

This must be 3,000 words in length. It must focus on a topic that is directly related to your programme's subject area and relates to a contemporary issue within the field of advertising and/or branding. 

This assignment assesses your ability to: 

• Identify a relevant topic using appropriate market intelligence sources;
• Use academic sources to develop an understanding of the topic
• Create clear and worthwhile research questions;
• Design research methods that can reliably provide valid answers to the research questions;
• Consider ethical issues related to the research methods chosen. 

Proposal Structure 

1. Title Page 
2. Table of contents 
3. Introduction 
4. Literature review 
5. Methodology 
6. Timetable for completion (Gantt chart) 
7. List of references 
8. Appendices 

Contents of Proposal Sections 

Introduction 

Present the background and context of the topic using market intelligence sources. These should demonstrate the usefulness of the planned research and identify a key research question emerging. Present a research aim and list of objectives at the end of the section. 

Literature Review 

Use academic journal articles and other reliable sources to create a deeper understanding of the chosen topic. These sources will form your theoretical framework and identify the specific issues or variables to be researched.

Methodology 

Present the research questions and the research methods that will be used to answer them. Discuss the overall plan and strategy for the research, demonstrating why each research method is appropriate for the research questions. Include detailed plans for both data collection and data analysis. 

In this section, you should explain the process of how you intend to access and collect your data. This should include what search strategy and criteria you will apply to collect that data, such as specific parameters and limiters (e.g. limiting the publication date or the place of publication of your materials). If you have a specific research strategy, such as case studies, include the criteria for the selection process of the cases. 

You should also explain which methods for analysis you are going to use (e.g. visual analysis, semiotic analysis, content analysis, etc.) 

You can also mention which specific areas of literature and theory you will be exploring in your research and what theory, theoretical models and frameworks you will be applying to answer your research question. Do not forget to justify any decisions you have made. 

Include ethical considerations. Conducting secondary research does not mean that you are exempt from ethical considerations. Here, you should mention how you have been an ethical researcher by explaining your engagement with practices and strategies to ensure data protection, confidentiality, and acknowledgement of your sources in a professional manner. Selecting sources critically, following referencing guidelines, showing respect for the intellectual property of others, and engaging with professional criticism when reviewing existing research are some of the qualities of ethical researchers. 

Timetable 

Using a Gantt chart, create a detailed schedule of the work that will be done to complete your final project. 

List of References 

All sources of information must be properly referenced using the Harvard system. 

Attendance: All full-time students are required to attend the University for the duration of their programme each year, and to attend for such additional periods of study as may be required by the regulations of the programme of study on which you are enrolled. 

It is anticipated that students will only miss teaching sessions due to circumstances beyond their control, such as illness, medical appointments, or other problems that must be dealt with immediately. Out of courtesy, you should email the Module Leader for sessions you miss (preferably beforehand) to explain the reasons for absence (and you should copy to your Academic Tutor any such correspondence). 

A register of attendance may be taken in certain teaching sessions, and if your lack of attendance is cause for concern, we will contact you and ask you to contact your Academic Tutor. 

Unreported and sustained absence may seriously affect your learning capability and may result in you being withdrawn from your programme. 

Special Considerations: If you believe that illness or other circumstances have adversely affected your academic performance, information regarding the regulations governing Special Considerations can be accessed via the Calendar.

Extension Requests: Extension requests, along with supporting evidence, should be submitted to the Student Office as soon as possible before the submission date. Information regarding the regulations governing extension requests can be accessed via the Calendar.