Assignment 4 Tutor feedback

Overall Comments
I should begin this feedback by saying that academic writing is a skill that is developed over time so please don’t be disheartened by any of my suggestions below. You have made a good start but will need to do a bit more to be ready for assessment. My goal is to get you closer to being ready for the critical writing component of level 3, so much of my feedback below offers advice on developing the skills you will need. I note that on your blog you mention how difficult you find academic reading and writing so I have tried to include some guidance on resources that might help. The most important aspect is to persevere. Whilst it may seem difficult you will find eventually that the ideas sort of click in your mind and everything starts making much more sense. It is a matter of learning the language used within critical writing I’m afraid to be able to speak the same language and fully understand the points being addressed. If you find a particular text too complex move on for now and return at a later stage.

At the moment I would suggest that this paper is a first draft of a final paper looking at how technology has impacted the market for photography. This might be a too broad a topic for a short paper, so I would suggest tightening your research area up to include only one specific technological advancement. A good example could be ‘How has the adoption of online circulation of newspapers impacted the photographic market?’, or perhaps ‘How has the adoption of digital cameras in the 21st century mirrored the changes seen in previous technological revolutions within photography?’, although this second example is by necessity somewhat broader. One method for tackling this might be to include a table that compares the different advancements and their affect, and your paper provides your analysis of these results.

I have included comments in the accompanying copy of your paper so that you can view specific issues I raise as you progress. These comments should be read in conjunction with this feedback report.

Feedback on assignment
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

•   There are some issues with how you are presenting your writing. You need to tighten up a bit on paragraphs and quotations to make it clear to the reader where your main points are. I would suggest your spend some time reviewing the OCA Study Guides, specifically the guides “An Introduction to Studying In HE”, “Study Skill”, “Academic Essay Writing 1”, and “Academic Referencing”. These are all stored within the Resources section of the OCA student website. These guides have been compiled to help students at all levels so I would strongly recommend them.
  
•   A great tip I heard at a writing workshop last month is to proof read your paper aloud. Reading it aloud helps you to gauge the readability of your text. Whilst obviously you will eventually need to be using language that calls upon various critical histories of art and photography, your writing also needs to be accessible.
  
•   At the moment the paper reads as a rough history of photography but you don’t appear to be addressing your key question as you progress. If you read through the paper it currently reads as a collection of historical points that appear detached from one another.
  
•   The paper also jumps around a lot in terms of your timeline. You might like to write out bullet points for each key point that will become a paragraph and then rearrange to keep them in an order that will lead to a clear argument. You can then use this to rearrange the paragraphs you have and this should clear up your argument a bit.
  
•   You might find it useful to break the different sections of your argument up using headings within the text, much like we do with these feedback reports.
  
•   I feel that a good start in your restricting of the paper would be top revisit your critical review for the Landscape module. I had a read through and your argument there was much clearer. What can you take away from the style developed there that can be applied here?
  
•   I think the next stage for this paper should involve you going away and deciding exactly what the key point you want to make with the paper is, and then coming back to it and constructing an outline for the discussion and using this draft as the notes from which to create a final version. AT the moment it reads as if these are first draft notes with little linking the paragraphs. The result is a difficult read paper that doesn’t seem to clearly present your argument and conclusion. You have done the hard work, all you need to do is present the results of your research more clearly for the reader.
  
•   Another good tip for improving your academic writing is to try to read for an hour a day, and write for at least 15 minutes a day. Reading and writing are habit forming, so by devoting some of every day to both you will see dramatic improvement. When you find you have more time on your hands you can write for longer, but try to write for at least 15 minutes every day. You will also need to vary what you are reading and who you are writing for. Some days write for an academic audience, some days for you child. Think about how to explain your ideas to different audiences. The same applies to your reading –some days read through a critical text such as Liz Well’s ‘Photography: A Critical Introduction’ and others read the Guardian* website (*other papers also apply).

 Referencing –there were a few issues with your referencing so I suggest you have a look at the OCA study guide on Harvard referencing. The most important thing is to never rely on a secondary source unless absolutely critical. This includes Wikipedia. Instead go back to the original and cite that. You also need to make sure you identify at least two independent sources if you are presenting a fact to maintain academic rigor.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays
Context
A quick note on your reworking of the assignment 2 cover with the coloured sunglasses. The problem is you missed a step (or I may have not explained it well enough) where you invert the selection before creating the new layer so that your layer mask will be for the whole image outside of the glasses frame. You invert very easily by using the short cut Shift+Ctrl+I or finding the command in the Select menu.

There doesn’t appear to be much in the way of your reviewing the work of other photographers on the blog. This will need to be worked on before assessment, but doesn’t need to be critical writing in the same manner as this essay –you can just note what you find works and doesn’t work in different pieces of work you come across. Slowly this should develop as your reading develops into more critical analysis but there is no rush for that. Try to identify 20 photographers that you either like or dislike before assignment 5 and write 100-200 words about each one’s work. This could form part of your 15 minutes writing a day, and should not prove too onerous a task.

Suggested reading/viewing
Context
If you haven’t already I really would urge you to get hold of a copy of Liz Well’s ‘Photography: A critical introduction’ and David Bate’s ‘Photography: The critical concepts’. These are both written with undergraduate students in mind and as such offer a gentle introduction into much of the contemporary critical debate surrounding photographic practice. The wells book especially should provide you with the tools needed to unpick the essay of hers you have previously struggled with.

BATE, D. 2009. Photography: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg

WELLS, L. 2009. Photography: A Critical Introduction, London, Routledge.

Pointers for the next assignment
As you will be photographing an event again, I would suggest finding a gig and producing a series on that, using what you have learnt from the work in the previous assignment. Try to think beforehand about the shoot and the potential market and compile a shooting list of all the different types of shots you will need to make. 

Overall, I was not surprised with the feedback for my critical review as I found it really difficult to write. I felt as though I couldn't quite get into it and think I was trying to focus too much on the pointers as to what should be included and how to lay it out as opposed to just writing. 
I was a bit confused with the feedback in general. The report above seemed to point out that I could focus on something specific and write about that but then other points and the in-essay comments were helping me to work with what I had and to just rework it a bit. 
My tutor commented that the subject was a bit too extensive for such a small essay but it was the first topic on the list in the course notes, so maybe that needs to be amended in the course itself. 
Also, with 6 weeks between assignments, there was no way I would have time to rewrite my critical review so I will just be reworking what I already have, attempting to use the advice my tutor has given me, paying particular attention to the pointers in the in-essay comments.