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The PIP Thread

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angewina_naguen:

--- Quote from: sania2014 on April 21, 2019, 06:20:57 pm ---Hey! My mini PIP investigates the way in the which expectations of a student’s academic achievement is influenced by the hierarchy of the Australian schooling system ( i.e whether or an individual attends a selective, catholic, non-government school etc ).  Is there a better way to phrase this focus question? Also, I was thinking of addressing common selective school stereotypes ( eg selective schools have mostly Asians ) and also investigating whether the expectations of a student's academic achievement are influenced by the gender ratio within all boys, co-ed and all girls schools. However, I'm not sure what specifically to explore in my chapters. PLEASEEE HELP :(((

--- End quote ---

Hey, sania2014!

Great PIP topic idea! For the topic itself, perhaps you could reword it to something like "whether the expectations of a student's academic achievement is influenced by the educational institutions in which they attend." The word "hierarchy" suggests a pre-conceived perspective you uphold on what schools are regarded higher/lower so I would aim to make the topic neutral this way  :)

You could definitely look at selective school standards, norms, values and stereotypes as a case study. Exploring selective schools more in depth can give your marker access to a particular example of how expectations impact a certain system. Make sure you also include secondary research through statistics, quotes and images that might assist your PIP's judgement.

As for structuring your paragraphs, do what is most logical to the topic at hand and the argument you would like to place forth. If you were to approach this topic with a more discussion-based perspective, a sample structure could be as follows;

Sample Structure
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: The Different Institutions in Australian Education
- Chapter 2: Negative Impacts of Expectations
- Chapter 3: Case Study- Selective Schools in NSW
- Chapter 4: Positive Impacts of Expectations
- Chapter 5: Future Directions for Different Institutions in Australian Education

Throughout the PIP, you would look at the implications of these expectations and integrate examples of how they have affected student performance with both primary and secondary resources. I think doing it like this is more appropriate because it doesn't present a biased perspective on certain schools and can enable you to dive into both the positive and negative impacts garnered from these social expectations  :D Hope that helps and good luck with the mini PIP!

Angelina  ;D

jinphia:
Hey! Was wondering if anyone had any tips for maintaining interest throughout the PIP process? I'm a person who enjoys variety and doesn't really enjoy sticking to one thing for an entire year. Why I chose SAC knowing we would be writing a PIP GOD KNOWS WHY but I'm here now and there's no backing out. I'd really like to perform well and at least get a 90 for SAC, but I'm finding it extremely hard to find motivation and keep going. It doesn't help that our teacher made us start oh so late, and we've JUST finished writing our introductions this month. He intends to have us finish writing and compiling research and writing annotations, editing, etc. in TWO MONTHS. That's including all other subjects, exams, and major works (I also do VA, but that's way less stressful than the PIP)
I know it's not entirely his fault, I should've been doing PIP work on my free time, but no point crying about it now. I just want some advice on how anyone even survived their PIP :(

owidjaja:

--- Quote from: jinphia on May 25, 2019, 09:42:32 pm ---Hey! Was wondering if anyone had any tips for maintaining interest throughout the PIP process? I'm a person who enjoys variety and doesn't really enjoy sticking to one thing for an entire year. Why I chose SAC knowing we would be writing a PIP GOD KNOWS WHY but I'm here now and there's no backing out. I'd really like to perform well and at least get a 90 for SAC, but I'm finding it extremely hard to find motivation and keep going. It doesn't help that our teacher made us start oh so late, and we've JUST finished writing our introductions this month. He intends to have us finish writing and compiling research and writing annotations, editing, etc. in TWO MONTHS. That's including all other subjects, exams, and major works (I also do VA, but that's way less stressful than the PIP)
I know it's not entirely his fault, I should've been doing PIP work on my free time, but no point crying about it now. I just want some advice on how anyone even survived their PIP :(

--- End quote ---
Hey there,

Welcome to the forums!

Maintaining your motivation is definitely a massive struggle. I dealt with that a lot and at some point started being self-conscious over my PIP. My teacher knew a lot of us were struggling to feel motivated with our PIP so we did an exercise in class where we had to talk about our PIP (i.e. why we chose it, where were we up to, future plans) for about 1 minute to the people on our table. It really did help me because it reminded me my overall aim (which actually helped me write my log since I was able to elaborate on my aim). You may have the class time to do this exercise, but it's great to just talk with your classmates and share how your progress is going- it might even motivate you to continue.

I also liked to constantly swap between doing my PIP and History Extension Major Work. At school, I'd always spend 1 hour doing my PIP and then spend the next hour on History Extension. That could be useful to you since you also do VA. Not only does it give you a break from your PIP but you're also being productive.

I guess my other piece of advice is to make sure that you're strict with your deadlines and make sure you're managing your time wisely. It's easier said than done, but lists do help. So for example, I started off the year making a list of primary research I needed to complete. I knew my questionnaire would take a while to get results so I finished my questions as quickly as possible and sent it out as early as possible. Personal reflection was a research method that can be completed easily so while waiting for results, I finished that during class time, and throughout the term I'd slowly chip away the list of primary research I need to gather. When completing secondary research, take notes and find any trends, similarities and differences. This makes it easy for you to set up your chapters. The way I structured my chapters was by time: past, present, future. This made it easier for me to categorise my information, not just compartmentalise but also finding any aspects of continuity and/or change between each chapter. In my opinion, it's easier to write the central material before the introduction, log and definitely conclusion so you know what you're summarising once you have the central material down. And don't forget to continually do your annotations after going through a secondary source!

My final piece of advice is if you're ever stuck on how to start writing, word-vomit it (with reference to your research as well) and then go back to edit and change. I procrastinated for about a week because I was constantly stuck on how to start my first chapter. It's better to have something down and then spend the rest of the term improving on it than constantly shying away from your central material.

Hope this helps and good luck with your PIP!

jinphia:

--- Quote from: owidjaja on May 26, 2019, 03:46:44 pm ---Hey there,

Welcome to the forums!

Maintaining your motivation is definitely a massive struggle. I dealt with that a lot and at some point started being self-conscious over my PIP. My teacher knew a lot of us were struggling to feel motivated with our PIP so we did an exercise in class where we had to talk about our PIP (i.e. why we chose it, where were we up to, future plans) for about 1 minute to the people on our table. It really did help me because it reminded me my overall aim (which actually helped me write my log since I was able to elaborate on my aim). You may have the class time to do this exercise, but it's great to just talk with your classmates and share how your progress is going- it might even motivate you to continue.

I also liked to constantly swap between doing my PIP and History Extension Major Work. At school, I'd always spend 1 hour doing my PIP and then spend the next hour on History Extension. That could be useful to you since you also do VA. Not only does it give you a break from your PIP but you're also being productive.

I guess my other piece of advice is to make sure that you're strict with your deadlines and make sure you're managing your time wisely. It's easier said than done, but lists do help. So for example, I started off the year making a list of primary research I needed to complete. I knew my questionnaire would take a while to get results so I finished my questions as quickly as possible and sent it out as early as possible. Personal reflection was a research method that can be completed easily so while waiting for results, I finished that during class time, and throughout the term I'd slowly chip away the list of primary research I need to gather. When completing secondary research, take notes and find any trends, similarities and differences. This makes it easy for you to set up your chapters. The way I structured my chapters was by time: past, present, future. This made it easier for me to categorise my information, not just compartmentalise but also finding any aspects of continuity and/or change between each chapter. In my opinion, it's easier to write the central material before the introduction, log and definitely conclusion so you know what you're summarising once you have the central material down. And don't forget to continually do your annotations after going through a secondary source!

My final piece of advice is if you're ever stuck on how to start writing, word-vomit it (with reference to your research as well) and then go back to edit and change. I procrastinated for about a week because I was constantly stuck on how to start my first chapter. It's better to have something down and then spend the rest of the term improving on it than constantly shying away from your central material.

Hope this helps and good luck with your PIP!

--- End quote ---

Hi! Thank you so much for replying and giving your advice, this means a lot!
I'll try to manage my time better and try to do a little bit of PIP work every day, even just 250-500 words a day would probably help. I think I also have trouble kind of referencing to sources whilst writing because we've never had to do these types of writing before? Like of course we'd be required to use sources, but not to this extent, and it's a bit overwhelming trying to analyse so many sources when half of them I can't even understand the language used. Do you have any advice on how to analyse sources efficiently? I find myself just copying and pasting nearly all of the information since I find them ALL to be useful (I'm really bad at cutting down AHAH)
I also find that for my working style, at least, I like to do research WHILST writing, so that I know how I want to structure my paragraphs and sentences, rather than gathering a whole lot of information and then writing about it, (idk, especially for something as big as this even just sifting through information is tiring and tedious)
Honestly at this point I'm procrastinating touching my PIP by doing literally anything else from all of my other subjects   ::) These two months will be the death of me ;-;

owidjaja:

--- Quote from: jinphia on May 26, 2019, 10:40:43 pm ---I think I also have trouble kind of referencing to sources whilst writing because we've never had to do these types of writing before?

--- End quote ---
Hey there,

When you say referencing, do you mean the system of referencing (e.g. in-text, footnotes) or how to include primary and secondary research when analysing? If you mean system of referencing, you should be using footnotes and your footnotes should look something like this:

Surname, first letter of first name of author (year of publication)., "Title", publication company/website name, accessed at (insert link if website), viewed on (insert date you viewed- only for websites)

If you mean including primary and secondary research, it depends on how you've structured your sentences and the type of research you're referring to. For primary research, you should be saying something along the lines of "This is shown in my primary research where..." and then at the end of the sentence, you include a footnote. Your footnote for primary research should be structured like this: "(type of primary research, e.g. content analysis), year you conducted primary research). For secondary research, you don't need to say "This is shown in secondary research..." You can just jump in and throw in a statistic or if you're quoting, make sure you say who's saying that quote (plus it looks better if you include the person's title e.g. Dr ___ to really emphasise that your secondary research is valid).


--- Quote from: jinphia on May 26, 2019, 10:40:43 pm ---Like of course we'd be required to use sources, but not to this extent, and it's a bit overwhelming trying to analyse so many sources when half of them I can't even understand the language used. Do you have any advice on how to analyse sources efficiently? I find myself just copying and pasting nearly all of the information since I find them ALL to be useful

--- End quote ---
It does get a bit overwhelming. When I did research, I usually took down any statistic that looks relevant to my topic. For example, my PIP was on the impacts on interracial marriage on racial identity, and in a TV series, they mentioned a statistic that 1/3 of the 300 marriages that occur everyday in Australia are mixed marriages, so I definitely wrote that one down. Be careful that you're not referring to too many statistics. For example, if you're using Census data, don't use every single piece of data recorded- you're overloading your marker with statistics and it loses its value.

When it comes to the actual content, if you're finding the academic articles difficult to understand, try easing yourself into your topic rather than jumping straight into the journal articles. The first few sources I analysed were Youtube videos and podcasts so I can get a more personal understanding on my topic and then slowly migrated into news articles and eventually journal articles. To be honest, I didn't use a lot of journal articles. The only times I referred to journal articles was if it was a new concept (e.g. stigma consciousness, racial fetishisation). The best way to approach academic sources is to read the summary first before jumping into the actual article. The summary should give you at least a definition of a concept that they're exploring. Most of the time, they say something along the lines of "(insert concept) is when..." Take down any definitions they give you. When it comes to the actual findings, I wouldn't worry too much about most of their data. Maybe one or two pieces of data might be worthwhile but you shouldn't have to go into too much depth with the data. Honestly, I ignored most of their data.


--- Quote from: jinphia on May 26, 2019, 10:40:43 pm ---(I'm really bad at cutting down AHAH)

--- End quote ---
Then the PIP will be the best time for you to practice cutting down. One of the many challenges you face in your PIP journey is having to cut out so many things. My teachers roasted all of my pieces of writing to the point where during the holidays before the PIP was due, I deleted my log and re-wrote it after re-submitting it 5 times. In fact, I submitted approximately 3-5 drafts per piece (i.e. chapter, intro, conclusion) because there was always something to nitpick. It is painful to delete big chunks of paragraph but remember you need to adhere to the word limit!

Hope this helps!

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