Reflections On Academic Discourse: Skills Manual - Part I
Reflections On Academic Discourse: Skills Manual - Part I
Reflections On Academic Discourse: Skills Manual - Part I
REFLECTIONS ON
ACADEMIC DISCOURSE
EBS1001 – Period 3
Academic year 2019-2020
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1 Introduction
This introductory section describes what we reflect upon and what the skills objectives are.
Furthermore, it briefly describes the skills structure and how it relates to the texts used.
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That people learn in various ways about their world, the mistakes they make along the
way, and what makes science different from other ways of knowing.
That much of what we know is by agreement rather than by experience. In particular,
two important sources of agreed-upon knowledge are tradition and authority. However,
these useful sources of knowledge can also lead us astray.
That in everyday life we sometimes reason illogically. Researchers seek to avoid
illogical reasoning by being as careful and deliberate in their reasoning as possible.
Moreover, the public nature of science means that others are always present to challenge
faulty reasoning.
That the methods of tenacity, intuition, authority, rationalism and empiricism are
different ways of acquiring knowledge. Each method has its strengths and limitations.
The scientific method combines the various methods to achieve a more robust way of
answering questions. The scientific method is empirical, public and objective.
That the scientific method consists of five steps: (1) observation of behavior or other
phenomena; (2) formation of a tentative answer or explanation, called a hypothesis; (3)
use of the hypothesis to generate a testable prediction; (4) evaluation of the prediction
by making systematic, planned observations; and (5) use of the observations to support,
refute, or refine the original hypothesis. The research process is the way in which the
scientific method is used to answer a particular question.
That there are (at least) three views of “reality”: the premodern, modern and postmodern
views. In the postmodern view, there is no “objective” reality independent of our
subjective experiences.
That theory attempts to discuss and explain what is, not what should be. Theory should
not be confused with philosophy or belief.
That inductive theories reason from specific observations to general patterns, whereas
deductive theories start from general statements and predict specific observations.
Behavioral economics and paternalistic public policy Dr. Hannes Rusch Economics (MPE)
Is it smart to invest in education during an economic Dr. Lex Borghans Economics (MILE)
crisis?
Financial models failed when we needed them most — Dr. Thomas Post Finance
are they flawed?
The role of information and the internet in the economic Dr. Anant Joshi Infonomics
crisis
Irrational behavior and (more?) marketing science Dr. Elisabeth Brüggen, Marketing and Supply
Sabine Nievelstein Chain Management
Crisis Management: when global calamity reaches the Anna Bayne Organization & Strategy
work floor
Quants Dr. Dries Vermeulen Quantitative Economics
Students can freely choose a topical area (as long are there is capacity, see Section 2.2).
There are three tutorial meetings. In these meetings, the concepts from the literature are applied
within the chosen topical area and will be inspired by discussions related to the economic crisis.
This implies that, for each topical area, there will be some additional literature relevant for the
application. The application is based both on discussions in the tutorial meetings and by
working on an assignment in subgroups (see Section 2.3).
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The assignments will be reviewed by your fellow students and evaluated by your tutor. This
will form one part of the exam. The other part is a multiple-choice exam that is based on the
compulsory literature. For details, see Section 2.4.
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2.1.1 Lecture
The lecture is partly based on the contents of the compulsory literature and partly material
that is unique to the lecture. You are encouraged to attend since the exam will likely include
questions relevant to the lecture. It will focus on summarizing, broadening and deepening the
subject matter, especially on the role of scientific knowledge in today’s society. Why do people
trust science for some issues and not others? Why do people disregard scientific findings that
can help us solve some world problems? We will go over historical accounts of when scientific
findings have conflicted with predominant religious or cultural views. The lecture will be given
by Dr. Hannes Rusch.
If you decide to attend the lecture, you are expected to follow the rules of the game. Do not
disrupt a lecture or interfere with other students’ ability to benefit from it. The lecture will not
be recorded. This means that if you want to know the contents of the lecture, you either have to
attend the lecture yourself or copy the notes of a fellow student. Lecture slides will be posted,
but students are advised to attend.
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2.2 Choosing a topical area
As mentioned above, you can choose a topical area within which you apply the skills. The
topical areas are summarised in Table 1 and a description of each topical area is provided on
the Student Portal.
Rules of the game in registering for a topical area
Registering through the Student Portal is possible from December 9, 2019,
9:00 a.m. onwards.
Students will be assigned on a first come first serve basis. The longer you wait to
sign up the less likely you will be able to select your preferred choice.
Instructions will be provided on how to enroll (it will be very easy).
At the latest on January 5, 2020, 12:00 (noon), you should have registered for one of
the topical areas.
Failure to register before the deadline will result in a penalty (see below).
By January 10, 2020, your personal timetable will be available on MyUM. Once
allocated to a tutorial group, you will stay in that group. Switching between groups
is not possible.
Do not email the coordinator for issues about registration. Questions about
enrollment and registration should be asked via www.surfyourself.nl.
Failure to enroll by the deadline will result in a 5% penalty. This means that whatever grade
you obtain for the course, it will be multiplied by 0.95. If your grade is an 8, then after the
penalty your grade will be 8*0.95=7.6, which will be rounded to 7.5. The reason we are
introducing this penalty is because too many people in the past simply forgot to register which
creates considerable additional administrative work.
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In addition to writing the paper, each subgroup has to review the paper of one of the
other subgroups. Subgroup A reviews the paper of subgroup B, subgroup B reviews the
paper of subgroup C, subgroup C reviews the paper of subgroup D, and subgroup D
reviews the paper of subgroup A.
It is important to quickly start on the paper with your subgroup. We advise you to do this
immediately after your first tutorial meeting. The time schedule is very tight. In tutorial
meeting 2 you will have the opportunity to raise questions or to address problems you
encountered.
Some important guidelines:
Each subgroup has to upload its paper on the Student Portal at tutorial group level in the
discussion board AND in Safe Assign on course level by Tuesday, January 21, 2020,
12:00. No other form of submission for the paper will be accepted. The deadline is strict
and there will be absolutely no exceptions.
Each subgroup has to review the paper of the other subgroup assigned to it (see above)
before tutorial meeting 3 and has to upload this review on the Student Portal at tutorial
group level in the discussion board by Tuesday, January 21, 2020, 18:00. No other
form of submission for the review will be accepted. This deadline is strict and there will
be absolutely no exceptions. Since your assigned subgroup will upload its paper on the
Student Portal at tutorial group level by Tuesday, January 21, 2020, you will have at
least 6 hours for your review. Use the review form in Appendix 1 of this manual.
Indicate your names, ID numbers and tutorial group number on the review form.
Each subgroup reads the received review and fills in the form in Appendix 2. Indicate
your names, ID numbers and tutorial group number on this form. Make copies of the
received review and your reaction to the review. Bring these copies along to the third
tutorial meeting.
In the third tutorial meeting, the improved final version of the paper, the review, and the
reaction to the review has to be handed in to the tutor.
In the second part of the third meeting each subgroup gives a 5 minute oral presentation of
its paper (no PowerPoint for a change!). Then the review group for this subgroup gives a
5-minute oral presentation of its review of the paper (again no PowerPoint). Finally, the
subgroup gives a 5-minute oral reaction to the review it has received. Table 3 gives an overview.
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Hand in the copies of the received reviews and the reaction on the review to the tutor (see
Appendices 1 and 2), together with the paper. The tutor grades the assignment (consisting of
the paper for each subgroup, the review the subgroup made for one of the other subgroups and
the discussion of the review the subgroup has received on its own paper).
(2) The grade for your group assignment is given by your tutor as discussed in Section 2.3.
To pass you need a final score equal to or higher than 55 out of 100. All results below
55 (also 54 and 53) will lead to a failure.
Subgroups that failed for their group assignment will be informed about this by
their tutor. The subgroups who failed have to hand in a revision of the group assignment
before February 12, 2020, 18:00 to their tutor (by email and with a CC to econae1office-
sbe@maastrichtuniversity.nl). If your grade is again below 55, you will have to
participate in the skills training again next year.
(3) Finally, the course assignment (see Section 3) is related to your attendance and
participation. You need to attend at least two of the three sessions (the regular 75%
requirement). As we feel that mere presence at the group tutorials is not enough, but that
the effectiveness of the sessions depends on your efforts both at home as well as during
the meetings, we include a formal evaluation of the extent of your participation during
the course. Thus, next to sufficient physical attendance, you also have to score
sufficiently on participation in the tutorial group in order to be exempted from writing
a course assignment.
Each meeting, your individual efforts will be evaluated by your tutor. The tutors
are instructed to evaluate two aspects:
First, the extent to which you demonstrate that you study and prepare thoroughly
between two tutorial meetings (i.e., preparation).
Second, the extent to which you actively contribute during group discussions
(i.e., participation).
The evaluation procedure for each meeting is as follows. Each aspect (i.e.
preparation and participation) can be graded as “+” or as “–”. You will receive a “+” for
a meeting if the tutor regards your efforts as sufficient on both preparation and
participation. You receive a “0” if your efforts are insufficient on either preparation or
participation. You are graded a “–” if your efforts are insufficient on both preparation
and participation.
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Consider the following example. In the beginning of each meeting students post-
discuss what they have learned at home. If you are not able to summarize and criticize
the relevant literature or to answer questions posed by your tutor or fellow students
related to this literature or you do not participate in discussing the literature, etc., you
get a “–” for preparation. The main point is that you should demonstrate that you worked
at home. It is important to stress that posing questions on the literature does not result
in a negative evaluation, on the contrary. As already mentioned, you should use your
fellow students to increase your own understanding. Next, the meeting goes on with
pre-discussing the next task. Here, again active participation is important. So, if you do
not contribute to the analysis of problems, to the brainstorming process or you do not
help in formulating learning goals etc., you receive a “–” for participation. It is clear
that silence cannot be evaluated. So, if you say nothing during the meeting you
automatically get a “–” for that meeting. At the end of the course, the number of “+”s
will be counted.
You are exempted from the course assignment if you have attended at least two
meetings, and obtained at least two “+”s during these meetings. Students who fail one
or both of these requirements have to do the course assignment. The course
assignment is presented in Section 3 of this skills manual. It involves a considerable
workload and will be graded on a pass/fail basis.
C. Prepare a written review (see Appendix 1) of a paper assigned to you by the coordinator.
Case Assignment
The course assignment must be handed in before January 31, 2020, 18:00 by email to
econae1office-sbe@maastrichtuniversity.nl. Students who failed for their course assignment
have to hand in a revised version before February 28, 2020, 18:00 by email to econae1office-
sbe@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
If your email concerns something that is explained in this manual or the manual for your topical
area, then it will NOT be answered. Generally, please keep emails to the coordinator, topical
coordinators, and your tutor to a minimum. BEFORE you write an email, think whether it really
cannot wait until the next tutorial meeting: you will have time to ask questions regarding the
course material, the papers and reviews you have to write, and so on, in these meetings.
The general rule regarding emails is therefore very simple: Emails will only be answered
in exceptional cases. It is hard to say in advance what an exceptional case may be, but here is a
(non-exhaustive) list of things that are NOT exceptional:
“I would like to attend a different tutorial in week X because of other commitments. Is
this possible?” No. This is a very large course and it is NEVER possible for you to switch
tutorial groups.
“I will be on vacation/have a doctor’s appointment/missed my train and will not be/was
not able to come to the examination. Is there a way to make up for this?” The only
possibility is to take the resit examination.
“We had problems with our computers and weren’t able to upload our paper and the
review in time.” The deadline is strict and you are responsible for meeting it.
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“We were only one minute late in submitting our paper. Can’t you make an exception?”
Again, there will be absolutely no exceptions to the deadline. You know the deadlines
well in advance and this allows you to plan ahead. It is your responsibility to meet the
deadline, not anyone else’s.
“I was not able to sign up for the topical area of my choice. Can I exchange my topical
area with someone else?” No. The assignment of topical areas is on the basis of “first
come, first served”. If the topical area of your choice is already full when you want to
sign up, you will have to choose another topical area. There will be absolutely no
exceptions to this policy.
If you have problems with the Student Portal (for example, when signing up for a topical
area or uploading your paper), please contact www.surfyourself.nl BEFORE the relevant
deadlines.
If you think you have a valid reason for being absent from a tutorial meeting (going on
vacation or missing a train are NOT valid reasons), then please contact your student dean. If you
think that you are in an exceptional case that requires the attention of the course coordinator,
then send an email to econae1office-sbe@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
Always use your Maastricht University email account. Emails from other email accounts
will not be responded to. This will ensure that your emails are not filtered out by a spam filter,
so that you can be sure that your email was received in good order. If you do not receive an
answer to your email, it means that the case you have brought up was not deemed exceptional
(and this evaluation of your case will not change if you send your email again).
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Appendix 1: Peer review of the paper
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Criterion 5: References to texts are made
What did the group do well and why?
Conclusion:
◊ Reject the paper, because………………………………………..
◊ Major revisions suggested, like………………………………….
◊ Minor revisions suggested, like………………………………….
◊ Accepted, because……………………………………………….
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Appendix 2: Reaction on the review of subgroup A, B, C or D
From the comments of our reviewer and reviewing a paper of another subgroup we learned that…
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