Contextualising

Select one or two of your key findings and assess how they can be put into perspective.

In a large written assignment, you don’t have to put all of your findings into perspective. Doing so will make your contextualising too confusing.

The contextualising can appear in the conclusion, but especially in larger written assignments, the contextual perspective can appear in a separate section, typically as the last one.

It is important that any contextualising is based on the results already found in the assignment. Don’t bring up any new theories or interpretations that you haven’t already explained.

You should determine how your results make sense (or don’t make sense) in contexts other than the one your assignment is written in. These contexts can be large-scale societal, small-scale, or private. Additionally, it’s a good idea to make these other contexts future-oriented.

A soft call to action is where you suggest how the knowledge your assignment has found can be used by practitioners or theorists in other contexts.

Should all assignments include soft calls to action?

No, it won’t be relevant to include soft calls to action every time you do an assignment. However, it often makes sense to present soft calls to action if you’ve written an assignment in collaboration with a company.

However, you should always keep in mind that you are an investigative academic, not a consultant for a company.Therefore, you aren’t required to come up with something that can benefit a company, for example. The company may, of course, be interested in the result, but the university is interested in how you arrive at your arguments and answers in the assignment.

• Are you sure you need to contextualise?
• If you have to, does it match the expectations of the course?
• Does it contain relevant suggestions on how your knowledge can be utilised?