SOC10236 | Applied Ethics and Sustainability | Sustainable Futures

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Assessment details

Assignment due dates and the examination period provided here apply to the Australian study period. These may be varied for students studying elsewhere, please confirm dates with your local tutor.

Note regarding references: Wikipedia (or equivalent) is not an acceptable reference for any assessments in this unit. Use the Harvard referencing system (or a suitable alternative) for all assignments in this unit.

Assignment 1, 2 and 3 submission instructions

Assignments1, 2 and 3 are submitted using Turnitin via the Assessment function on the MySCU site for this unit. For more information on Turnitin, see

Your assignments must be submitted as Word documents.

As part of a University initiative to support the development of academic integrity, assessments may be checked for plagiarism, including through an electronic system, either internally or by a plagiarism checking service, and be held for future checking and matching purposes.

Where a Unit Assessor requires further information to confirm the authenticity of any assignment submission they may contact the student to discuss the process followed to prepare the assignment and/or the content of the assignment.

You must follow the following instructions precisely for submission of assignments 1, 2 & 3 –.

1. Do NOT attach an SCU assignment cover sheet.
2. Create your own front page with only the following information –
   1. Your name and student number;
   2. Unit code;
   3. Assignment number (1, 2 or 3).

3. All text that you copy (or quote) from other sources must be formatted exactly like this –

      “…quoted text here” (author, year, page number).

NOTE – you must use double quotation marks and provide an in-text reference in the prescribed format i.e. (author, year, page number).

                                                                                                                                    

4. Do NOT rewrite the questions in your assignment. Answer each question under a sub heading consisting of only the question number or letter.
5. Provide a list of references at the end of your assignment on a new page under the subheading ‘Bibliography’. No other introductions or summaries are required.
6. An assignment which has a Turnitin Originality Report which shows a text match of more than 10% is not considered submitted and will not be accepted.
7. A required objective of this unit is that you learn how to use Turnitin to improve your referencing and academic writing to the required academic standard. Your assignment will not be accepted until you have reduced the text match to 10% or less by the due date (refer to point 10 below). Note that the first Turnitin Originality Report is generated within 5 minutes, however subsequent reports take 24 hours to produce.
8. It is your responsibility to review the Turnitin Originality Report and remove text matches so that your assignment conforms to the required academic writing standard by the due date. You remove text matches by strictly following the instructions above (especially instruction 3); and where required, paraphrasing and/or restating text matches in your own original words. 
   You will find useful resources on referencing, paraphrasing and quoting here
9. Do NOT recycle an assignment used previously in this or any other unit.

10. At your discretion you are able to take advantage of an extra three days beyond the due date to complete assignments 1, 2 or 3, as this extra time may be required to revise your assignment in response to the Turnitin Originality report. This extra time can be ‘self-approved’ and you do not need to notify teaching staff of your intention.

Assignment 1 Consequential ethical analysis

You should follow the ‘Assignment Planning’ activities in the SOC10236 Study Guide and all relevant online discussions concerning this assessment to perform well in this assignment.

You are required to select one of the five topics listed below and clearly define one focused and specific ethical question relevant to your chosen topic which you will analyse in both assignments 1 and 2.

The five topics are

1. Media, advertising or public relations;
2. Multinational corporations operating in developing countries;
3. The taking of human or non-human life;
4. Artificial intelligence;
5. Equity, diversity, multiculturalism, immigration (in the workforce or society).

Required tasks:

1. Select one of the five topics. 
   Clearly and concisely define one specific ethical question relevant to one of the five topics in no more than one short sentence. (1 mark).

Note: This is a critical stage of your assignment and it is not easy. If you don’t clearly define the ethical problem/question then you cannot perform a focused ethical analysis. It is strongly recommended that you follow the guidelines for forming ethical questions identified in the Topic 1 assessment planning activity and engage in online and class discussions.

1. Explain why your specific ethical problem is important and in need of analysis?                                    (3 marks)
2. Identify and fully reference 6 key facts relevant to the analysis of your ethical question.  (6 marks)
3. Identify 2 assumptions which you are required to make to fill gaps in publically available information relevant to your ethical problem. (2 marks)
4. Analyse the ethical act central to your ethical question using act utilitarianism by forecasting three important positive and three important negative consequences. (6marks)
5. Provide an ethical conclusion which compares expected positive with negative consequences including an estimate as to whether net utility will rise or fall. (2 mark)