Part A (90% of the mark for this assignment)
Question 1
Total marks available for Question 1: 70 marks
Word limit for Question 1: 1600 words
Imagine that you work in a health-policy consultancy firm. You have been hired by the government of a small country that is completely new to evaluating its policies. You must provide advice on a plan to impose a tax on fat in take-away foods.
Write a briefing to be submitted to the government that:
• describes in general terms the purpose of doing evaluations and the types of evaluation the council might want to consider
• articulates a plausible ultimate goal of the policy and suggests a theory of change for how a tax on fat in take-away foods might achieve that goal
• suggests a design for an impact or economic evaluation, including the type of data that would need to be gathered and any distributional and ethical issues you have considered.
Notes for Question 1
The marks for Question 1 will be allocated as shown in Table 1. When completing your assignment you will need to decide exactly what information to include and what to leave out, but for a high mark you will need to address the points listed.
Answering Part A requires that you use materials from Block 4 of the module and also asks you to think back across the whole module, drawing on material from a number of online weeks, chapters and/or readings. Given the amount of material that you could potentially use, it is essential that you carefully plan to ensure that what you write has coherence and focus. Note that you are not expected to cover every possible aspect of the module. The PDF file DD226 Economics contains all the points requested to build the essay.
Table 1 How the total marks available for Question 1 (70 marks) will be allocated
Element
Maximum marks available for this element
Clarity of writing and suitability for the audience
10 marks
The role and purpose of evaluation
10 marks
Suitable goal(s) and theory of change (mainstream, feminist and/or behavioural approach)
10 marks
Distributional effects of the policy
10 marks
Design of an evaluation (impact or economic)
10 marks
Appropriate use of evidence throughout (selected from module materials and/or other sources)
10 marks
Integration of relevant diagram(s), table(s) and/or chart(s)
5 marks
Use of in-text citations and an end-reference list
5 marks
Hints for Question 1
Your briefing should start with a short introduction which summarises the key points you cover.
The remainder of your briefing should set out the information, arguments and evidence that you are using. You may use subheadings, if you wish, to help you organise your material. Your text should be written mostly in continuous prose arranged in paragraphs. However, occasionally you may wish to use bullet points where this is appropriate: for example, to emphasise items in a list.
Note that some marks are awarded for integrating one or more diagrams, tables or charts. ‘Integrate’ means that these features should be part of the information, arguments or evidence you are using and so the surrounding text will need to refer to them.
Referencing is a key skill for both academic and professional communication. Make sure that you:
• understand the principle of writing in your own words and the reasons why referencing is important
• become familiar with the Cite Them Right Harvard style of referencing and use this in your work.
Question 2
Total marks available for Question 2: 20 marks
Word limit for Question 2: 300-word blog and 280-character micro-blog
Imagine you work for a public relations agency representing a drinks manufacturer that is opposed to a sugar tax on the drinks industry. You have been provided with data in the Excel file called ‘EMA Sugar tax stores’ which contains data about the price and tax status of some different beverages (soda, milk and water) in locations adjacent to the US city of Berkeley. Using evidence from the Excel file and the module materials – and other sources if you wish – create a draft of two social media posts aimed at the general public. Your drafts should be:
• a blog (word limit: 300 words); and
• a micro-blog (such as a Tweet) (character limit: 280 characters)
Both your social media posts should argue that sugar taxes are bad for the economy and have only a low impact on public health.
The marks for Question 2 will be allocated as shown in Table 2.
Table 2 How the total marks available for Question 2 (20 marks) will be allocated
Element
Maximum marks available for this element
Effective communication aimed at the general public
10 marks
Use of evidence and coherence of argument
10 marks
Hints for Question 2
This question requires you to include some information from the Excel file provided. Since it contains a large dataset, you are likely to need to calculate some values (such as differences between variables), create one or more tables and/or create one or more charts before you can incorporate such information into your draft social media post. Note that you are not required to submit your Excel file as part of your EMA.
Note that the limit for the micro-blog is a character count rather than a word count. A space counts as one character. If you choose to insert a chart, table, photo or infographic, this will not use any of the character count.
Make sure to include your word count after the draft blog post and your character count after the micro-blog post.
In your blog and tweet, you should reference any sources you use and this will contribute to the ‘use of evidence…’ mark. You may do this using Cite Them Rite Harvard referencing in your blog if you wish. However, you may use alternative ways of meeting the principles of referencing if you feel this would be more appropriate given your audience. For example:
• You can insert a hyperlink to the source(s) you have used. There are examples of this approach on the The Conversation website.
• You can describe the source in words. For example, in a article, you examined Extract 28.5 from The Spectator. Instead of citations, it used phrases like: ‘They [the figures] were published by Public Health England last September … (The report’s summary showing the reformulation of favourite foods and drinks makes for some rather Orwellian reading, pages 86–106.)’
In micro-blogs (Tweets), the usual way to reference is to use the source’s handle such as @PHE_uk or provide a URL (web address). A handle that you insert uses character count in the normal way – for example the @PHE_uk uses seven characters. Strictly, under Twitter’s rules, a URL is deemed always to take up 23 characters (which is to your advantage for a long URL, but unhelpful for a shorter one). For the purpose of this assignment, you may treat URLs as using either their actual character count or 23 characters, whichever is shorter.
