Task 1 – Purposeful questions

For this assignment, you will pick a topic of interest that you would like to find out more about. This should be related to your course of study, e.g. artificial intelligence, robotics, social media, advertising, film. Ask your tutor for further guidance if required.

In the box below, write down at least five questions that could help to develop your knowledge and understanding of your chosen topic.

OCN London Sourcing and Reading Information course on how to frame a purposeful question:

Task 2 – Locating and referencing resources

Next, find a range of sources that are likely to contain answers to your questions.  List the sources that you have found in the box below in the Harvard style as you would in a bibliography.

To meet the assessment criteria, you must include at least three different types of resources e.g. books, textbooks, journal articles, newspaper articles, magazine articles, scripts, e-books, websites, podcasts/audio materials and videos (such as a documentary, recorded lecture or teaching video).

OCN London Sourcing and Reading Information course on different resource types

Task 3 – Source evaluation

Select three of the sources and record in the source grids the information that you have found in response to your questions.

• To meet the AC, the three sources you use mustbe different source types.
• Your sources may not answer all your questions. You should set out the questions and the answer you have found in Section A.
• In Section B of the grid, evaluate the quality of each source in relation to your purposeful questions. Evaluation of sources is an important academic skill to develop, as it will help you to ensure that your work is supported by credible information and you are able to spend the right amount of time finding and making notes from sources.

The following questions will help you to evaluate:

• Did the resource enable you to answer all of your questions? Which questions do you need to focus on in the next resource?
• Did it prompt any further questions? Will you need to find out this information in order to respond to the task set within its defined parameters (for example, word limit, deadline)?
• Do you have concerns about the reliability of the resource used (e.g. how current it is, any bias the resource might have, its intended audience) so that the information needs to be verified using another source?
• Do the requirements of the task mean that you need to find information from a different perspective or side of an argument?

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Task 4 – Source annotation

For two of your written sources, photocopy or print out a section where you found information for your assignment (up to four pages) (AC2.1). Annotate the photocopies to demonstrate your thinking processes as you read the section, for example:

• identify words or phrases that you were scanning for to answer your question
• highlight areas that were relevant to your questions (make sure it is clear what the highlighted sections mean with annotations or by including a key)
• identify sections that you skimmed
• annotate areas that prompted further questions
• annotate areas that helped you to determine the usefulness of the source

The two written sources can be the same as the sources you wrote about in section 3 or other sources. You should include the source reference at the top of the page.

If you are completing the workbook digitally, then you can copy the two sources into the workbook or submit them as separate files.

OCN London Sourcing and Reading Information course on reading techniques:

Write around 150-200 words reflecting on the processes that you followed to find relevant information for your assignment. You may want to cover:

• What were your main sources of information for the assignment?
• Were these sources that you had identified originally? If not, how did you find them?
• How useful were your purposeful questions in guiding your research?
• How useful were the different reading techniques in finding relevant information?
• What have you learnt about how to find and use sources for future assignments?

Task 5 – The purpose and features of different written texts 

Write a commentary where you compare and contrast the purpose of two written texts on the same theme, using examples of features from each of the texts. (Total word limit: 500 words)

Texts:

The tutor must provide the learners with links to the texts here or copies of the texts on the following pages.

Article 1: The National AI Strategy

Guidance:

Start your commentary with a summary of what you think the purpose of each of the texts is. Once you have set out the purpose, you will be able to compare and contrast how you are able to identify this purpose using features of the texts.

Features of the text that can be used to identify the purpose:

• The main ideas set out in the text
• Where the text has been published – who is it intended for?
• The format chosen by the writer (e.g. article, report, blog, essay)
• The tone, formality and complexity of the writing style
• Stylistic features (e.g. sentence structure for emphasis, imagery, assumption, suggestion, irony, sarcasm, allusion, metaphor, simile, inference, symbolic representation, statistical representation)
• In-text features (e.g. headings, images, changes in font, paragraphing structures, use of quotations, openings and endings of sections, referencing)

You should include examples or short quotes from the texts to support your points.

OCN London Sourcing and Reading Information course on the purpose of texts: