Preparing for COM15 Assessments There are three assessment items for COM15: A set of four short multiple-choice questions completed as online quizzes A critical analysis of an article, and A research report. Let’s briefly explore preparation strategies for each of these. Online Quizzes The Tasks that are provided in each weekly tutorial will help you to prepare for the multiple-choice quizzes. Doing the Tasks and then Quizzes in the first part of the unit (Modules 1 & 2) provides you with important feedback about how you’re tracking. It will encourage you to think seriously about your preparation and recognise the importance of looking closely at the unit website, and your course content. Your work in the Quizzes will then set you up with skills and knowledge you will need in the second and third assessment items. Critical Analysis Module 3 (Tutorials 6, 7, and 8) explores critical analysis in great depth. You will learn what critical analysis is and how to do this specific assignment. We will examine how to read through two different articles to determine what the author is arguing, how they have structured the paper, and how they have used evidence to support their claims. The course content and the assessment instructions will guide you to analyse one of the papers that are available in the Readings and Topic Folders accessed via the Readings link in the course navigation menu. For the Critical Analysis you will choose a paper to review that can be one of the references you later use in the Research Report. Don't worry if this seems complex at this point, we will be discussing this task in more detail in later tutorials! Research Report A major part of this unit is helping you to develop research skills. Any report is the result of finding out what people have to say about a particular topic, what evidence has been gathered and what criticism has been made of the presentation of materials and viewpoints. Your marker will be looking at your Research Report to see that you have developed good academic research skills using the Library catalogue and Google Scholar. You will be required to research beyond the scope of ‘everyday’ Google or web searching.