Assignment 1

A report investigating a rude or improper public behaviour you personally observed or experienced, analysed with the course's own method.

Due: 27 August 2027 · Weight: 20%

Choose one rude or improper public behaviour that you have personally observed or personally experienced — not a hypothetical, not something a friend told you about, not a norm from the news. Write it up using the method the course opened with in Week 1: describe the norm as it actually operates, isolate the smallest deliberate act that broke it, and describe precisely what happened next.

The incident must be real and specific enough to show, not just assert. “A man was rude on a bus” is not an isolated act; “the passenger crossed one seat’s worth of the aisle to rest his bag against a stranger’s leg rather than the empty seat beside him” is. Say what you actually saw or felt, who else was present, and how the room (or the person on the receiving end) reacted.

1200 to 1800 words.

Referencing and academic integrity#

• Cite at least two pieces of relevant literature (etiquette research, behavioural sociology, urban-space studies, or comparable) using a consistent academic referencing style — APA is the department default, but any consistent, recognised style is acceptable if you say which one you’re using.
• Any generative-AI assistance used anywhere in preparing this assignment — drafting, editing, brainstorming, or otherwise — must be disclosed in a short statement at the end of the submission, naming the tool and what it was used for. Disclosure does not excuse work that isn’t otherwise compliant with the university’s academic-integrity policy: the observation, the judgement about what counts as the isolated act, and the analytical claim connecting them must be your own.

What’s marked#

• Specificity of the observed/experienced incident — is this a real, precisely described event, or a generic anecdote?
• Analytical use of the observe/isolate/describe method — does the write-up actually apply the three-part method, rather than just narrate what happened?
• Engagement with relevant literature and citations — do you connect your incident to existing research on the norm involved, properly cited?
• Referencing standard and academic-integrity compliance — is your citation style consistent and correctly applied, and is your AI-use disclosure (if applicable) present and honest?