With this research and communication skills module I found it very interesting and challenging at the same time. Each week I was given a task which involved research and critical thinking. Once I had analysed the task I could then publish my understanding and knowledge of the given subject onto WSA blog.
Task 1/2 I had to find an image in a book then relate that image to an online article and museum or archive. With this task I wasn’t sure on what subject image I could find and how I could develop from that. But it didn’t take me long to find something I was interested in and could develop my knowledge and understanding of. This task gave me the understanding of how to research with a range of resources. After I could relate the 3 steps of the task I knew how I would work together.
Task 3/4 was looking at plagiarism in the Fashion industry. I felt it was quite interesting to look at as I had to choose a fashion image from a book which I could then relate to an online and article source. This was straight forward for me as I knew what I wanted to consider. But I knew that from doing this task I could understand how to relate sources and reference them so that I and others would know where I got my sources from. Referencing is critical for everything and is something I can always do especially when using others work.
Task 5/6 I had to find a designer collection and research the theme to it, which I could then collect 10 images to create a mood board and pick 1 image to analyse. With this task I decided to pick one of my favourite designers’ Valentino to then analyse and write about. I found this task good to do as it’s sometimes easy to notice where the designers get their inspiration from.
Task 7/8 I had to read a chapter from a fashion book, I then had to look for another 2 books sources which could relate to the original chapter I read. With this task I found it quite hard to know what to write. As I noticed that it took a bit of time just to look for other books and to read them. Majority of the time I wasn’t fully sure what the subject matter was about. And it took me a bit of time to know what exactly I wanted to write about.
After completing these tasks, I realised how important it was to reference everything! Sometimes it’s not always clear where sources come from. I’ve also learnt how to use a range of resources not just online. There’s so much online now that it’s easy to get information. But it’s also good to look at books as there could be more interesting articles. Overall, I found this module very interesting and I now feel more confident in analysing and researching sources.