PLEASE NOTE: All CMIT modules have now been withdrawn,
and are unavailable for the 2010/11 academic year
These web pages and lecture notes are left as reference for those students
requiring CMIT modules to complete their programme only, and are not an
indication of modules currently offered.
General Presentation Conventions
For Written Work
When creating written material, bear in mind its chief purpose: it will be read by someone else, who must understand and be convinced by your arguments.
Format of presentation
All written material must be word processed. Some modules may specify other requirements, for example, for the Publishing 1 module, material for the final submission must be typeset using Adobe CS2 Indesign. Details will be provided with the assessment.
Give attention to layout and general presentation - how you say something is important; poor presentation does not inspire confidence in the content of your work. Consider the following general guidelines;
- Make sure you put your student ID (9 digit UniCard number) on the front of your work, along with the module code and title of the assessment.
- Do not put your name anywhere on your work.
- Consider using headers and footers to place page numbers, your student number and module code on each sheet.
- Use subheadings if you want to add structure to the work.
- Don't underline - use heading levels, italics for emphasis and bold for strong words.
Typing errors and Grammar
Typing errors and the quality of written English can affect the mark that the work receives, so:
- Use the spell checker in the word processor to pull out typing errors.
- Re-read your work to check for poor English and grammar, and correct such things.
Illustrations
Use as many illustrations as you wish. If the work involves discussing magazine or newspapers etc, feel free to include the material in an appropriate form with the work.
Caption illustrations and number or letter them to allow reference to them within your text.
Refer to such illustrative material in an appropriate way, e.g. include such things as "...(see fig. 23) ..." within your text.
Provide a list of sources for all illustrations that you've retrieved from the web or other sources.
Foreign Words
If you include foreign words they should be italicised, e.g. ad infinitum or Sturm und Drang.
Proper names, e.g. of cities, people or companies are not italicised.
Quotations
As a rough guide, if you have a quotation which is longer than three lines, start it on a new line and indent the text of the quote. It is up to your design skills to decide the amount of indent, whether it should be indented on both sides and whether it needs space above and below it.
If the quote is short, simply type it within the paragraph as ordinary text.
If you wish to leave out certain irrelevant words in a quotation, indicate the omission by dots e.g. "and so said Winnie the ... who else"
Always give the source and page reference of quotes. Where you position this for an indented quote is a design choice. The method you use to present the source, abbreviated (see next section - References) or written out in full, is also up to you.
References - foot/endnotes
You must acknowledge the source of an idea, text or picture etc if it is not your own. Failure to acknowledge the source of something which is not your own is plagiarism and such action is severely penalised.
One way of acknowledging the source is with foot or endnotes.
The other way of giving references within your essay is to use the Harvard system. In this, just the author's name, date of publication and page number are given between brackets, e.g. (Schulten 1927, 135) at the appropriate point in the text of your essay. The name and date tie in with the bibliography at the end of the essay.
Bibliographies and Reference Lists
You are expected to use a range of published material when preparing written work. If possible, you should use both printed and web-based material.
Always include at the end of your work a list of the books, web pages, etc., that you have consulted. There are various ways of presenting this information - we recommend the Harvard system, but if you are familiar with another you should use it. Choose a system that presents the information clearly, but the following items must be included:
For books: author's name and initials; date of publication; book title; place of publication (if known) and publisher.
For articles: author's name and initials; title of article; name of periodical or magazine the article comes from; date of publication; start and end page numbers of article. If relevant, also the volume number of the periodical.
For World Wide Web pages: state at least the URL, the date it was accessed and the name of the page and/or site (create a descriptive name if one is not obvious or stated on the site's home page), with the site name in italics. Include the author's name and the page's creation year if you can find them.
For example:
Bray, Tim, Paoli, Jean, Sperberg-McQueen, C M, Maler, Eve and Yergeau, François (2008) ‘Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition)’, World Wide Web Consortium, [online] Available from: http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-xml-20081126/ (Accessed 19 February 2009).
Bringhurst, Robert (2004) The Elements of Typographic Style, Point Roberts, WA: Hartley & Marks Publishers.
Hockey, Susan (2006) ‘The rendering of humanities information in a digital context: Current trends and future developments’, Aslib Proceedings, 58(1), pp. 89-101.
Smith, David (2009) ‘Websites 'must be saved for history'’, The Observer, 25th January.
Tetzlaff, David (2000) ‘Yo-Ho-Ho and a Server of Warez: Internet Software Piracy and the New Global Information Economy’, In Herman, A. and Swiss, T. (eds.), The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory, London: Routledge, pp. 99-126.
Format of printed submissions
Staple the sheets of the written material together. Do not place the sheets of term-time submissions (i.e. preliminary versions of work) in plastic folders as this makes writing comments by the tutor awkward.
Length of written work
Suggested essay lengths are given for each module. No penalties are imposed if you write more than this, but remember that the length is not as important as the content - be analytical rather than narrative. Above all, be relevant and answer the question; irrelevant waffle loses marks.
The length of other types of written work, such as design critiques, will be indicated in the assessment specification for individual modules.
No names on submitted work
Only your student ID (UniCard) number, not your name, should be placed on the work, since the work is marked anonymously.
Help
If you have any queries about your work or what is expected, do contact the relevant tutor.