Soil Fertility Management in Organic Farming System

3. Critical review paper The assignment is an opportunity to develop of deeper understanding of a specific issue related to organic farming. This assignment takes the format of an essay or short literature review. You may choose one of the following topics, or consult the unit coordinator to discuss another topic. For example you may like to focus on organic production or marketing of a particular commodity, in a specific country or region, etc. Full critical review paper The critical review paper should include the following sections. (a) an introductory section that briefly describes – the principles underlying organic agriculture – the background issue(s) being covered in the report, highlighting the key points – the aims of the report (b) a main section (with helpful sub-headings) that presents a logical series of points that support an overall argument or opinion. You need to be more than descriptive. Post-graduates are also expected to demonstrate higher-level critical skills in comparing, interpreting, and analysing and summarising. (c) a concluding section where the key points are reiterated in a summarised form, the implications of the findings discussed and intelligent suggestions for further work (d) a diverse and comprehensive bibliography. Full details about correct referencing styles can be found at http://www.une.edu.au/current-students/resources/academic-skills/referencing. The bibliography should include: * include a minimum of 30 reference items (at least 75% journal articles), and * include recent journal articles (at least 90% no more than 10 years old). Some general feedback: 1. Include your name on the front page. 2. Include page numbers. 3. Cite references regularly throughout the report. Ideally, they should be recent journal articles from high quality journals. 4. The Introduction should consist of a brief background to the topic, and a statement of your aims at the end. In your Conclusion, you can then summarise what you discovered in relation to those aims. In the body of the assignment you will development various topics or points in relation to those aims. 5. Avoid to many lists of dot points. These tend to hinder the flow of your developing arguments and provide no evidence of critical thinking. 6. Each paragraph in your assignment should be topic-based rather than a summary of one individual study/paper that you are citing. In any one paragraph, you should integrate information from several literature sources on the one topic. 7. I award marks for critical thinking and analysis, not descriptive writing. You need to take a critical analysis approach (‘critical’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘negative’), not just describing the information you read. This means you need to think about why and how things are the way are, and what prevents or helps change or improvement. The point of using this approach is for you to develop critical thinking skills that should be part of doing a Masters-level degree, and which will be useful when doing your ERS501/502 units and your (optional) RUSC594 research project.