“Critically consider the value of a zemiological approach to poverty.” How to structure an assignment - Example essay.
In this blogpost, I’m going to take you through the structure of an example assignment, highlighting how you can apply critical analysis throughout, and incorporate theory in the places where it matters.
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If you look at the learning outcomes and the marking criteria for any assignment in social sciences, you’ll see that things like critical analysis, application of theory and a logical structure are essential in achieving the higher grades.
But how do you ensure your assignment is ticking all these boxes? Let’s take a look at an example assignment and explore how we can get you there.
Here’s the question:
Critically consider the value of a zemiological approach to poverty.
What this assignment is asking you to do is make a judgement about the value of a theory – zemiology – in making sense of a social problem – poverty.
How should your assignment begin?
Introduction
Your assignment should begin with an Introduction.
What needs to be in the Introduction?
Open it with a powerful quote or a statistic you’ve come across in your reading about zemiology and poverty. Something that grabs the grader’s attention and ensures that your assignment stands out from everyone else’s. It might be something about how many people around the world live in poverty. It might be about changes in this number. It might be about the amount of money some people have to live on in a day, or how much they earn in a week. It might be a quote from a leading zemiologist. Something relatable and compelling.
Then explain the question in your own words. For example, “This essay will explore how valuable zemiology is in understanding poverty”, “This presentation will consider the extent to which zemiology is helpful in making sense of poverty”. This helps you show the person grading the assignment that you genuinely understand what it is you’ve been asked to do.
After this, contextualize. You draw the reader’s attention to the bigger picture. You explain why now is an important time to be consider this question. You emphasize why its important. Why does it matter? For example, “This is an important question to explore at this point in time given the current cost of living crisis and the increasing gap between the richest and the poorest in society”. You might want to cite some statistics here or any recent studies or government / charity sector reports that have come out about poverty.
The last thing you do in your introduction is provide the reader with a map of the assignment. Tell them what you’re going to be covering in the assignment, and the order you’re going to follow. For example, “This essay will commence with a critical outline of the key terms and definitions, followed by…”. The person marking your work will now have a good grasp of the structure and content, which is always a great start.
Key Terms and Definitions
Next, you need to demonstrate your understanding of the key terms and definitions.
Look at the title of the assignment and highlight the nouns – the words that represent people, places or things. In this example, the nouns are poverty and zemiology. In this instance, I would explain poverty first and then move on to define zemiology because poverty is the thing we’re trying to understand, zemiology is the theory we’re applying to it.
Look at the essential readings you’ve been asked to do for the module or unit that this assignment relates to, that’s the first place to look for definitions. It’s always worth including more than one definition as this is a key opportunity to demonstrate critical analysis.
Really think about the definitions. Compare and contrast them. Does one emphasise something that another one doesn’t? When were these definitions established? Are they relevant today? Who are they used by? Are there any differences between the way a government or organisation define poverty for example, and the way that they are defined in the books or journal articles you’ve read? This key section is a good opportunity for highlighting any controversies or disagreements that you can pick up on and expand upon later in the assignment. Try and keep this brief.
Main Body
Next, you’re moving on to the main body of your assignment, which you need to divide up into between three and five key themes. These themes are ideas around which you can organize your content so that you’re able to produce a comprehensive assignment that covers all the ground it needs to, whilst at the same time being ordered logically, with one section following on from, and building upon the previous one. They are distinct but related. They each cover a particular element of the question. When they’re all put together, they provide you with the material to answer the question.
In the example assignment, you might have three distinct themes.
The first section might explore the established, traditional ways of explaining poverty and highlight what zemiology brings to the table. What does it do that previous theories didn’t? What does it help us understand that the other theories had neglected? To what extent has poverty changed in the time that all of these theories have been around? What does this imply in terms of the kind of theory we need to apply to understand it? Here, you will be demonstrating a particular type of critical analytical skill – interpretation. This involves looking at the application of a theory. Looking at how it is applied, to whom it is applied, why there is a need for it, what gap has it filled? Draw upon some examples, look at cases or particular types of poverty that weren’t really adequately explained by the previous theories. What has zemiology contributed to understandings?
The second section might consider current applications of zemiology in academic work. In relation to poverty, to what extent has it actually been applied to understanding this topic? Here, you would need to do a deeper dive into the literature. Use Google Scholar to identify books or papers that include the terms zemiology and poverty within them. Go to the search bar in Google Scholar and type in “poverty AND zemiology”. Download some of those items, have a through read through them. What can you see in these items? What is being covered? What topics are emerging? Is zemiology only looking at particular things when it comes to poverty? What patterns and trends can you see in how zemiology is being applied? Here, you’re focusing on the practical application of the theory – how is it being used? Is it being used in the way it was intended? Look at the papers and books you’re discovering. To what extent are they applying the zemiological principles or core ideas? Are elements of previous theories starting to creep in anywhere? What has a zemiological approach resulted in in these pieces of work. Is it generating new insights, new ideas? To what extent are these ideas actually realistic? Is what they are saying consistent with the definitions you outlined earlier? There is the theory of zemiology that you outlined in key terms and definitions, then there is what you are seeing in these studies. How is it currently working in practice? Think back to the context, the bigger picture that you examined in the introduction here. Again, draw on examples that help you illustrate the points that you’re making.
The third section would focus on another critical skill – evaluation. Here, you are forming a judgement about the value of a zemiological approach. How convincing is it? How comprehensive is it in thinking about poverty? How does it fare in relation to the other, more established theories? Is it emerging as a key player or a leading actor, or is it a small fish in a big pond, a supporting actor who’s on the stage but not really being noticed or accorded much importance? What overall contribution does it make to knowledge and understanding in this area? What happens when it is applied? Does the evidence it’s drawn upon in relation to poverty stand up to scrutiny? Had it considered all of the potential angles? Should it have done? No one theory can do everything after all! Do we need to consider how it might benefit from incorporating some of the ideas or approaches of other theories? Do we need to combine it with other schools of thought or ways of thinking? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Where would you rank it overall in terms of its usefulness for and relevance to making sense of poverty?
Conclusion
Next, you’re moving onto the final section of your assignment. The conclusion. Here you wrap up the assignment. You provide a brief recap of the main points. How do you do that? You go back through each of the three sections you’ve written, and you summarize them in one or two sentences. You then take those summary sentences and use them in your conclusion.
Then you need to provide a direct response to the assignment question. In this example, you might say something like, “A zemiological approach to poverty is valuable in that (and then briefly explain why). However, it fails to (and then briefly explain the shortfalls)”.
The last thing you need to do is end with a power statement. You started the assignment with a powerful opener, so here you need to do a powerful closer. Leave the grader with a great impression. You could pose a new question, which tackles something that came up on your assignment. You could consider where we will be in 5 or 10 years from now – will zemiology still be relevant then?
It’s important to emphasize that you shouldn’t include any new arguments in the conclusion. Anything you think of that comes up whilst you’re writing the conclusion needs to be integrated into the main body of the assignment. It belongs in one of those three sections.
And that is your outline structure of a critical, theoretically rich, well-structured assignment.
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