summarise and critique a newspaper article and its claims that crime rates are rising in Northern Ireland. When reading this newspaper article think about whether the claims it makes are based on the statistical evidence from the police report, or whether the data has been mispresented. In addition, look at whether the data in the police report either supports or refutes the data presented in the media article. You will also need to critically discuss the report itself – for example, the figures only represent crimes that have been reported to the police. In your critique of the newspaper article, you should also draw on module materials, especially what you have read about media presentations and the way newspapers can misrepresent statistical data.
This TMA involves two tasks, with different command words.
It asks you to summarise and critique a newspaper article. This will involve you summarising the main points from the article and critiquing the data and claims made using the data reported in the report from the police. You should also draw on module materials to discuss why the media write about crime in this way. In your report, you must use headings and/or subheadings and include all the aspects given in the following sections.
You should use the third person when writing your report, and not use any first-person pronouns such as ‘me, I, we etc…’, for example, instead of writing things like ‘Firstly, I am going to do X’ write ‘Firstly, the report will do X’. Writing in the third person is the conventional academic style, and conveys that you are being objective.
You can use some bullet points and figures to illustrate your report, although the majority of the report should be written in full sentences and paragraphs.
You should begin the report by summarising the article under one heading, then critiquing the article under another heading. Ensure that when you are critiquing the newspaper article you use data from the police report to either refute or support the claims being made. Think about each claim that the article makes: is it based on the real data, or has it misinterpreted the data? If the claim has misinterpreted the data, describe the true pattern the data shows. You should also refer to what you have read about media presentations in both the module textbook and the VLE material. You should also critically discuss the report. How reliable is the data in the report: does it represent all crimes in Northern Ireland?
THE MOON article
STABBINGS AT ALL TIME HIGH IN NORTHERN IRELAND
By Gerry O’Sullivan
A new report from the Police Service Northern Ireland reveals that knife crime is soaring across Northern Ireland, with nearly TWO THOUSAND MORE VIOLENT CRIMES RECORDED THIS YEAR.
Police statistics found the increase in knife crimes has resulted in a massive rise in violent crimes such as homicide, attempted murder and actual bodily harm across Northern Ireland.
“The ones committing all the crimes, they’re not right in the head though are they?” said David Byrne of Banbridge after hearing about the new crime figures.
RAPE involving a knife has also increased by nearly 15 % over the last year.
Caitlín Kelly from Larne said, “It used to be safe around here, but now I’m afraid to go out after dark”.
7 out of 11 policing districts have experienced higher levels of crime. Some areas have been worse affected than others with larger increases in Lisburn & Castlereagh City, and Antrim, whilst Belfast has seen a drop in crime making it a safer city to live in.
DRUG OFFENCES AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS EVER RECORDED
Drug trafficking and possession of drugs has also seen a massive increase over the last year.
Some crimes in Northern Ireland have seen a decrease, such as criminal damage and public order offences.
Instructions for writing this assignment:
Report structure
Introduction:
Summary of the moon article
Critique of the moon article
Discussion of the government report
Conclusion
References
You have been asked to write a short report for this TMA, using headings and/or subheadings. You should begin with a very brief introduction in which you outline what your report will include. The second part of the report should have a section that summarises the content of the newspaper article. The third section should critique the article using evidence from the police report and the module materials. The fourth section should include a brief discussion of the police report itself. The final section should be a short conclusion. If you do not use the report structure in your TMA you will be unable to gain higher than a pass 4 mark. The report should be set out as the example below, although you may want to change the names of the headings.
Introduction
This section of the report tells the reader what the report will be about and what information will be covered.
Summary of the Moon article
This section of the report will summarise the Moon article. What does the headline say? What is the article reporting? This should include a brief summary of the figures and also quotes. It’s up to you to decide how much detail you want to include here: you may want to report the actual percentages, or you may want to discuss the actual figures in more detail in the next section. You should report some of the actual figures in either this section or the next one.
Critique of the Moon article
This section of the report should critique the article using data from the police report and also the module materials. You could begin by looking at the headline of the article: is it supported by the data in the police report? Are all the other claims in the article based on true patterns or data as reported in the police report? What about the quotes used in the article? Why do you think the article used these particular quotes?
Discussion of the Government report
In this section, you can discuss the police report. Does it represent all crimes in Northern Ireland? Can all the data reported here be considered to be reliable?
Conclusion
In this section you should include a very brief summary of what the report was about, telling the reader what they have just read about.
References
Sample Solution