MØA 305: Perspectives on Innovation
Formative essay
Please write an essay of 3000 words on a topic of your choice. You are welcome to use the presentation questions listed in the course plan as a starting-point for your essay, but you are not limited to these. As long as it is within the scope of the course as defined by the learning outcomes, you can formulate your own problem if you want. The essay should be related to one or more of the ten topics covered in the course and should incorporate some of the literature covered in the course, as well as additional literature.
The essay should address one of the main debates covered under the relevant topic in the course, as reflected in the suggested readings and lecture content. It should be based on a research question, and present theory and potentially empirical evidence relevant to answering the research question. The essay may be based on (some of) the additional readings for this topic, but should also incorporate additional literature relevant to addressing the research question discussed in the essay.
This essay should be written on a different topic than your assessed essay. In this context, topic means week – i.e. if your formative essay is within the scope of week 3 (R&D based models of innovation), your assessed essay will have to focus on a different week. You are welcome to use literature, concepts and ideas from various weeks to address your research question if you find it useful, but you should highlight one week as the main topic for your essay.
The essay is due on 28 November at 11 am. It is to be submitted on Canvas as a PDF file. The essay is a compulsory requirement for the course. This means that if you do not submit your essay on time, you will be unable to complete the course and will not be allowed to sit the final exam. You would also not be able to participate in the resit and would need to wait until 2019 to complete the course.
Further information
The essay should formulate a problem and attempt to address this using theoretical and empirical insights from the course literature and, potentially, related literature from the field. It should have an introduction explaining why the problem is important, a section discussing relevant theoretical perspectives on the problem, reference some empirical work that can provide evidence for (or against) theoretical statements, and reach a conclusion. You should cite references as appropriate and include a bibliography. There are no special format requirements, but the essays should be around 3000 words, excluding the bibliography.
Scope:
The essay should be written on a topic of your own choice, but within the scope of the course. The scope is here defined based on the learning outcomes described in the course description (please see the course plan) as these are operationalised in the course plan through the list of readings and presentation topics. You are welcome to
include readings from outside the course plan or to put your own spin on the topics, but the type of readings and the type of presentation topics included in the course plan should give you an idea of what is understood as the scope of the course.
Grading criteria
The essays will be assessed based on the grade descriptions at the following link:
http://www.uhr.no/documents/Karaktersystemet_generelle_kvalitative_beskrivelser.pdf
For a more detailed description, some of the criteria used in assessing master theses will also be relevant (adjusting for the shorter nature of this assignment and the fact that this is not a research project or an empirical study): http://www.uhr.no/documents/Engelske_karakterbeskrivelse_for_masteroppgaver_i_vedtatt_100614.pdf
These can be summarised as follows:
A
B
C
D
E
F
Insight into academic theories and methods of the field
Excellent / Exceptional
Very good
Good
Satisfactory
Sufficient
Insufficient
Aim / research question
Clearly defined, easy to understand
Clearly defined, easy to understand
Generally defined well
Not defined clearly
Unclear
Not (clearly) described
Scope of work
Innovative and very extensive
Innovative and extensive
Normal
Modest
Very modest & fragmented
Very modest & fragmented
Use of sources
Excellent, critically relates to sources,
uses these to structure arguments
Very good, critically relates to sources,
uses these to structure arguments
Good, analyses sources,
uses these to structure arguments
Some,
analyses sources,
does not structure or articulate arguments
Some ability to analyse sources,
does not formulate arguments
Does not use existing sources of information
Distinguishes between own and others’ work
Clearly
Clearly
Well
With difficulty
Not in a good way
Not in a good way
Critical reflection
Excellent
Very good
Good
Some
Sufficient
Insufficient
Form, structure and language
Advanced
Advanced
Good
Satisfactory
Notable deficiencies
Significant deficiencies
Referencing
When to use references? References must be used each (and every) time that the information or data that you use or the concept that you express are not your own and can be ascribable to a different author. Moreover, a reference list must be added at the
bottom of your article or essay in which complete information related to the authors that you cited must be displayed. Some examples are illustrated below.
Why do you need to use references? References are needed to indicate who did the work, and also to separate past theoretical contributions from one another and from your own work. This will make it clear for the reader who did the work, and also it makes it a lot easier for the interested reader to find out more about a particular topic by following the references.
What happens if I do not use references? It is unethical to not refer to the correct reference when expressing ideas that you have gathered elsewhere. It is like someone else taking credit for the work that you did. If you write a paper/essay using ideas/words/sentences from other authors, and do not cite them, it is considered plagiarism. The University of Stavanger has zero tolerance for plagiarism, and the consequences of plagiarism is that you will fail your exam/course, and be expelled. You can read more about how to avoid plagiarism at the University of Stavanger here: http://student.uis.no/library/write-and-refer/avoid-plagiarism/
Bottom line: it is of vital importance that you use references! Below you will find information on how to reference correctly.
How to reference? This is an example where the main idea of the first sentence is gathered from Kemeny, 2014, whilst the citation from Shore, 2009: 118 is a verbatim quote, and therefore requires “[…]” and the reference (Author(s), year of publication) + reference to the page number after colon (118 in this specific case).
“Surface-level” diversity, such as country background, is thought to reflect deeper-level differences (Kemeny 2014). These could be differences in “cognitive processes/schemas, differential knowledge base, different sets of experiences, and different views of the world” (Shore et al. 2009: 118).
When quotations that extend over more than three lines, place them in a separate and indented paragraph. Please, note that very long quotations are not permissible in a paper or essay even though the author(s) are correctly cited, and that using your own words is always preferable. Being able to explain a concept or idea in your own words demonstrates that you have understood the material.
You are free to use any reference style of your preference. However, the reference style illustrated above is the most commonly used in the social sciences (Author(s), year of publication: page number).
In case of more than two authors, “et al.” may be added after the name of the first author in your text (e.g. Shore et al., 2009). However, the names of all the authors must be indicated in the references at the end of the essay or paper (see “References” below).
References
This section illustrates how the information related to the volumes, book chapters or papers that you have cited must be indicated at the end of your paper or essay. Please, see examples
below.
Paper with a single author or two authors:
Dörry, S. 2017. “The geo-politics of Brexit, the euro and the City of London”, Geoforum, 85:1-4.
Paper with more than two authors:
Neuman, M., and Hull, A. 2009. “The Futures of the City Region”, Regional Studies, 43.6: 777-787.
Book Chapter:
Rallet, A., and Torre, A. 1998. “On Geography and Technology: Proximity Relations in Localised Innovations Networks”, in: M. Steiner (ed) Clusters and Regional Specialisation: On Geography, Technology, and Networks, 41-56, London: Pion.
Volume:
Porter, M.E. 1990. “The Competitive Advantage of Nations”. New York: Free Press.
What does the information contained in references refer to:
Paper
Title of the paper
Year of publication
Shore, L.M, B.G Chung-Herrera, M.A Dean, K.H Ehrhart, D.I Jung, A.E Randel, and G Singh. 2009. “Diversity in organizations: Where are we now and where are we going?” Human Resource Management Review 19 (2):117-133. doi: 10.1016/j.hrmr.2008.10.004.
Author(s)
Name of the journal Volume, number, pages
Book chapter
Title of the chapter
Year of publication
Rallet, A., and Torre, A. 1998. “On Geography and Technology: Proximity Relations in Localised Innovations Networks”, in: M. Steiner (ed), Clusters and Regional Specialisation: On Geography, Technology, and Networks, pp. 41-56, London: Pion Publication.
Author(s) Editor(s) of the book, please indicate “eds” in case of more than one editor
Title of the volume Pages of the chapter
Publishing house (location and name)
Volume
Title of the volume
Year of publication
Porter, M.E. 1990. “The Competitive Advantage of Nations”. New York: Free Press.
Author(s) Publishing house (location and name)
Some suggestions/useful links:
– Read articles/books and look at how they cite other authors.
– The UiS library offers courses in referencing. See for example here: http://www.uis.no/library/publishing/endnote/ – here the example is endnote. You are of course free to use whichever referencing programme you want to (if any).
Further advice on writing an essay
1) Many forget the need to have a clear Research Question (RQ). What is a RQ? It is basically what you wish to answer.
Try to find a RQ that motivates you, what would be interesting to dig into? What do you want to learn more about? Why is it interesting? Did you read something that triggered a wish to understand more? Then build your paper based on that. In the introduction, framing, background, why is this important, what is the gap? And then BOOM: the RQ!
And then this is how I will solve this: here you explain how you are going to answer the RQ.
2) Then a second challenge, is related to the structure of the paper. Do not mash it all together like it is a soup…that makes it hard for the reader to follow the argumentation, there is a lack of what we in Norwegian refer to “a red thread”: which is when you (as a reader)understand that the paper is structured around a central theme and it is easy to follow the argumentation. Try to structure the paper so that it demonstrates how the different parts of the paper are related, and why they are interesting elements to be considered in the paper. One way to solve this, is to again look at the RQ; what tools do you need to answer this, and then structure the paper, and perhaps in “blocks” so it is easier to follow.
3) A third challenge, is related to the use of cases. Do not use cases if you do not connect these to the theory discussed, nor using the cases actively in relation to answering the RQ.
4) A fourth challenge, the conclusion is a summary of the theory, and not trying to actively engage with the text.
5) A fifth Challenge, references. Always remember to cite, and include page number if it is a direct quote.
The really good papers are the ones that are able to actively engage the reader, based on that the reader cleary sees and understands what the paper is about, has a clear RQ, framing, relevant literature, and if case is included, then it is used throughout/reflected in relation to theory, and concluding remarks reflecting on what the discussion/extraction!
Some suggestions:
1) Read other papers: what have they done? How do they solve this? (learning-by-reading).
2) See the material posted on canvas: on academic writing.
3) There is plenty of resources online: on academic writing and structure.
