Friday, October 15, 2010

Written task, essay, rationale

Küsin eesti keeles, et asjast täpselt aru saada.
 Ehk huvitab vastus ka teisi.

 Mis vahe on mõistetel written task, essay, rationale? Ma arvan, et enam-vähem taipan, aga tahaks täpsemalt teada.

Anu

2 comments:

  1. Hello Anu and other colleagues
    This is a very interesting topic, thanks for sharing it Anu. I will try to explain in simple terms how they are different from each other.
    Firstly, "written task" can be any written assignment that the student is ask to do (i.e. a composition about his/her neighbourhood, "the meaning of friendship", or "why I am Estonian". The Estonian equivalent would be "kirjand".
    Secondly, the "rationale" is an explanation of reasons, characteristics, or consequences of something (i.e. "laws of nature", "Estonian literature in XIX Century", or "research perspectives in social science"). The Estonian equivalent is "referaat". Sometimes students confuse this with ‘plagiarism’, which is considered as academic malpractice (you can find the document on Academic Honesty at the IBO webpage). Therefore, it is our duty to inform students of the consequences of not meeting those directives.
    Finally, “essay” is a middle point between a “written task” and a “rationale”. It is an argumentative paper in which the student makes a review of the research done on a certain topic and carries out a critical analysis of the corpus of information. Examples could be “the development of selfhood in Estonian literature”; “alcohol consumption as a social problem”; or “friendship online and multiple identities”.
    Some interesting WebPages with a guides on how to write an essay are:
    http://www.taftcollege.edu/newTC/Academic/LiberalArts/owl/WHATIS.HTML
    and http://lklivingston.tripod.com/essay/topic.html
    Once again, we invite you to continue posting your questions and comments with the others; preferably in English language. Provided that it is the official IB language, it seems important to seize every opportunity to practice and make it better before May.
    All the best,
    Carlos

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  2. Thank you, Carlos!

    I'll try to write in English, but some things are good to know in Estonian, I want to be certain, that I understood 100%.

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