Assessment: Essay

Consider the following target that is listed as not on track in the Prime Minister's report in 2016 on "Closing the Gap" between Indigenous and Non Indigenous Australians.

Close the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation (by 2031).

a. Identify some of the underlying reasons as to why you believe progress on this target is limited.

b. Critically discuss the Government's Economic Strategy on this issue and propose suggestions of your own to meet this target.

Your discussion should also include how you take into account the sources of economic inequality (‘the gap') between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and how your own social position influenced your thinking about the best strategy to achieve this target.

Details

- Time will be devoted in class to work on the essay within your work groups. From week 5, groups will work on identifying cultural self-concept, mind-mapping the essay, developing a thesis statement and revisiting cultural self-concept along with other tasks.

- A good place to start your essay is to use the readings for week 5 and the Lecture.

- In addition, in vUWS under week 5, there are two former economic development strategies from the Australian Government and the Cape York Institute that take different approaches. As with the ‘Biddle' reading, the Cape York Institute follows a capabilities approach and you may want to use the capabilities approach to consider the issues.

- The final part of the assessment asks you to think about your own social position and how that has influenced your thinking about the best strategy to close the gap. One or two paragraphs towards the end of the body of the essay is all that is required for this and it should be seen as a caveat to your argument in the paper. That is, you can qualify your argument by stating that your views are affected by your own social position or strengthen your argument by explaining how you have derived your analysis from an ‘initial position'.

- You will need a minimum of 6 references including the 3 listed above as essential reading.These could be academic articles and books, textbooks or United Nations or other organization's development proposals.

- This assessment task assures course learning outcome 4.1 as follows:

Course learning outcome 4.1 Identify cultural issues in a variety of contexts and make recommendations for improved Business practice.

REQUIREMENTS (Note: section headings are not required)

Introduction The purpose of the introduction is to make clear to the reader what the topic of discussion is, what your position on the topic is, and to give an outline of how your essay will unfold. Therefore an introduction typically has the following features:

1) A thesis statement that answers or responds to the essay question or topic by giving your position, or stating your argument, clearly and concisely. The thesis statement tells the reader what to expect from the essay.

2) An outline that sets the sequence of arguments or issues for discussion in the body of the essay.

Body The purpose of the body of an essay is to support the claim made, or position taken, in the thesis statement. The body of the essay should flow directly from the introduction and be divided up into paragraphs that develop and support your thesis statement through to the conclusion.

Each paragraph should include a topic sentence that presents the main idea of the paragraph (typically the first sentence) and supporting sentences that explain and elaborate on the main idea of the paragraph. These may include examples relevant to the topic of discussion and quotes or paraphrases from other sources to back up the claim made in the topic sentence.

Each paragraph should develop one main idea at a time and be structured logically. The structure of your paragraphs will depend on the main purpose of your essay. An essay which discusses the historical development of an idea may have paragraphs which are structure chronologically, whereas an essay which is arguing a specific position may be organised into sub-arguments or reasons. If a particular sequence of discussion is outlined in the introduction, then the structure of the body should adhere to this sequence.

In some cases diagrams, tables and charts may be useful in conveying information in a structured format. However, if you use them make sure you refer to them and discuss their meaning and usefulness for your argument.

Critical analysis and problem solving When critically analysing a problem or issue, you need to use appropriate theory and/or research to analyse the problem or issue and to come up with solutions where relevant.

Your essay should also reflect awareness that the topic can be analysed in terms of different, sometimes conflicting theoretical frameworks.

Conclusion The purpose of the conclusion is to draw the main arguments and concepts of your essay together and to show how these arguments and ideas support your essay's thesis. Therefore, the main features of a conclusion include:

1) A summary that briefly restates the main issues or arguments covered in the body of the essay.

2) A thesis restatement that shows how the main arguments or issues discussed confirm your position.

A conclusion should not introduce any new ideas or draw conclusion that are not supported by the body of the essay.

Bibliography/ references The Bibliography should include academic articles and data sources. Please ensure to include the full references/links and the date that you accessed the sites/data bases. Your reference list will be consistently formatted and will use the Harvard UWS referencing style. Full details and examples are available on the library website at http://library.uws.edu.au/citing.php.

Do not plagiarise. Plagiarism occurs when a student submits work in which ideas, words or other work are taken from a source (for example, a web-site or computer program, another student's essay or presentation, a book or journal article, a lecture, a performance piece or other presentation) and presented as if they are the student's own, without appropriate acknowledgement of the original author. In this definition of plagiarism, it is the act of presenting material as one's own without appropriate acknowledgement that constitutes plagiarism, not the intention of the student when doing so.

Academic writing Ensure that your writing is as clear, concise and precise as possible. When writing your essay, use simple English to express your ideas where possible. Avoid using "big" words or flowery language. Instead try to write clearly by using simple language and sentence structures to express complex ideas, and incorporate specialised or technical terminology when it's needed.

Qualify your statements to ensure they are reasonable and express precisely what you mean. Avoid making sweeping statements or unwarranted generalisations. When evidence could be interpreted in many ways, phrases such as "arguably", "the evidence suggests", "it seems" and "it is likely" can be used to modify, limit or adjust your claims so that they are more correct.

Ensure that you proofread your writing and that it is free from spelling and grammatical errors. You will lose marks for poor spelling and grammar and for essays that have not been adequately proofread and edited.

Three readings to help: You must read

- Alford and Muir, 2004
- Altman, 2006
- Biddle, 2011

1. Measures of Indigenous Wellbeing and Their Determinants Across the Lifecourse by Dr Nicholas Biddle

2. The Future of Indigenous Australia: Is there a path beyond the free market or welfare dependency? by J.C. Altman

3. Dealing with unfinished Indigenous business:The need for historical reflection by Dr Katrina Alford