Below are examples of comments that can be included for the third comment for the AFP (the feed-forward ‘behavioural’ comment that looks to future work that a student can consider applying directly to other work)
In academic writing, you are almost always expected to be led by the literature first and foremost. So, when in doubt, ensure your argument is fully developed and clearly underpinned by appropriate academic sources.
You could develop still further your level of critical discussion. This would be achieved by going back to what you've written and really scrutinising it for its narrative flow, its choice of every word and how the points of the discussion are being built.
I would recommend you find a more refined way of referring to the literature in general. You commonly use a phrase such as "With literatures generally ….", I would suggest referring to 'the literature' or 'the prevailing discourse' or 'the dominant trends in enquiry'
You have a tendency to over-rely on direct quotes. Try to use this more sparingly. Think '1 quote per page max'.
If your argument is founded upon a narrow range of sources, your strength of argument will always suffer, both semantically to the reader, and substantively.
You could unlock a new level of quality in your writing if you looked to be guided more by your sense of the argument that you are developing. The writing reads as slightly 'technical' as though it is written to hit the brief but nothing more. There is always a spectrum of submission quality that ranges from 'not hitting the brief', to 'hitting the brief', to 'extending beyond the brief'. You are demonstrating that you can hit a brief squarely, now I encourage you to push yourself beyond that and think about where your argument is headed.
The development of 'criticality' was slightly inelegant in places. Although the effort to develop criticality merited good marks and should be commended, it was slightly 'black and white' on occasion. E.g. the final paragraph xxxx. Try to build the criticality into your writing throughout your discussion.
This was a generally solid piece of work, but it remained at a broadly semantic level throughout. This is symptomatic of reading the literature but perhaps not engaging with it to the extent that the nuance and detail could be represented in the work submitted.
Although the quality of the discussion was very good here, there is a slight tendency to over-rely on certain sources. Try to ensure you are not re-telling the full details of one source. This was not a big issue, but some paragraphs referred only to one or two sources.
Watch out for throat clearing sentences: sentences or parts of sentences that could be removed or reduced significantly at the beginning of paragraphs. E.g. often the first sentence of a paragraph in your work could be described as a throat clearing sentence.
Watch out for unnecessary passages. The first xxx words of this submission were more or less redundant.
Your paragraphs meandered around different points and were often very long. Remember, a paragraph has one point and it should be clear throughout what the point of the paragraph is. If any sentence is 'off-topic', move it somewhere else. If a paragraph is going on for longer then it is probably the case that it is addressing too many points and needs be split into separate paragraphs with different points.
There were paragraphs that meandered or got lost. Try the practice of writing a sentence at the start of a paragraph that begins 'in this paragraph xxx will be discussed…' then make sure you go back to that sentence when you've drafted the paragraph and check that all the sentences correspond to the sentence. If they do, great. If they don't, you need to either reconsider the 'title sentence' or you need to edit the draft paragraph. Once you're happy, you can delete the title sentence.
Your writing could be leaner. Be a harsh and critical reader of your own work. Try to read it through your reader's eyes, it is difficult to disconnect what you think you're saying with what the words on the page are saying to your reader, but it is important to practice it so you can edit to the cleanest, most comprehensible argument. This includes trying to find the balance between explaining what a piece of research has told us and not rehearsing all the details of a study at the expense of space for other discussion. Remember, a draft is not finished when there is nothing left to add, it’s finished when there’s nothing left to take away.
Beware of overusing certain words or phrases. In this work you over-used 'xxx’- re-read your work carefully and think about the flow of your 'authorial voice'
Be wary of emotive, amplified or casual language, sometimes you used terminology that could be described as journalistic, rather than scholarly. E.g. "are commonly based off of snap judgements" - this is more colloquial language
Try to develop away from 'listing' features. Although each paragraph was clear, there was less sense of a discussion and more of an impression that you were listing the features of the phenomena, followed by 'and some people have criticised this'. This is a good way to build a draft, but it becomes rather one-dimensional to read.
Try to ensure you are being methodical and systematic in building and communicating your argument. It felt as though the slight weaknesses highlighted were maybe more a product of believing you'd written what you were thinking, but it didn't fully translate onto the page, so try and give your work a close proof-read for your argument as well as spelling etc.
In particular, remember that professional, academic, and business reports should be written in the third person. Your analysis is solid, if you take these considerations into account, your performance will be enhanced. Good luck!
Good work. Please consider the suggestions above in future assessments. In particular, make sure the formatting and structuring of your report is clearly indicated and supported by headings, subheadings, and fully referenced tables and figures.
Next time, consider illustrating some of the models/frameworks you use to enhance the clarity and strength of your analysis.
Use accurate referencing following the APA/Harvard style.
Full referencing is a cornerstone of good academic practice. In the future, make sure you fully reference your work, providing a full and accurate list of references and the relevant in-text citations in your submissions.
Be careful of referencing style - there should be no first initials in the names in in-text citations for Harvard/APA. The citation should read as (Surname, year) e.g. (Edmondson, 1999)
Direct quotes should always have the page reference. i.e. (Edmondson, 2004: p.239)
Be methodical and consistent in your approach to your reference list. There were a lot of errors (missing volume or issue numbers, missing page ranges, missing publishers), these are stylistic points that should be easily resolved.
Have a look at referencing and citation style. There were a few inconsistencies in the way these were presented, for example sometimes the author was cited with their initials and sometimes not. A citation does not normally include an author's initials.
Make sure you are consistently citing your sources. There were clearly parts of this work that were using literature, but the source itself was not cited. It is good practice to ensure you include the citation of the source material.
Be wary of leaving unfinished elements in your final draft, e.g. "Normative economic theory (source) holds that any"
You should be proud of your work. Based on the suggestions above, in the future, make sure you review your work before submission, to ensure you clearly tackle all required elements of the assignment brief you are given.
Be a harsh and critical reader of your own work. Try to read it through your reader's eyes, it is difficult to disconnnect what you think you're saying with what the words on the page are saying to your reader, but it is important to practice it so you can edit to the cleanest, most comprehensible argument.