POL5IJC International Security in The Indo-Pacific Region - Assignment Help

Assessment Instructions: Seminar Journal

Details

For each country case study week of the semester (weeks 2-6 and 8-12), you are required complete a 350-400 word Seminar Journal entry that explores the primary security interest in the context of competition in the Indo-Pacific.

Your argument in each journal entry will be based on your reading of the transcript of an official speech from the Shangri-La Dialogue, along with the two required readings.  

Collectively, the ten weekly blog activities are worth 50% (10 x 5%) of your final grade.  

Each posting is due on at 11:59 PM on the Thursday of each teaching week (see topic schedule in Subject Learning Guide).

Task

Each week you are asked to interrogate an official speech presented by a national leader or minister at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the most important multilateral dialogue for Indo-Pacific states.  The Shangri-La Dialogue is an important annual event where regional states signal their diplomatic and strategic priorities.  

Based on this, your Seminar Journal entry should make an argument in response to this question:

What does this official speech articulate as this country's primary security interest, and why is this significant in the context of security competition in the Indo-Pacific?

The most effective Seminar Journal entries will have the following attributes…

• They clearly answer the question.  Your response should employ a sophisticated level of reasoning and evidence in making a judgement on which primary security interest you see as most important for each case study country/s. 
• Demonstrates conceptual understanding of the key security issues for each case study country/s.
• The clearly reference and engage with the official speech and required readings 
• They are presented in the appropriate format, as per the instructions.
• They are well structured, featuring an introductory sentence introducing what the posting is about, logically-defined paragraphs, and concluding sentence summarising the posting’s findings.  A one-paragraph slab is not pretty to read and does not make for a good posting.
• They are thoroughly edited.

Referencing and Formatting

Your postings must reference each of the listed required readings for that week’s topic.  They should also make reference to a specific passage from the relevant official speech from the Shangri-La Dialogue.  Journal entries lacking citations from these sources will be marked down.

The learning in this task occurs through the process of evaluating, synthesising and integrating insights from the official speech and required readings.  Your citations provide the evidence that you have engaged with the subject material in fulfilling the instructions of the activity.  For further information on why referencing is important and how to go about the process of citing sources, see the La Trobe University web page on Acknowledgement and referencing help.

I am happy for you to use whatever referencing style you are comfortable with, providing you do it consistently.  If in doubt about how to reference a given source, please consult the La Trobe University Academic Referencing Tool.  Please also provide a reference list for each posting, documenting the source you cite in your posting.  There is also no need to reference material beyond the videos and required readings in this task.

Clarity of communication is the aim for all pieces of academic writing.  To this end, your journal entries should be structured appropriately, beginning with an introduction (one sentence), a body (with paragraphs), and a conclusion (one sentence).  Please don’t submit a single slab of text, as this is more difficult to read and obscures the argument of the posting.

Please thoroughly edit your journal entries before posting them in the submission forum in the weekly topic boxes on LMS.

Submission

Think of each Seminar Journal entry as a journey comprise of three phases: (1) conceptual preparation (official speech and required readings), (2) initial document analysis (interrogating the official speech/government document analysis of topic); (3) seminar participation (workshopping your analysis through class activities and in discussions with peers); and (4) final analysis (writing your Seminar Journal entry). 

Please submit your blog posting by 11:59 PM on the Thursday of each teaching week featuring a country case study (weeks 2-6 and 8-12) in the dedicated blog forum for each week’s topic box.  The forum is clearly marked under the “Seminar Journal Entry: Week X” in each weekly topic box.

Please note: There is not a Seminar Journal entry due during the mid-semester break.  

Feedback

Our class activities during the seminar are structured to help you understand each case study country's security interests in the Indo-Pacific and to help you develop your argument for this assessment task.  

Feedback will be provided on each posting based on the Feedback Rubric PDF below.  

In addition, Ben will provided generic feedback during each seminar on what students did well, list common problems encountered across the blog postings, and provide suggestions for improvement. This time in class is also the place to ask questions about this assessment task.  We will workshop the Seminar Journal each week during our seminar, so there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions and get help.