Assignment Ten

'Sex sells' - How and why? Give specific examples of current advertisements to illustrate your answer.

Guidance

For general guidance see the guidelines for writing essays and reports.

What Key Features Do I Look For?

  • Familiarity with relevant texts
  • Evidence - the stronger the better
  • Argument - coherent and balanced
  • Theoretical discussion - relation to relevant theories
  • Understanding of relevant concepts
  • Reflexivity - reflections on methodology
  • Examples - insightfully analysed
  • Style - readability and effective presentation

Please remember to avoid footnotes and to include an alphabetical list of 'References' which have been cited in the text (not a Bibliography of anything you have read for the essay). This list should include author's names, date, book titles (in italics), place of publication and publisher. Within the text always cite author's surname, date and page number. Double-space your text and number your pages. For more detailed notes on writing essays in this department, click here. For examples of essays by UWA students click here.

Advice for this particular assignment: Perhaps unsurprisingly, this assignment is likely to be selected by around half of the class. When this happens the competition becomes very fierce and you may be less likely to achieve a high grade or more likely to underachieve if you don't regard the task as requiring deep analysis and effective, well-informed and well-illustrated argument. With such a big class and such a popular topic any obviously relevant local resources are likely to have been acquired by other students early on. You are strongly advised to buy the most relevant books well in advance; if you haven't got access to them it would be wiser to choose another option. Bear in mind a little psychology: with so many essays on the same theme to read, a marker can get easily bored so it's up to you to ensure that you grab the reader's attention from the outset and impress them with the quality of your work.

Do not get sidetracked into discussions of 'effects' on self-esteem. Don't ignore gay magazines as one source - especially Gay Times and Attitude. The issue of 'who is looking at whom' (and how) is worth exploring - see my notes on 'The Gaze'. Do not slip into a naive gender essentialism (do not equate sex and gender). This is not a matter of 'political correctness' so it won't help to replace all references to 'sex' with references to 'gender'. If you mean 'male/female' or 'men/women' then say 'sex'; if you mean 'masculine/feminine'/'masculinity/femininity' then say 'gender'. For instance, if you are talking about how advertisers target males and females then you may refer to the sexes. If you are talking about how certain traits tend to be associated with masculinity and femininity (such as dominant notions of masculinity as 'active' and of femininity as 'passive') then you should refer to 'gender stereotypes'. Consult the relevant Powerpoint slides for the lectures touching on issues of gender. Back up all claims about gender with whatever relevant academic studies you can locate. While acknowledging the widespread recognition of gender stereotypes in ads and in culture generally, do not appear to blindly endorse gender stereotypes. Note also that this is an assignment for which the inclusion of relevant pictorial illustrations is important. Ads should, wherever possible, be dated and sourced (e.g. in which magazine(s) did the ads appear?). If you discuss commercials, submit a CD containing those discussed (keep a copy because CDs are retained). It is also advantageous to include a 'shot-by-shot summary' for each commercial in an Appendix. If you include print ads, these should be scanned and inserted as Figures within the text or in an Appendix. In the case of commercials, selected stills should also appear in the main text as Figures; these should then be explicitly referred to and discussed within the text. In the case of print ads, you are strongly advised to included cropped details from the ad in order to help you to make particular points of comparison. For guidance on capturing stills, click here.

Some suggested reading

Note: Treat with extreme caution sources labelled with this symbol!

Relevant Weblinks

Key Module Links

Assignment Deadlines Archive of Student Essays for This Module MCS Archive of Student Essays
Semiotics for Beginners Assignment Feedback Form General Criteria for Assignments General Guidelines for Writing Essays


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