Urbanization and Geography 2018 Assignment (20 per cent of the final grade)

This individual written country report for the honours course Urbanization and Geography differs from ‘usual’ assignments as it provides the student with a lot of freedom to select appropriate topics for analysis and discussion. The report is strict, however, on size, writing, and quality requirements (see below). The report (total maximum 10 pages) consists of:

1. On the first (non-numbered) page:
   1. An appropriate Title.
   2. Information on the author (name).
   3. Anabstract of the report (maximum 100 words).
2. A brief Introduction to the country (maximum one page).
3. Part I onUrban Economics (maximum two pages); briefly analyse and discuss a relevant topic for your country related to issues covered in the Urban Economics analysis.
4. Part II on Geographical Economics (maximum two pages); briefly analyse and discuss a relevant topic for your country related to issues covered in Geographical Economics.
5. Part III on a Current Issue (maximum two pages); briefly analyse and discuss a relevant current issue for your country related to Urban- and Geographical Economics that has not been covered in the course.
6. A Conclusion (maximum one page).
7. A list of References at the end (maximum one page).

Which country?

Table 1 below provides an overview of the top 99 countries in the world by population. The remaining 117 countries in the World Bank database account for about 3.35 per cent of the world population. Although students are relatively free in choosing the country they wish to analyse for this course, certain requirements must be taken into consideration:

• Choose a sufficiently large country in terms of population.
• Choose a sufficiently large country in terms of land area; combined with the above this means that the country must have a range of reasonably-sized cities.
• Make sure that sufficient recent information is available for your country; this is, for example, difficult for the shaded/coloured countries in Table 1.
• Make sure you find the country interesting from an historical / cultural / geographical point of view, particularly in relation to the topics analysed in this course.
• Each student has a unique country.
• There is sufficient geographical variation among the countries; various countries must be chosen from the continents Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Layout and size

The layout for the assignment is similar to that used in this document: Times New Roman point size 12, line spacing multiple 1.15, space after paragraph 6 points. Write headings for tables and figures in italics. Organize your tables and think clearly about what to include and what not. Do not use bold anywhere in a table and think carefully about horizontal and/or vertical lines in your tables. Organize your figures well. Think about an appropriate title, what to include and what not. Label the axes and think about which scale to use (and why). Most importantly: each included table or figure must be referred to and/or briefly discussed somewhere in the assignment. Quality of organization and clarity of thought is usually reflected in the length of the document, where shorter tends to be better.Use active verbs to shorthen your document and clarify what you are saying.Maximum total size is 10 pages.

Assessment

The assessment of the country report is based on organisation and writing skills (50 per cent) and content (50 per cent). When assessing organisation and writing skills, I look at the introduction, conclusion, list of references, the way you refer to sources, the way you format and title tables and diagrams, the way you structure the content sections, your writing skills, and the way you organize figures and/or tables relative to your text. When assessing content,I look at the quality of your arguments and analysis, also in relation to the topics covered during the course. I expect your analysis to be also based on analysing data.