Task Aim
The aim of this assignment is to:
Develop students’ experience in writing professional documents or reports
Demonstrate students’ ability to make stronger connections between their selected sources of
information and understand the roles that those sources play in their research process
Develop students’ ability to view research as a conversation, not only a scholarly endeavour
Task Description
Part 1: The “Un-Research” Post-Disaster Project (500 words)
You are required to choose a specific disaster related project that is of interest to you or that is based
on existing knowledge or experience. You will be gathering resources on this project on the next
stage of this assignment (Part 2), so it should be something that can be researched later using a
variety of sources.
Write a brief report on the way the project was managed. The report should provide answer to the
following questions:
1. How would you define a post-disaster project?
2. What do you think is involved in post-disaster project management?
3. What are certain elements in post-disaster project management that distinguishes it from other
types of project management?
The report should be written as you would for any other formal writing report with the following
exceptions:
Do not do any research.
Do not cite any sources.
Do not use any quotes.
Do not worry (much) about the accuracy of the opinion expressed.
Please make sure you seek feedback from your lecturer before moving to the next section.
Part 2: Annotated Bibliography (500 words)
Throughout this course, we will be investigating various post-disaster management scenarios from
different sources. In this Part 2 of the assignment, You are asked to cite and annotate 3 different
sources within the following guidelines:
1. All sources should relate to the post-disaster project you chose for your Part 1.
2. Your citations should be according to RMIT Harvard style referencing format.
3. Your sources should consist of at least four different types (books, scholarly articles, nonscholarly
articles, internet sources).
4. Choose at least one source that supports or reject a point you made in your original essay (Part
1). Explain how the source supports your original point.
5. Choose at least one source that adds a new piece of information to your original essay. Explain
how this new piece of information would affect your original work.
6. Your source types should be accurately labelled.
7. Your annotations should briefly summarise the source to show that you understand what the
source is about.
Please make sure you seek feedback from your lecturer before moving to the next section
Part 3: Reflection (500 words)
Write a brief reflection on what you learned about your topic between the time you completed the
“Un-Research” report (Part 1) and the annotated bibliography (Part 2).
You can write the reflection as an informal journal entry, addressing the following questions:
What level of expertise do you feel you had about your topic when you wrote about it in Part 1?
Did you feel comfortable writing about the topic without doing additional research? Were there
any pieces of information you included in the report in Part 1 that you were not sure about?
What did you learn about your topic through the research you did in Part 2? How did the sources
you found change your understanding about your topic?
What further research, if any, would you want to do to increase your understanding on postdisaster
project management?
