< ASSIGNMENT 3 – ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM ESSAY >

In Assignment 3 each student will write a 2,500 word architectural criticism paper (+ or – 10% = 2,250 minimum � 2,750 maximum) that critiques an exemplary contemporary architectural project; specifically in relation to one of the theoretical positions discussed throughout the semester in the weekly lecture content and readings/essays.
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In this assignment we aim to teach you how to:
� Develop an ability in reaching an understanding of complex theoretical argument/s, and to engage in such argument/s on the basis of original analysis of architectural works;
� Develop competence in undertaking self-directed research;
� Develop competence in written communication.
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Essay Requirements:
� Abstract > Your essay will be prefaced by an updated abstract that will be approximately 300x words in length;
� Sources > You are expected to research up-to-date materials for your essay from the course reading list (reader) and library and periodicals index. Preparation for your essay should involve detailed readings of at least ten articles or book chapters, and further essays for reference. The majority of these sources must be from the Course Reader, or be sources identified in footnotes/endnotes in essays sourced in the Course Reader. You can not demonstrate an understanding of the course content without directly engaging with, discussions, and citing from these core authoritative sources. Your ineffective and/or inappropriate ability to do so is grounds for failure in the assignment. The essay should demonstrate your breadth of comprehension: merely pr�cis-ing a couple of sources one after the other will not be sufficient. The general rule of thumb used in academic writing when basing your argument upon the foundations of other authorities, is one citation per one-hundred words. You should therefore be citing in your essay around thirty times. They do not need to be thirty different sources, but must be from a minimum of ten different sources;
� Graphic Analysis > diagrams of your case studies should be included from Assignment 2 and/or added to for this assignment. You may also include photographs and basic orthographic drawings where necessary in order to orientate your reader to the contemporary architectural case study being critiqued;
� Word Count > Your essay is to be no greater than 2,250�2,750 words in length. Abstract, figure titles, direct quotations, footnotes/endnotes, and bibliographic information are not included in your word count.
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References/Sources:
Students are required to use the Chicago 16 (Note & Bibliography) footnote citation style in identifying the sources of their ideas. Your argument, and the concepts, themes and issues that you will borrow to underpin it, must be borrowed from key authors and seminal thinkers of the day. It is important therefore to acknowledge where the ideas that you are using to mount your argument came from. Identifying your sources is a form of copyright acknowledgement. If you were to download a film off the internet, re-badge it as your own creation and then ask people to pay to watch it, you would be sued. The original ideas, cinematographic effects and story telling techniques demonstrated by the film are the intellectual property of someone else. To appropriate them without acknowledging the source is piracy and illegal. So it is too in academia�to not acknowledge where your the bricks and idea structure that you have used to support your argument has come from is tantamount to piracy.
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Focus primarily on the sources that have been provided to you in the reading lists. Any additional sources must be peer-reviewed/refereed and can include articles from academic journals (online or paper) and/or key ‘relevant’ books (not textbooks, dictionaries or encyclopedias�this includes wikipedia). Don’t just read and annotate books that are ‘easily’ at hand: they must be useful or instrumental in adding to your argument. Online blogs, wikis and commentary is not an acceptable source as there is no way to gauge the authority or merit of the arguments that are proffered in these online forums. Finally, it is not appropriate to reference any of the tutorial discussions or lectures. If you cannot identify who wrote something, or their status/expertise in the field, then it is simply inappropriate to reference them as a source. You would not attempt to build an argument about the effects of microwave inter�oscillation by referencing a layperson off the street? Provide a bibliography of all references cited in your essay. Not ones you have read, but ones that have actually been cited in the essay in order to build your argument.