Interpreting a Source That Contradicts the Hypothesis
A student is writing an external assessment essay arguing that urbanisation weakens extended family ties. She has gathered four sources: a longitudinal survey showing declining multigenerational households in one city, a government report on housing policy, a community group's oral history collection, and a peer-reviewed study finding that remittances and frequent video calls sustain strong family obligations among migrant workers. The fourth source directly complicates her thesis. Under exam conditions she has limited space and must integrate sources to build an argument, not merely summarise them. Her draft currently cites the fourth study in one sentence as 'an exception' and moves on.
1. Explain why treating the fourth source as a one-line exception weakens the essay against the assessment criteria.
Read the worked answer
The criteria reward critical use of evidence and a reasoned argument, not a defended conclusion at any cost. Dismissing a contradicting peer-reviewed study in one sentence signals that the student is selecting evidence to fit a predetermined thesis - the opposite of critical inquiry.
Specifically, the move fails on three counts. First, it misrepresents the evidence: the study does not show an 'exception' to weakened ties; it shows a different mechanism (remittances, video calls) sustaining obligation across distance. That is a competing explanation, not an outlier. Second, it forfeits analytical credit: engaging the tension between declining co-residence and sustained obligation would demonstrate exactly the synthesis the criteria describe. Third, it weakens the thesis by making it brittle - a reader who knows the literature sees the thesis is only surviving because contrary evidence was sidelined.
A stronger essay uses the contradiction to refine the claim: urbanisation may change the form of extended family ties rather than simply weaken them.
2. Show how the student could revise her thesis and integrate all four sources into a coherent argument within limited space.
Read the worked answer
Revised thesis: Urbanisation reshapes extended family ties rather than simply eroding them - co-residence declines, but obligation and contact persist through new mechanisms, unevenly across groups.
Integration:
- The longitudinal survey establishes the pattern the original thesis relied on: multigenerational households are declining in the city studied. Use it as the starting observation, not the conclusion.
- The housing policy report supplies a structural explanation - housing costs and eligibility rules make co-residence difficult, so the decline may reflect constraint as much as preference. This strengthens the argument by adding causation.
- The oral history collection provides lived experience and can show whether obligation persists despite separation - a qualitative counterweight to the survey.
- The peer-reviewed study becomes central, not marginal: it identifies the mechanisms (remittances, video calls) by which ties are maintained, and the revised thesis absorbs it.
Space discipline: one sentence per source for evidence, one sentence linking each to the thesis, and a concluding sentence that states the refined claim. The essay now argues with the tension rather than around it, which is what the criteria reward.