Faculty of Arts
Assessement
1) 3 Hour Final Exam (Open book: dictionaries NOT allowed) – 50%
2) Website review (400 words) – 10%
3) Essay (1,500 words) – 30%
4) Weekly Tutorial quizzes – 10%
Essay topics
Will be announced later in the class via cecil.
COURSEWORKS
Please word-process your assignments. (Double-spaced, good margins, 12-point font; Times New Roman or other similar fonts are recommended.) · On each assignment you must staple a coversheet (available from the General Office) and a checklist (available on the course website). · You must keep a copy of all your assignments for yourself. · You need to submit both electronic and hard copies. An electronic copy of assignment must be submitted to Turnitin. com (See the section ‘What is Turnitin?’ of this syllabus on page 10). A hard copy of the assignment must be handed in the Assignment Box on the 3rd floor, 58 Symonds street. Both need to be in by 5pm on the due dates. · Late work is NOT accepted, except when official documentation (medical certificate etc.) is produced. Medical certificates must be dated within one week prior to the deadline for the assignment.
As a significant portion of both final exam and the course work is WRITTEN WORK, we advise that student with problems with English and/or academic writing should seek the help of the STUDENT LEARNING CENTRE at the earliest opportunity (See the section on ‘Student Leaning Centre’ of this syllabus on page 13). They offer a number of workshops, as well as individual consultation. The first two tutorials will be on how to use the library for research and how to write an essay, and will help student gain skills necessary for writing effective essays.
If you have an illness or other serious problems that affect your ability to attend lectures and tutorial during the course, do not hesitate to discuss your problems with the coordinators before your coursework is seriously affected.
Bibliography and Reference style
Reference Style
In your essays for this course, references are to be made using what is known as
footnote reference system. This is a simple referencing system which is easy to use for university student and scholar alike and is the one preferred by a number of academic journals in the field of social sciences and humanities.
Footnotes are quite easy to do, and they are essential because they verify the evidence for your argument. You should always cite in a footnote the source from which you obtained:
(a) direct quotations; (b) paraphrased quotations; (c) very specific evidence such as statistics; (d) information which might be considered obscure or contentious.
You do not need to cite the source of well-known information. Footnotes may also be used (sparingly) to expand on points in the text.
Notes should be numbered consecutively through the essay and placed at the bottom of the page. They correspond exactly to the following format (if italics are not possible then underline). See the coursebook's relevant pages for more details.
Plagiarism
The SAS encourages students to read widely then express their own views and ideas in their written work. When a student simply copies sentences, phrases, ideas, and even paragraphs from another writer, this is plagiarism and will not be tolerated in the department. When a student copies her/his own essay submitted for another course, this is also a plagiarism. Plagiarism is the theft of another person’s words or ideas. The staff will penalise severely any work containing plagiarised portions, ranging from receiving 0 mark to failing the course.
The following sites are useful in understanding what constitutes plagiarism:
1. http://www2.auckland.ac.nz/teachingandlearning/ (Students/Plagiarism and Cheating section)
To avoid plagiarism:
· You must document ALL quotations and borrowed ideas properly.
· You must clearly differentiate your own ideas and words from the ideas and borrowed words of other writers. This is done by accurate quoting and paraphrasing.
· Avoid paraphrases that are similar to the original sources. (Even if you cite the original source, if your writing borrow the vocabularies and/or the structure of the original, this is considered to be a plagiarism.
For example, the following ‘paraphrasing’ is too close to the original and therefore unacceptable. Original: ‘In 1971, for example, Honda Katsuichi began a series of reports in the Asahi newspaper on the Nanjin massacre and other war atrocities Japan committed in China.’ (L. Hein and M. Selden, Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany, and the United States, p. 111.) Plagiarism – Too close to the original; NOT acceptable: ‘In 1971, Honda started writing reports on the Nanjin massacre and other atrocities Japan carried out in China in the Asahi newspaper.’ Paraphrase – in your own words; Acceptable: ‘In 1971, The Asahi newspaper published a series of reports by Honda Katsuichi, documenting Japan’s atrocities in China, including the Nanjin Massacre.’
Consult with the Student Learning Centre or your tutor if you are not sure how to quote and paraphrase correctly.
What is Turnitin?
As Japanese 150 uses Turnitin, you are required to submit an electronic copy of your essays to Turnitin.com as well as a hard copy to the School of Asian Studies. Turnitin.com is an electronic plagiarism detection service that is used by dozens of universities world-wide. When a student’s assignment is turned in to the system it is matched against millions of Internet pages, databases and a constantly increasing database of all previously and concurrently submitted assignments. Teaching staff receive a report from Turnitin that can be used as a resource to assist staff in making a judgement as to whether a student’s work is plagiarised. The internet has made plagiarism easier than ever before. The ease of downloading and copying "untraceable" online information has led to an epidemic of ‘digital plagiarism,’ and Turnitin was introduced to deal with plagiarism effectively.
Before submitting your essay electronically, you need to create User Profile and log in Turnitin.com (www.turnitin.com). For detailed information and instruction on Turnitin, please see the student guidelines for Turnitin: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/about/teaching/plagiarism/turnitin.cfm
To use Turnitin, You will need Class ID and password. They will be in your coursebook.
You cannot submit your assignments unless you create User Profile first. We recommend that you do this by the end of the first week.Tutorial quizzes
Your weekly tutorial quizzes are based on the week’s readings (both readings for the lecture and tutorial; 10% coursework marks).
Final examination
The final exam will contain both multiple-choice questions and essay questions. Past exam papers are available in the General Library. The exam timetable will be available on nDeva after the close of enrolment. Past examination papers are available from the University’s website, ExamBase at: http://examdb.auckland.ac.nz/ (You can get there through the Library website: go to LEARN and then select Exam papers)
The final examination for this course is an ‘Open Book’ exam, which means that you can bring your lecture notes, books, photocopied materials etc. to the exam room (Note: dictionaries are NOT allowed). Unlike what some students may think, Open Book exam is not any ‘easier’ than an ordinary exam. It requires different skills and different preparation.
See Student Learning Centre’s ‘Preparing for Open Book Exams.’ (http://www.slc.auckland.ac.nz/resources/for_undergraduates/open_book_exams.php)
The last tutorial is on exam preparation, where you will receive more information on this year’s final exam.
Note: UNIVERSITY EXAMS ARE DIFFERENT FROM THE NCEA SYSTEM Under the NCEA system, you were probably advised that you should focus on achieving a smaller number of 'excellent' grades rather than a larger number of 'achieved' results, and that you should therefore put all your time and effort in an examination into the section(s) where you might expect to be graded 'excellent', and not even attempt other sections. In a university examination, your final grade is calculated on the basis of the total marks you achieve. If you do not attempt one of the questions, you will get 0 for it, and that will have a serious impact on your total for the paper. For example, if you are expected to answer FOUR questions, each worth 25%, and you answer only three, even if you were to achieve full marks on each of the three, you would have only 75% for the paper, and so the best you could hope for would be a B+ result (and very few students manage full marks in an examination). In general, especially with essay-type answers, it is relatively easy to earn a pass-mark (50%); to do better, you must write more, and/or structure your answer better, and show additional insight into the implications of the question. This means that it is advisable for you to make at least some sort of response to all of the required number of questions, and then to spend additional time on those you feel more confident of answering better. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE EXAMINATION PAPER FIRST, to ensure that you understand how many questions are required. Be careful, when there are options, that you do not waste time answering MORE than the required number of questions. If you do so, it is University policy that the examiner will mark the questions in the order presented in your examination answer book, and once the required number of answers have been marked, no more will be read (even if the last one might have been your best effort!).
What do I do if I missed the final exam because of an injury or an illness?
If you are prevented from being present at the exam because of a serious illness, injury, or exceptional circumstances beyond your control, you can apply for Aegrotat or compassionate considerations by following the procedure below.
- Always try to sit the exam as much as you can – this increases your chances of being granted aegrotat or compassionate considerations.
- Go to the Student Health on the day of the exam (or if this is not possible as soon as possible thereafter, but within one week), and fill out a ‘SA-49 Academic Recommendation for Aegrotat or Compassionate Application Form’ (available from Student Health).
- Return the form to the Student Health.
If you need more information on this, please contact the course coordinators.
