We are seeking reports which do several things:
1. Each question is quite general and broad, so you will need to focus your report. For example, if you are doing global production, think about ONE case study, such as taxation or OH&S or 457 visa workers. If choosing the development topic, narrow your focus to an area of interest: foreign aid focused on education or women’s health or eradication of a particular disease and so on.
2. Your Introduction should focus on your main argument. Thus, in response to your question, you should be able to write your view – that is, the thing you want to argue in the report – in one sentence. That should be what your introduction is about.
3. The Literature Review examines the different approaches researchers have taken to your topic. This will involve looking at the ideologies that shape these different approaches – the two we are interested in are neoliberalism and social democracy. The readings from those weeks of the course are relevant here. Look for the main themes of the literature – the things that different approaches/ideologies emphasise and use as evidence. Think tanks are a good source of literature for this as we have right wing ones and left wing ones and we have those more in the middle. Think IPA, The Lowy Institute as right – The Australia Institute as left, The Grattan Institute as more middle of the road. Academic literature includes journal articles, book chapters, policy papers, think tank research, policy research. It can also include references to organisation websites such as IMF, World Bank and so on. The OECD has HEAPS of research papers, for example.
4. The Discussion is where you analyse those approaches and draw out your main conclusions. The Literature Review is more descriptive, mapping out different approaches, themes and disagreements etc.
5. You will write two sets of Recommendations – one for a neoliberal government, and one for an SD government. 5 recommendation for each would be a lot. 2-3 is sufficient. Try and make them specific and practical – these are the sort of things a government would base actual policy upon.
6. When you’ve done all that, then you can write your Executive Summary. It is a very simple summary of the whole report, with just one sentence for each section – intro, lit review, discussion, recommendations. So, just 4 sentences.
