Contextualising Your Practice
CYP ESSAY PLAN
This template is designed to help you begin to develop your ideas for your extended essay.
Please fill in the sections with the information relating to your topic and bring this to your first CYP tutorial to discuss with your supervisor.
Title: Write a brief title that adequately describes the topic of your essay
Research question: What are the main questions that you want to explore / answer in relation to your topic?
WHAT
What is your topic? Briefly explain the wider context of your topic.
Why are you interested in this topic?
How does it relate to your field of practice and design work?
PRIMARY SOURCES
What primary sources will provide you with the information you need to help you answer your research questions and evidence your discussion?
Explain what these are and how they will help you respond to your research question.
You should include images where relevant.
Examples of primary Sources:
These could be images, objects, films, photographs, interviews, environments or events, newspaper articles, blog posts, designer’s collections, design practices, cultural or consumption practices etc.
Be specific: e.g. which blogs will you analyse? Who will you interview?…
CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL STUDIES THEORIES AND CONCEPTS
You should identify 3 key theories/concepts from Cultural and Historical Studies that relate to your topic.
These theories and concepts are tools of enquiry that you will apply to your primary sources to help you make sense of them in relation to your research questions.
Examples of theories/concepts:
Gender, feminism, consumption, Queer theory, globalisation, critical design, sub-cultural capital, sustainability, ethical consumption, postmodernity, phenomenology, the gaze, representation, craft, resistance etc.
