CRITICAL ISSUES ESSAY

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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
CRITICAL ISSUES ESSAY  
This essay must be no more than 12 sides of A4
paper. There is a penalty of 10 of the total
marks lost for every extra page. The font size
12 is recommended
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
The essay must be written around a minimum of
three different sources, whether they are from
textbooks, articles from papers or newspapers,
web pages or lecture notes. These must be
clearly indicated in both the text itself and the
bibliography.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
Your sources need not all be scholarly/academic,
but they all must be robust- adult in content
and deep in detail and sophisticated. The
markers frown on pupils who use Higher course
books/notes as their main sources, preferring you
to find your own.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
The essay will be judged on four factors, each
marked out of 15 marks (25), giving a total of
60 marks available v     PRESENTATION- the
quality of the finished work in terms of neatness
and correctness of technique, English and
grammar. v     CONTENT AND RESEARCH- how accurate
is your content and to what degree does it show
your knowledge and understanding of the issues
and arguments therein.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
v     GEOGRAPHICAL APPROACH AND RELEVANCE- how
geographical is it? Is it topical and up-to-date
in the way you handle it. It must be highly
geographical in content, using technical terms
properly and with comfort, showing
understanding.    
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY

•   CRITICAL EVALUATION- this is the factor most
  likely to let you down, often being almost absent
  from essays. You must show quite a lot of
  evidence in your writing that you have thought
  deeply about the different sources and how well
  each tackles the issue.
• You need to have formed your OWN ideas and
  opinions about the arguments and not be afraid to
  voice them!

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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
Your work must not be biased or purely factual.
It must show a basis of good geographical theory,
well-expressed and well argued. Throughout it
must show that you can evaluate what you have
read and come to conclusions that are valid and
make sense. It is fine to gather your data from
as many sources as you like, but their discussion
should be organised in a sensible and coherent
manner, showing a high degree of sophistication.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
All essay pages should be numbered in the correct
way, too. Please produce the final submission
after it has been thoroughly proof-read for
spelling, grammar and other important production
factors. A colour printer may be useful if your
graphics demand it, but colour in text is not
recommended.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
There is a handout about effective note-taking.
It is titled NOTE 2. Read it thoroughly and
keep it for re-reading later. (All the notes
you get should be kept in a section of your
jotter as you will need to refer to them
frequently throughout the course.)
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND REFERENCING YOUR WORK Your
bibliography is a very important part of the
essay- it verifies the authenticity of your
evidence which should be acknowledged in both the
text( briefly) and full references given in the
bibliography. The preferred format is shown on
the next slide. This is the correct way to lay
out the kinds of sources in your
bibliography.     When referencing a source in
the body of the text you must put a footnote
number (1) and use the text format.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY FORMAT TEXT
FORMAT Books Goudie. A. 1993 The nature of
the environment (Goudie 1993)
3rd edition, Blackwells,
Oxford Papers or articles from
journals McCormick J.1996 Taxes and Turnouts
the Poll tax and (McCormick 1996) the
Scottish regional elections.
Journal of Royal Scottish Geog.Soc.
Volume 112 number
3. Web sites 1.http/www.odci.gov/cia/publications
factbook/index (CIA
publications1999, 1.) The World Factbook, 1999
CIA
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
An introduction to the issue must be the first
part of the essay. It must be on page 1. You
should not have a front cover nor a contents
section! The bibliography must appear at the
very end, although it does not need to take a
page to itself(it could share the page with the
conclusion) it must be the last writing of the
essay.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
There is another handout, about essay writing in
general. Again, read it and file it.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
You will be expected to include visuals in your
essay at least one map and preferably graphs,
tables, photographs or diagrams. At least one -in
the introduction -must be your own choice and not
just those included by your sources. Each
source will probably have their own addenda that
they have produced , and these can only appear in
the section analyzing that source.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
All must be properly acknowledged, of course.
It is therefore important when initially
choosing a source that you take into
consideration whether or not it has any suitable
visuals if not, you should think about not
choosing that source!
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
Your essay should have several sections. 1.      
      The introduction, about 100 words, saying
what (and where) the issue is and describing the
history of the issue, briefly. Also, introduce
your sources and outline their part in the story.
If there are interested bodies, introduce them,
and teach us the meaning of any acronyms that are
to be used. There should be a visual like a
location map.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
            Each source must have their viewpoint
put in a section lasting about 300 words you
need to finish each of these sections with
(about) a 100 word critique of how well they have
put their point across whether with clarity, or
too much emotion, balanced or biased. Include
any appropriate visuals especially those of the
source itself.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
1.             3.
             If they have used data, you should
comment on the clarity of this too and its
appropriateness in the context. Each ought to
have extensive quotes from the text and hopefully
also data put out by the source. Each of these
three sections therefore will total about 400
words long.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
The conclusion must bring together the points you
have made about the effectiveness of the
sources. Here you may add something of your own
feelings on the issue, particularly if the
arguments of a source have especially swayed you.
It should not be emotive but well-balanced and
fair. It should be about 100-150 words long.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
             Your bibliography must detail- in
the correct manner- all three of your sources,
but also a list of background reading which you
have discovered and used to read round your
topic. ((It is this background that will be
used to help you evaluate the credibility of each
source, and if reference can be made to one or
more of these, you will impress the marker. )
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
In order to learn more about the techniques of
critical analysis, there is a booklet for you to
work through. It will take you through the
process of analysing a set of sources and drawing
conclusions about their competence. Once you
have completed this, there will be an assessment
on a set of sources provided by the SQA. This Nab
will be part of your folio and will be assessed.
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ADVANCED HIGHER GEOGRAPHY
Following this assessment the time will have come
to research your own issue and find three good
sources to criticise! This is the most
important part of the essay-writing process, for
if you choose badly, the whole essay will be
extremely hard to produce. The key is in
getting good sources in the first place.
END