Week 5 - Week 7 : 28 Apr 2022 - 15 May 2022
Tan Yi Yun 0345559Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Task 2/Critical Review
What is a critical review
- A critical review is much more than a simple summary.
- Analysis and evaluation of a book, article, or other medium
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of an article's ideas
- Provides description, analysis and interpretation that allow readers to
assess the article's value.
Before reading the article
- What does the title lead you to expect?
- Study the sub-headings to understand the organization of
content.
- Read the abstract for a summary of the author's arguments.
- Study the list of references to see what research contributed to the
author's arguments. Are the references recent? Do they represent
important work in the field?
- See if other writers have cited the author's work.
When reading the article
- Who is intended audience?
- What is the author's purpose? (To survey and summarize research on a
topic? To present an argument that builds on past research?)
- Does the author define important terms?
- Is the information in the article fact or opinion? (facts can be
verified, while opinions arise from interpretations of facts) (well
researched/unsupported?)
- What are the author's central arguments/conclusions? (clearly stated?
supported by evidence and analysis?)
- Is the article lacking information or argumentation that you expected
to find?
- Is the article organized logically and easy to follow?
- Does the writer's style suit the intended audience?
- Is the author's language objective or charged with emotion and
bias?
- If illustrations or charts are used, are they effective in presenting
information?
Prepare an outline
- Choose a statement that expresses the central purpose or
write-up/literature of your review
- Consider the author's intentions and whether or not you think those
intentions were successfully realized.
- Organizing your remaining points into separate groups (structure,
style, or argument)
- Devise a logical sequence for presenting these ideas
- All ideas must support central write-up
Write the First Draft
To begin, you need to know what are the parts of a critical
review
1. Full reference in APA style
2. Summary of the article
3. Critique and Evaluation
4. Conclusion
- Begin with a complete citation of the article. (In APA style)
1st para :
- a statement of your write-up/literature
- the author's purpose in writing the article
- comments on how the article relates to other work on the same
subject
- information about the author's reputation or authority in the
field
body :
- state your arguments in support of your write-up/literature
- follow the logical development of ideas that you mapped out in your
outline
- include quotations from the article which illustrate your main
ideas
concluding para :
- summarize your review
- restate your write-up/literature
Revise the First Draft
- Check on grammar, punctuation errors
- Check on organization, logical development and solid support of your
write-up/literature
- Check on errors in quotations or in references
- May make major revisions in the organization or content of your
review during the revision process. Revising can even lead to a radial
change in your central write-up/ literature
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| Figure 1.1, How to write the summary and critique, Week 5 (28/4/2022) |
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Figure 1.2, Process of writing a critical review, Week 5
(28/4/2022) |
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Figure 1.3, Structure of a critical review, Week 5
(28/4/2022) |
Week 6
How to write a critical analysis essay:
1. Use a process of analysis to criticize a text
2. Develop a thesis statement (come to a conclusion about the source, write
a concise sentence that articulates your own claim about the source)
3. Identify evidence to support your thesis (identify quotes, summaries and
paraphrases from the text and other sources to support your claim)
4. Write your argument (use what you know about analysis to write your own
logical argument about the source)
Quantitative Research
- Numbers, scales, charts, percentages, nationalities, demographics, social classes, ages, genders
- Useful when collecting and documenting large quantities of information
- Good when collating research files into target audiences and backing up any of the statistical or factual claims
- through both primary and secondary research,
- most common ways : programme ratings, readership circulation figures, hits on reliable websites, box office figures and sales of movie(s) shown or iTunes download
- Negative : don't get much detail in regards to people's opinions, thoughts and feelings
Qualitative Research
- It gives us different types of information
- more into the personal opinions of people and gives us small portions of high quality detail on topics, as oppose to large quantities of statistical information.
- Pros : offers more useful information when understanding your target audiences and client needs.
- Done through film reviews, game reviews, fan based websites, interviews and attitudes to media products, responses to news coverage, responses to advertising campaigns, and focus groups and discussions
Methods and Sources of Research
There are 2 different categories of research : primary and secondary research.
Differences :
Primary research - research you have gone out and done yourself
Secondary research - research you use that has already been completed by someone else.
Examples :
Primary research - interviews, observations, questionnaires, surveys, focus groups, audience panels and participation in internet forums. All of your primary research will be self-generated and you can also create own video, audio or photographic records of events
Secondary research - books, journals, reference-based books and directories, periodicals, newspapers, film archives, photo libraries, the worldwide web, searching internet forums, CD Rom database, audio material, ratings, circulation figures and government statistics.
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| Figure 1.4, Online and offline of both methods, Week 6 (6/5/2022) |
Purposes of Research
- There are lots of different reasons and purposes you may be wanting to conduct research when making a media product.
Audience research
Pros : to conduct audience research is that it helps producers understand and communicate with their target audiences. (e.g. create questionnaires and get people to fill them in)
Cons : the information may not ties in with your product, and you may have to change certain aspects of your content just so it has an audience.
Market research
- research into different areas such as things like, product's market, any competition, competitor analysis and advertising placement.
Production research
- very broad and covers as much or as little as you want it to. It can consist of many things (content, viability, media placement, finance, costs)
- Pros : not only can start to make budgets, but also justify own ideas through similar content and production methods.
- Cons : not every film maker will find the value in this as they may be trying to create something original and use new methods or technologies.
INSTRUCTIONS
Task 2 : Critical Review
In this stage,we are tasked to select five secondary sources to read and review them critically. The chosen journal articles should be relevant to the topic and up to date, which means the publication is within the last five years. I have referred to the recorded video and notes given by the lecturer to make sure I am on the right track.
Initially, the chosen articles are relatively old. I am advised to compare with newer articles and look into the articles that discussed the role of emotion in achieving believability. To agree to what other researchers have written, I watched the trailer of the BoBoiBoy to gain a general understanding of the show. I also asked to identify the challenges and weaknesses of those research papers and see how they are applicable to the context of my proposal.
One of the challenges I faced is the struggle to find journal articles that are exactly aligned with my research topic. Some of the papers which I think are relevant are not suitable for this critical review assignment because they are theses that ranged from 80 to 100 pages. I have spent a few days to find the suitable articles by using Google Scholar, Taylor’s Library, and other scholarly websites. Finally, I have came up with these five journal articles.
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| Figure 1.5, Five chosen articles, Week 6 (5/5/2022) |
I used Mendeley to store and organize my articles before starting to read them. I found the tools in the Mendeley such as the highlighter, notes and comments function very useful.
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| Figure 1.6, Reading in Mendeley, Week 6 (5/5/2022) |
All drafts of critical review are documented in the Google Drive.
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This critical review took me the entire 2 days to restructure the writing because the previous one was not following the given structure.
Final Critical Review
Final Critical Review, Week 7 (15/5/2022)
FEEDBACK
Week 5:
General feedback
We should choose 5 articles to review, but only submit one consolidated report. It is important that the selected articles are relevant to your topic. Use journal articles with an average of 15 pages.
Specific feedback
It is still within acceptable scope for me to determine the definition of believable character in animation. The third objective is between BDCM and Mass Communication. Perhaps using the sample of animation to distinguish the third objective. It relies more on secondary data to support since primary research will be very time consuming. Study on a sample of believable characters in order to learn the features that reflected this particular study. Look at the benefit of study of believable characters as part of the evaluation.
Week 6:
No class due to the public holiday
Week 7:
General feedback
Everyone is responsible for completing the proposals within the timeline, and follow the guidelines posted on MIB and Google Classroom.
Specific feedback
Make sure all the articles are relevant to the topic. Try to find 1 more article that is not written by Malaysians.
REFLECTION
There are some challenges that I faced along the journey. Firstly, I was struggled to look for the suitable research articles. I found it difficult to read and digest the articles in a short period of time. I looked for the tips to write a good critical review and wrote down the points before writing them in sentences.
This critical review took me two days to restructure her writing because the previous one was not following the given structure. It was a tough and stressful journey, but I am grateful that I am able to finish on time. I've learnt the importance of writing the outline of a research before compiling them into one overall critical review so that I can make sure the points are not repeating and the writing flow is making sense. Besides, I also learnt different research approaches such as qualitative and quantitative research. I found that these articles have given me significant secondary data to conduct my own research in the next task.