💧 Project 1



01/04/21 - 06/05/21 (Week 1 - Week 6)
Ng Mei Ying (0340563)
Design Research Dissertation
Project 1: Draft Dissertation 30%



INSTRUCTION




LECTURE NOTES





Project 1: Draft Dissertation


(W1) 01/04/21: Matrix & Table Content Draft

During the first week, the lecturers guided us through the module briefing about the dos and don'ts for the dissertation drafting. The lecturer reminded us that the critical thinking and analysis capability was crucial for the discussion. This module was the continuous advancement from the previous methodology course which students must highly utilize all the data collected in the previous research to complete the dissertation writing. 

(Fig 1.0) Students were assigned to start the table content drafting as well as to prepare the literature reviews matrix as writing guidance. The first draft of table content and matrix had been done in google drive and well organized in related folders. Critical reviews and research papers are documented as well. Besides, the classification for the research papers based on a couple of subdivisions such as article title, author, years of publication, keywords, purpose, methodology, findings and comments were included in the matrix table. On the other hand, the first draft of the table content was structured based on the data collection from the previous research methodology.

Fig 1.0   Literature reviews organised in matrix form

The First Draft of Table Content:
  1. Introduction
    • Study Background
    • Research Topic
    • Research Problem
    • Problem Statement
    • Research Objective
    • Research Question

  2. Literature Review
    • Visual Aesthetic In Storytelling
      • Colour Language
      • Shapes & Silhouettes
    • Culture In Animation Film
      • Cultural Influence & Local Identity
    • Computer Technologies
      • Aesthetic of Computer Animation
      • Virtual Aesthetic vs Organic Aesthetic

  3. Research Methodology
    • Quantitative Method: Questionnaire (Version A / Pilot Study)
    • Quantitative Method: Questionnaire (Version B / Formal Study)
    • Qualitative Method: Visual Analysis
    • Qualitative Method: Email Interview

  4. Results / Findings
    • Quantitative Method: Questionnaire (Version A / Pilot Study)
    • Quantitative Method: Questionnaire (Version B / Formal Study)
    • Qualitative Method: Visual Analysis
    • Qualitative Method: Email Interview

  5. Discussion and Analysis
    • Overall Evaluation and Analysis
    • The Role of Visual Aesthetics for Animation Storytelling
    • The Importance of Visual Aesthetics for Animation Storytelling
    • The Viewer’s Perspective Regarding Visual Aesthetics

  6. Research Constraints
  7. Conclusion
  8. Project Recommendation / Future Research
  9. Reference List
  10. Picture Credit List
  11. Appendices
Feedback from Dr Hayati: 1) Students may start the first draft for the structure of the content should be included. 2) I should prepare literature matrices as writing guidance to avoid missing any important information for the later literature review writings. 3) Students who deferred their semester last semester should do revision on the previous semester Research Methodology document. 4) Instruction was given to using the reference embedded in the MIB.




(W2) 08/04/21: Literature Review (ver.1)

In this coming week, students are tasked to focus on drafting the literature review according to the matrix that we have done beforehand. To start with the literature draft writing, I transfer all of the necessary data collected from the previous research methodology for future writing. While writing the first draft of the literature review, I decided to go through the 7 research papers that I have selected for the critical review and do revision on the highlighted information to ensure that I have a better understanding to compare the similarities, differences between the articles according to the themes. (Fig 2.0) Below was the first draft for Literature review.

    Fig 2.0   Literatures reviews draft writing (ver.1)

    Feedback from Dr Hayati: 1) Feedback was given to update the progression sheet explicitly and effectively without missing much information. 2) The comment section for the matrix could be something about the cross-comparison for the similarities and the differences for the research papers. 3) The themes listed in the dissertation draft should be able to synthesize and summarize the sub-themes for the research papers.




    (W3) 15/04/21: Literature Review (ver.2)

    The working title on the cover page was revised based on the relevant research topic. (Fig 3.0) Before delving into the literature writing, some adjustment has been done upon the table content for the literature review subsections. I proceed to do some further rectification on the existing literature review draft with critical evaluation given which includes the weaknesses or strengths of the paper, the differences of the method adopted, the research gap and so on. There are more linking words added as well in between the paragraphs.

    Fig 3.0   Literatures reviews draft writing (submission)

    Feedback from Dr Hayati:
     1) Progression sheet functions as a medium to track the weekly progress as well as the instruction is given by the lecturer. The information recorded will be useful information for the future blogging as well during the busy schedule in preparing the dissertation. 2) Advice is given to all students for the Text that is copied from the articles which have not yet undergone complete reframing should be highlighted in red colour to avoid plagiarism. 3) Rectification should be done on the subsection title to ensure all subsections are related and connected as a “story”. 4) Reasons could be provided for each agreement and disagreement to show your critical writing ability.




    (W4) 22/04/21: Methodology Research & Findings Draft

    In this week, students needed to start the drafting of methodology writing based on the data information that had been planned and executed during the previous semester. To begin with, I import all necessary data from the previous research methodology paper into the first dissertation draft. After importing the data information from the previous methodology document, I started to reframe and reconstruct the methodology writing based on the writing format given by the lecturer. Revision on the literature review writing had been done by adding 1 or 2 sentences regarding critical and analysis discussion after the descriptive sentence. On the other hand, tables were created as well to organise the loose information such as the questionnaire survey questions, interview questions and so on in order to provide good readability. The adjustment was done for the subtitle of research methodology in the table content section as well.

    Fig 4.0   Methodology & findings draft writing (ver.1)

    Fig 4.1   Methodology & findings draft writing (submission)

    Feedback from Dr Hayati:
     1) Abstract writing should come last as it needs more overview towards the whole dissertation. 2) Students should always keep up to meet the deadline every week to avoid the snowballing effect hence students can accomplish the draft dissertation on week 6. 3) The APA citation version keeps changing over time. The version students are using previously was APA version 6, and it had updated to version 7 in the year. 4) Some amendments need to be done on the grammar mistakes. The sentence with the opening words like “An appropriate...” should be written as “The appropriate…”. 5) The suggestion was given to create a table for the questionnaire question to avoid a loose information arrangement in the methodology writing.




    (W5) 29/04/21: Discussion & Analysis Draft

    (No class for this week due to the holiday) To start with the writing, I reviewed and studied the recorded lecturer video as well as the additional reading materials in Microsoft Team and Google Classroom to ensure my writing method was proper and well structured. With the initial understanding of the analysis and discussion writing, I drafted the possible subtitles in the analysis and the discussion section, also referring back to the literature study and the findings to avoid missing the important information.

    Fig 5.0   Discussion & analysis draft writing (submission)

    Feedback from Dr Hayati: 1) There was no class due to the holiday, the recorded lecturer video with lecture slides was attached in Microsoft Team for student’s revision purposes. 2) The submission of draft dissertation writing in Google Drive would also entitle students to the practical hours of week 5 attendance. 3) Students were reminded and expected to submit the Results analysis and Discussion sections (4 & 5) on the interim deadline on 02 MAY 2021. 4) Students should constantly update their weekly progression sheet as well.




    (W6) 06/05/21: Draft Dissertation Submission

    Before submitting the draft dissertation, several amendment had been done based on the feedback given by the lecturer last week. For the email interview, I had cited the person for the particular statement given on the survey questions. Moreover, the data information provided by the animation professionals in the email interview had undergone paragraph modification to avoid the plagiarism issue. Plus, the private information such as the email as well as the name of the professional individuals had remained confidential, therefore the numerical alphabet and job title had replaced the name indicating different professional individuals.

    In the Discussion writing, the analysis writing was mostly excluded from the dissertation discussion section in order to ensure there was more room to play with the discussion content as well as to show the capability to produce a critical discussion. To avoid the volume of content for the data collection in section 4, I had moved the less important information to the appendix section with proper labelling to ensure the reader could refer to the specific information if necessary. Lastly, some simple description of animation movies was included in the visual analysis section as well.

    Fig 6.0   Draft Dissertation (submission)

    Feedback from Dr Hayati:

    1. The suggestion is given to create a Miro board for mind map therefore it's easier to triangulate all of the information such as the primary data, secondary data, hypothesis, and also the gap highlighted in the literature reviews rather than having a big chunk of split-screen with massive information.

    2. Other than that, It's better to have everything embedded in the Miro bard visually instead of scribbling the information on the A3 papers as well. This is because visuals make more sense than just thinking by reading the scribbled notes. However, it is just subjective feedback, Dr Hayati mentioned that I could work with either of the methods that I was confident with.

    3. Advice is given to be careful of the colloquialism words and try to replace them with better connection words such as “All in relation of...”, “In regards to...”, and also to add a hyphen for some specific text.

    4. Ensure the text of numbering. Certain numbering with units such as percentages should be stated in numeric form and the numbering for normal content should be written in text form.





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